Rebekah Gardner has spent most of her career as a basketball nomad. By 2018, she had played six years in Israel and Turkey, packing her bags and returning to California during every offseason. The lifestyle weighed on her, and though she felt welcome, Gardner never felt fully at home.

So she created a blog, “Overseas: Uncut,” as an online diary of sorts, relaying her adventures back to people in California who were cheering her on from afar. The UCLA graduate was starting her seventh year of professional basketball, a journey that also took her to Romania and Spain.

In her first entry on Sept. 11, 2018, she described what it was like playing for a new team — “an uncomfortable feeling at first” — and expressed her delight in finding a Starbucks in Ankara, Turkey.

In the thick of her overseas career, Gardner wrote about how difficult the constant changes were. It was an unsteady world, one where the future was forever uncertain. And in an effort to convey that to her readers back home, Gardner penned the following: “Just when you are getting comfortable and are beginning to get into a routine, things shift in a way that you have no idea what to expect.”

It’s been three years and 10 months since Gardner published that blog post. And in the moment, she had no idea just how right she was.

She had no idea that she’d find her way to the WNBA, playing as a 32-year-old rookie for the first-place Chicago Sky. Or that she’d become an integral part of their hunt for a repeat WNBA championship and a Commissioner’s Cup title Tuesday night.

As she typed, listening to the familiar sound of fingers on a keyboard, in an unfamiliar Turkish town, Rebekah Gardner had no idea that a dream she had pushed to the side would finally come true.

***

Mel Sims turned on his TV in mid-May to watch the Chicago Sky. At 80, the longtime coach is mostly retired, but he still soaks up as much basketball as possible.

Sims coached at colleges in California, and then for a fledgling women’s professional team in 1979. Eventually, he turned to high school basketball, spending decades molding young players.

After so many years in the coaching world, there isn’t much on a basketball court that surprises Sims. But on that late spring day, something, or rather someone, caught him off guard.

He recognized the slender frame, the slicked-back black ponytail, the easy smile. He knew the way she moved to the hoop, and how she fit effortlessly into the team’s game plan.

“I said to my wife, ‘That’s Rebekah!’ I didn’t know she was in the WNBA,” Sims said. “So I called my assistant coach, and he said, ‘You’re right, that is Rebekah.’”

He hasn’t missed a Sky game since.

Seeing Gardner on his TV screen was unexpected, but it wasn’t the first time she had surprised her former coach.

When he was at Ayala High School in Chino Hills, Calif., Sims got a phone call about an incoming freshman. Then he got a second call. Both people said the same thing: “You’re getting a girl who can really play. Her name is Rebekah Gardner.”

It wasn’t a name that Sims recognized, but as soon as the 14-year-old showed up for her first summer practice, he knew what the callers meant.

She was the real deal.

Once Gardner started to blossom as a basketball player, her dad, who had also played growing up, set out to find a high school program that suited her. He walked into the Ayala High School gym and saw Sims on the sideline. He was loud, energetic, and wasn’t afraid to get on his players. That was the style of coaching Gardner’s dad wanted, and she thrived under Sims’ tutelage.

“It’s hard for kids to play for me because I’m so demanding,” he said. “But Rebekah, she came in, and she never even blinked when I got on her.”

Gardner laughs at the idea of Sims being hard on her. Sure, he yelled from time to time, but that just meant he wanted the best for her. In reality, Sims was a tough coach, but Gardner was a tough player. Everything he said, or yelled, went toward improving her game. “I just tried to be coachable,” she said. “When a coach critiques me, I look at it as them having the best intentions for the team.”

The good intentions brought even better results, and by the time Gardner signed to play college ball at UCLA, she had led the Bulldogs to two undefeated league titles and a CIF Southern Section Championship. She also broke her school’s scoring record.

Sims knew that no matter how long he coached, he wouldn’t come across another player like her.

“If you’re lucky, you get one,” he said. “In college, you can recruit, but at the high school level, you get one walk in the door, you’re very fortunate. And I was very fortunate.”

Cori Close took the head coaching job at UCLA during Gardner’s senior year of college, and she quickly learned the same thing Sims had: If the team wanted to be successful, they had to play through Gardner.

“She was just that one rock solid kid I always knew I could count on,” Close said.

During her first three college seasons from 2008-11, Gardner had been more of a role player, appearing in the starting lineup 20 times. But when Close came in, she identified Gardner as more than just the center of UCLA’s game plan — she saw her as the future of the program.

