Since the last time she played a professional soccer game, Nel Hayes has coached at Northwestern University, clerked in an Atlanta law firm, gotten married, had a baby and become the executive director of the Atlanta Youth Soccer Association.

“Time just flies,” Hayes said earlier this fall. “It seems like yesterday I was playing. I’ll still talk to people and it seems like stuff just happened. It was a long time ago.”

Not as long as it seems.

It’s been a little more than four years since Hayes, whose name at the time was Nel Fettig, was a defender for the Carolina Courage of the Women’s United Soccer Association.

It’s been a little more than four years since the best female players in the world had a top flight league in which to play.

It’s been a little more than four years since a generation of young girls had a constant reminder of a level of play to which they could strive to reach.

Yet the Courage have been gone longer than they were here.

The Carolina franchise and the WUSA lasted just three seasons, from 2001-2003. After playing the inaugural season in Chapel Hill, the Courage came to Cary when SAS Soccer Park opened in early 2002.

After finishing last in the league in 2001, the Courage rebounded by winning the league championship in 2002. A little more than a year later, it was all over.

On Sept. 17, 2003, the league’s Board of Governors announced it was suspending operations because it didn’t have enough money to support a fourth year.

“They were here, they got into the fabric of the area, and then the next thing you know, the league’s gone,” said Charlie Slagle, CEO of the Capital Area Soccer League.

While the league’s existence was just a flash in the pan, those three seasons created a lifetime of memories for most anyone who crossed paths with the WUSA.

“I look back and I really think playing in the WUSA was the best time in my life playing soccer,” said Tiffany Roberts Sahaydak, a Courage midfielder and captain. “I enjoyed my time at Carolina and with the national team, but the WUSA was really special. Playing for your hometown and that community in Cary was really special. Playing for your pro team, you have a home base, which was wonderful. I loved that and having that connection with the community. We had such great support in Cary and around the Triangle.”

“It was a little bit of a whirlwind,” said Danielle Slaton, who was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2002 draft and went on to be the league’s defender of the year that season. “I was in the right place at the right time. … I was excited I could end up somewhere else and play soccer for a while longer. It was unbelievable.”

While most of the the league floundered, Carolina was a model franchise. They averaged close to 5,800 attendees per game during their two seasons in Cary. Since they had their own stadium, they had more revenue streams than other clubs.

Despite the Courage’s success, the league burned through its five-year, $100 million operating budget in less than two years. The league’s average attendance dropped four percent from 2002 to 2003. Players took paycuts in order to keep the league afloat, but it couldn’t climb out of its early fiscal hole.

“The handwriting was on the wall,” said Scott Travasos, the Carolina general manager. “It was a surprise and a sad day. At the end of the day, there was some missed interpretations of how things would play out. The league was tracking great on its five-year plan but made some mistakes in the first year it was never going to recover from.”

The announcement came on the eve of the Women’s World Cup, which was being held throughout the United States that fall.

Roberts Sahaydak and Slaton were in Charlottesville, Va., with the national team as it was in the final stages of preparing for the tournament.

“I won’t forget that day,” Roberts Sahaydak said. “We were in our final stretch of training right before the World Cup started. It was tough. I remember Julie [Foudy] bringing us all in. It was upsetting. … To see that it would be ended was sad. If you’re not on the national team, where else do you have to play?”

For Roberts Sahaydak, that wound up being nowhere. She was an alternate for the 2004 Olympic team and then played a handful of games during its post-Olympic victory tour.

After a conversation in late 2005 with then-U.S. coach Greg Ryan to assess her status with the national team and prospects of making the 2007 World Cup roster, Roberts Sahaydak decided to step away.

She and husband Tim relocated to California and founded Tiffany Roberts Soccer, which conducts youth soccer clinics, camps and private training.

“That’s where we saw ourselves,” she said. “We were settling out there.”

They were intrigued by the prospect of coaching on the college level. They’d heard of an opening at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the athletic department was looking for a husband-and-wife tandem to lead the Rams’ women’s soccer program. On Feb. 14, Tiffany and Tim were named co-head coaches.

“It all happened very quickly,” she said. “But we’re very excited and loving this.”

In their first season, VCU went 11-8-3 and lost to Hofstra in the CAA tournament championship game.

Slaton did not make the ’04 Olympic team, either. It wasn’t until she was no longer a part of the national team player pool, that she realized her playing days might be numbered.

“Either you play for the national team or you don’t play anymore,” Slaton said. “That’s what disappointed me the most. I don’t know if I could’ve played anymore, but I would’ve tried. That’s what was a bummer.”

In 2005, she joined the French club Olympique Lyonnaise, which was flush with cash and wanted to launch a women’s team. She, along with other U.S. players Hope Solo, Laurie Fair, Aly Wagner and Christie Welsh, played a season in France.

Slaton returned to the United States after that one year. She has since finished her degree and coached in CASL, as well as at her former high school in San Jose, Calif.

Last summer, she was hired as an assistant at Northwestern, where she remains today.

“I enjoy it more than I thought I would,” Slaton said. “I like being around young people [and] a college campus. I love that I get to be outside for at least two hours a day. I like that I can help a program develop. I feel like I can make a difference.”

While players like Roberts Sahaydak and Slaton had the prospect of playing for the national team, those like Hayes were suddenly left to wonder how they were going to make a living.

Hayes had been in law school before the WUSA started and planned to go back. To make sure that’s what she wanted to do, she took a job at an Atlanta firm.

“It was also a job where it wasn’t the most exciting work I’ve done,” she said. “But it was a definite challenge in discipline and in time management. You went to work every day and did the same thing. It was an invaluable experience for me and helped prepare me for the job I’m in now.”

Looking to get out of the law firm, Hayes began coaching part-time with the Atlanta Youth Soccer Association. She then became AYSA’s academy director. Three weeks after taking that part-time job, a full-time position as the executive director opened, and she got it.

“It’s been a really great place to work,” she said.

Hayes has also played for the USL W-League’s Atlanta team for several years. She took off last summer after giving birth to her daughter, Lily Katherine, but she hopes to play again next summer.

Some view the WUSA as a failure. From a business perspective, it’s hard to argue. But its legacy goes beyond dollars and cents when its impact on a generation of youth players is measured.

Alyson Santilli was 13 when the Courage first came to Cary. She, like former players and team officials, finds it hard to believe how long it’s been since the likes of Carla Overbeck, Birgit Prinz and Hege Riise roamed the SAS Soccer Park pitch. Santilli vividly remembers attending games with family, friends and teammates.

“It was nice after games to stay and talk to the players and get autographs,” Santilli said. “I have an autograph that says, ‘Happy birthday, Alyson’ from the team. They all signed it and Carla Overbeck wrote ‘Have a happy birthday.’ It was nice, definitely inspiring.

“I definitely looked up to the players as a whole, and I wanted to get my talent and my skills high enough so I could maybe one day play at that level, or at least the college level.”

After a standout career at Apex High, Santilli recently completed her freshman season on the N.C. State women’s soccer team.

While Santilli and other young women will always have those memories, what does the current generation have?

Slagle, the CASL CEO, said younger players today don’t have that void because they don’t know what they’re missing.

“But it would be an added thing for them,” Slagle said. “You can make this your team. The Carolina Courage could be your team if you went to Duke, Carolina, Davidson or wherever. That doesn’t exist. That being the case, this was something everybody could be behind. It is too bad we can’t all pull for the same group.”

And it’s too bad that group is gone.