Atlanta Beat goalkeeper Brett Maron didn’t come from the typical U.S. youth team-via-North Carolina background. She went to Fairfield, which she says was a better fit for her than many of the traditional powerhouses and has an up-and-coming soccer team.

Her unusual route to the WPS continued after college, when she spent time with Iceland’s Afturelding FC and Sweden’s Kristianstads DFF.

She also was part of a group that left an academic legacy at Fairfield, starting a microlending program to help poor women start small businesses.

Given all that, it’s about time someone talked with her about her academic and athletic pursuits. And, of course, Icelandic handball. Here’s a slightly abridged transcript of our conversation Wednesday.

You did an interesting project at Fairfield involving lending. In your own words, what was it?

It was part of a senior project for my women’s studies minor. We started our own foundation, like a nongovernmental organization, to lend money to women in global south countries to start small businesses that would become sustainable. My class founded it and we passed it on to the next class, and it’s still going on today.

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