It was a challenging season for the Bruins. They went 14-16 and 9-9 in conference play, failing to advance to the postseason. But Gardner’s impact goes much beyond that single 2011-12 season. Close is in her 12th year at the helm for UCLA, and every player she’s recruited since has Gardner to thank. She was the blueprint of what Close wanted a Bruin to be.

Close described Gardner’s presence that season as a “beacon of light.”

“She was always in the gym early or staying late,” Close said. “And she was one of the only ones at that time when I first got the job. She was really the one that we built our cultural foundation around. I’m just so grateful for her.”

Even after Gardner graduated, though she spent only one season with Close and her staff, she remained loyal. She came to team events, alumni weekends and practiced with UCLA players in the offseason.

“She could have said, ‘I’m going to survive this staff and then I’m going to go my own way,’ but she didn’t,” Close said. “She’s been a proud Bruin through and through.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rebekah Gardner (@_bekgardner)

It was at an alumni event this year when Close first heard about the possibility of Gardner playing for the Sky.

Gardner kept coy, not knowing if the opportunity would work out, and not wanting to get her hopes up. Over the years, there had been chances — even once before with the Sky — and they hadn’t materialized.

The WNBA has always been a part of Gardner’s story. When she was 6 years old, the league launched. Her mom, inspired by the new professional organization, signed her daughters up for peewee basketball.

Gardner didn’t have professional aspirations then, but as she grew, the game became an obsession. She watched as much as she could, and was desperate to learn everything about basketball. Eventually, the WNBA became a fixation — “It’s every basketball player’s ultimate goal,” she says — and even when that final season at UCLA didn’t go according to plan, she still held out hope for the dream.

Close always thought Gardner had the skills; it was the other things that didn’t line up at the time.

Without UCLA making the postseason, it was challenging for Gardner to showcase her capabilities and get her name into the WNBA conversation.

“There’s a lot of luck involved, too, because there’s only 144 spots,” Close said. “But I knew she had the work ethic. I knew she had the drive. I knew she had the perseverance; it was just a matter of having preparation and opportunity matching up at the right time.”

It wasn’t the right time. Not yet.

In fact, Gardner almost didn’t get an opportunity to play anywhere. She wasn’t selected in the WNBA Draft, and even though she knew she wasn’t ready to give up basketball, Gardner had no idea where to begin when it came to going overseas. She even started looking into graduate school as a backup plan.

But a former teammate connected her with an agent, and eventually, Hapoel Petah Tikva, a team in Israel, pursued Gardner.

“There was one coach who gave me a chance, “she said. “I remember there were a few others who weren’t sure about me. But that team gave me an opportunity, and that’s what kind of started off my professional career.”

From 2012-22, Gardner played for nine different teams. Her first three seasons were in Israel, then three in Turkey, another in Israel, one in Romania, and finally, her last in Spain.

A California girl at heart, Gardner wasn’t sure what it would be like to live in another country. But she found beaches in Israel that reminded her of home and developed a community with other American players. By the time she moved to Turkey, Gardner was a pro at integrating into new places and cultures.

And as her overseas career progressed, Gardner moved on from the only team to give her a chance to some of the top leagues in the world. Her last season was in the EuroLeague, regarded as the second-best professional league after the WNBA. There, she averaged 13.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game during the 2021 season.

“That was really exciting, and a big goal for me,” she said. “I felt like that was enough for me.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rebekah Gardner (@_bekgardner)

For years, Gardner battled to prove she was good enough to be in the WNBA.

In 2014, she participated in training camp with the Atlanta Dream, and then in 2017 she had a tryout with the Sky, under former coach Amber Stocks.

Both instances felt like formalities, not real opportunities. After working out with the Sky in 2017, she made a decision.

“I would only go back if a coach or team really, really wanted me,” she said. “They would come after me or give me a call. I think before, when my goal was to get to the WNBA, it was kind of to prove to everyone else that I was just as good of a player as some of the WNBA players. But then I started to realize, like, I am as good as them. So I didn’t really need that stamp to prove it.”

In 2022, the Sky really, really wanted her.

Gardner described Chicago as playing a “run and gun style,” of basketball that suits her abilities. Her success in Spain, and her compatible skill set, caught the attention of Sky coach James Wade.

“When free agency came about, he called me and asked if I would even be interested in playing in the WNBA,” she said. “And from there, I finished out my season in Spain and came straight here.”

When it happened, Gardner didn’t even have time to take in how monumental it was for her career. She finished her season in Spain on a Thursday, and was at practice with Chicago the following Monday. Two days later, she played in her first game.

