Katie DeFeo is stepping away from USC lacrosse. She played in only seven games in her two years with the team. Regardless, she garnered a fan base of thousands of fans — 65,500 fans to be exact. Those 65,500 people — her YouTube subscribers — are the reason DeFeo has chosen to not play with the Women of Troy in 2020.
DeFeo announced her retirement in a YouTube video posted Saturday night.
“Over the past few months, I have just realized that my heart just isn’t in playing lacrosse anymore,” she said in the video.
She opened the video citing her love for playing sports and telling stories. DeFeo started her YouTube channel in 2014 posting “silly videos of her friends,” but said she didn’t feel comfortable in front of the camera until she got to USC. That’s when her YouTube career took off.
Prior to her time at USC, DeFeo gained no more than 130 subscribers per month. Once her freshman lacrosse season started, she gained roughly 2,000 to 4,000 subscribers per month — with one month earning her nearly 10,000 subscribers. DeFeo had found an audience.
“One of my favorite parts about making vlogs about my student-athlete experience was the DMs and comments I would get from little kids — specifically little girls saying that they wanted to play at USC or that they looked up to me,” she said.
DeFeo believes her decision will allow her to continue inspiring the fans that look up to her while pushing out more content on a consistent basis.
“Moving on from a playing career will put me in a better position to make an impact in [the lacrosse] community,” she said. “I will have more free time to work on my craft and more energy into putting the stories this sport has out there to the world.”
DeFeo is a junior at USC.