Sydney Wiese is a guard for the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA. An Oregon State graduate, Wiese was a Wooden Award Finalist and Naismith Trophy Semifinalist as well as a 4x All Pac-12 guard for the Beavers. She spoke to Just Women’s Sports about playing in the “Wubble,” using her platform for social justice, and the bond she shares with her Sparks teammates. 

You’re a few weeks into the season. Do you feel like everyone has found their rhythm or do you expect there to be some ups and downs?

There’s always ups and downs. This season is obviously unprecedented with the quick turnaround, and how condensed the schedule is. Injuries are going to happen unfortunately, and so we want to make sure to take care of ourselves. It’s going to demand everything that you got individually, collectively. Every team is going through their own journey – I think it’s just about peaking at the right time. Then continuing to ride that momentum towards the end of season, through playoffs, and making sure that you capitalize when you carry that momentum.

On one hand, you no longer have to travel for games. But you are playing a lot more games back to back. How has that affected your ability to recover and stay healthy?

There’s pros and cons to both, for sure. All of us in the WNBA are facing this same schedule – this same quick turn around. We’re all in the same time zone. I think it just comes down to making sure that as a group, we monitor the opportunities where we can take a step back from basketball to do that, so that when we’re on, we can just grind it out. There’s no other way around it. You just gotta push through it.

What we’re doing right now is historic. We are a living part of history, so we’ve just got to roll with it. Down the road, I’ll be telling my kids about this one day.

What is your team specifically doing to recover and stay healthy? 

We do pool workouts for recovery every once in a while. We do yoga as a team before we start practice. It’s good for our mind, body and spirit – just to realign and slow down, and breathe a little bit. We have ice baths downstairs. We have all hands on deck to make sure that our bodies are good, and that our minds are taken care of as well.

You are third in the Western Conference standing so far. What do you think needs to happen to stay in championship contention?

I think it’s just all about doing what we can and adjusting as quickly as we can when we’re in those moments, because we don’t have time to practice certain situations. You can watch a film, you can talk about it, but it’s going to come to shifting our actions, and actually making those changes real when we’re on the floor, because there’s not a lot of time to drop any games. It’s just continuing to communicate with one another.

Because of how the season is set up, you don’t have time to learn while you’re losing. You have to learn lessons while winning games. About a month from now, we’re going to be in playoff mode. You want to be in the top seeds, because then you can get a bye, and that gives you extra rest. Especially after a season like this, that’s going to be super critical for recovery.

Before you all went to the bubble there was some skepticism around the situation. Then, after a few weeks, people seemed generally upbeat about the ‘Wubble’ life. But are you concerned about bubble fatigue the longer the season goes on? 

I have to give a shout out to our union and our league, because I know back in June and May, when they were having the negotiations for our season, they put in a lot of work. We asked a lot of questions as players, and they covered every base possible to make this a safe environment for us – for our wellbeing first and foremost. They also gave us an opportunity to use our platforms to be vocal about social injustices, police brutality and ‘Say Her Name.’ It’s been really cool.

I know as time goes on, we have to make sure that we continue to take care of ourselves as we play basketball, play these games back to back… That’s going to be really crucial as we continue forward in the season. We’ve got to take care of ourselves and one another – that’s going to be key to fighting off any fatigue.

Heading into the season, you signed a two year contract extension with the Sparks. What went into that decision? 

I’m super fortunate. When I was a kid, I dreamt about being in this league, and then once I got here, it became real in good ways and also gave some tough lessons that I had to learn. I don’t take for granted the opportunity to sign an extension like this, because I think it is rare to be with the same organization for a career for multiple years. Nothing is guaranteed in this league.

I value loyalty. In this professional world, that’s rare. I love representing this organization. I love learning and being a part of these women’s lives, and they’re a part of my life as well. And I’m so thankful that I’ve had this time to build relationships, to get to know who I work with, who I get to play with. That’s super big for me. So it was a no brainer, honestly. I love who I get to work with. And Los Angeles isn’t a bad city to live in either.  I’m from Phoenix, so it’s also an hour flight from my home. I love being on the West Coast.

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What are your personal goals for this season?

I don’t really have any personal goals. I want to be of service any way that I can to this team. I recognize that all of us chose to be here under these circumstances. I totally respect our teammates that chose to stay out for their own reasons, but the rest of us that chose to be here – we sacrificed and we made the choice to be here. So I just want to make sure that whatever is needed on the court, off the court, that’s what I want to provide. I also want to make sure that we’re taken care of as a group, as people more than anything. I just want to make sure that we leave this place having enjoyed this experience.

The league has been at the forefront of social justice issues for so many years, but what did it mean to you to have social justice be an official part of the league’s platform this year? 

I think it shows that this league has been beyond the curve. They’ve been vocal, they’ve been advocating from the very beginning. The very existence of our league is a form of protest, because you have a league of majority Black women, of majority LGBTQ. It’s not a coincidence that this league has had to fight for survival because it goes against the societal norms that have been put in place, which, to be frank, have not empowered Black women to succeed. They have not empowered LGBTQ Black women.

Now it’s cool to protest, and it’s cool to be vocal. But this league has always done that. It’s such an honor to be in this league because it’s a form of protest. We are going to rise above the oppression that is trying to be placed on us, and we’re going to overcome it simply by being who we are.

Each week, we are highlighting a Black woman or a woman of color who was killed by police. This past week, we highlighted Michelle Cusseaux. She was killed by police in 2014. We had the opportunity to speak to her mother and her sister and hear her story. And now we’re going to honor Michelle and we’re going to say her name. Even though it happened six years ago, we’re still seeking justice.

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Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.