She was nervous and excited, and also a little surprised. The Sky didn’t waste time easing Gardner in, and her first appearance was a start on May 11.

“I don’t even have the words to express it,” she said. “It was almost surreal.”

Gardner played 27 minutes in that game, scoring 14 points and grabbing four rebounds. Since then, she’s become a key piece for the defending champions, averaging nine points on 54 percent shooting, 1.5 steals and 1.3 assists in 21.9 minutes per game.

Gardner moves on the basketball court like she was born there. Cutting to the hoop, dropping into a defensive stance, handling the ball — everything looks natural, comfortable. It’s hard to believe it took her a decade to break into the WNBA. For 10 years, she didn’t have the luck Close says it takes to earn one of the 144 spots. But landing with the Sky, well, that was worth the wait.

“Oh my god,” Close said. “She really found the right match.”

Close says Gardner is one of the best players in the world when it comes to moving without the ball. She cuts to the hoop with purpose, and with passers like Courtney Vanderlsoot, Candace Parker and Julie Allemand on the court, she’s almost always rewarded for her efforts.

Wade even thinks she should be in the Rookie of the Year conversation.

“She’s really affecting winning,” he told reporters after an 80-68 victory in which Gardner secured a double-double with 18 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. “She’s a special talent.”

Even when she’s not finding a lane to the basket, Gardner is always doing something productive. She never wastes a second when she’s on the court.

“That’s a critical element,” Sims said. “There’s a lot of times when players can float. But not Bekah. She never floats. She plays hard all the time.”

Close and Sims are avid members of the Rebekah Garder supporters club. Watching her slow and steady climb to the WNBA has been proof of the coaching adage, that good things come to those who work hard.

“I’m totally fangirling,” Close said with a laugh. “She’s encouraged my heart so much, because it’s what you preach to people. If you put in the work, if you persevere and never get tired of doing the right thing, good things are going to happen.”

Since she made her debut for the Sky, Gardner has received countless messages from people she crossed paths with over the years.

“It’s funny because my friends, my family and some of my former coaches, it’s almost like they are more excited than me,” Garder said. “It makes me happy to see that I can make those people happy.”

It’s been a long journey, but Gardner’s love and appreciation for the game never dwindled. Today, it’s at an all-time high. The people in her life are overjoyed for Gardner, but also for her impact. Because anyone who’s witnessed her dedication, or even just heard her story, knows there is a bigger picture.

Gardner knows that, too. One of the friends she met while playing overseas recently told Gardner that he’d been thinking of giving up the game, but watching her play in the WNBA inspired him to keep playing.

“Bekah never quit,” Sims said. “She loved the game, and when you love the game, setbacks don’t matter. She’s a 32-year-old rookie, and that says a lot about her character.”

Gardner plans to play in Spain again during the offseason, and after that, she hopes to return to the WNBA for a few more years. From Ayala to UCLA, to Israel, Turkey, Romania and Spain, to the WNBA, Gardner’s basketball career has been epic. And if you ask Sims, it’s also been Hall of Fame worthy.

He’s tried three separate times to get Gardner into the Hall of Fame at Ayala High School, writing letters and making phone calls. So far, no luck.

“It’s discouraging,” Sims said.

But he isn’t giving up. Gardner never did, so neither will he. And Sims hopes with the WNBA added to her resume, Ayala High School won’t be able to ignore her accomplishments any longer.

“She deserves that,” he said.

Gardner’s 2022 season has been a whirlwind. The rookie hasn’t fully processed what’s happened in the last three months, and she definitely hasn’t had a spare second to ponder her WNBA future. But there certainly is one.

“I see her playing four, maybe five more years,” Sims said.

The potential to play multiple seasons in the WNBA was not something Gardner envisioned when she wrote that first blog post in 2018. Two years before it was published, Gardner says she accepted that her ultimate dream would probably never come to fruition.

But there’s one line that alludes to something different.

“I feel so blessed to still be playing the game I love and in Turkey, arguably one of the best leagues overseas- which is rare for an American player who has yet to reach the WNBA,” she wrote.

Yet. The word stands out among the rest. Perhaps there was more for her after all.

Content or not, Gardner still had hope.

Seven years into her career, she was still playing the game she loved professionally. She hadn’t climbed the ranks to the WNBA, but this was good enough — that’s what she told herself. And maybe it would have been. If the Sky never came calling, perhaps Gardner would have finished her career in Spain, or maybe she would have gone back to Israel, or ventured to an entirely different country.

That could have been fulfilling. It could have been enough.

And yet…

Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

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.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.