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The quiet resilience of Kentucky superstar Rhyne Howard

(Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Even as a little girl, Rhyne Howard had a high basketball IQ.

So when the second-grader started getting steals in her rec league, but pulling the ball back out short of the fast-break layup, her family was confused.

Rhyne wasn’t. She knew exactly what she was doing.

The league had a policy that if a player scored a certain amount of points, they had to sit out the rest of the game. The idea was to keep the competition fair, but Howard learned quickly how to cheat the system.

Every time she approached the number, Howard would change the way she played. Instead of looking to score, she would set up her teammates. She still had a positive impact on the game, but she was also ensuring that she didn’t have to leave the court.

It was then that her mom, Rhvonja “RJ” Avery, knew Howard — a three-time All-American at Kentucky and a projected top pick in this year’s WNBA Draft — was special.

“That’s something you can’t teach,” Avery said. “That’s instinct.”

On and off the court, Howard never stops thinking. Her hobbies are all things that allow her to have quiet time and be alone with her own mind. She likes doing puzzles, and she loves to draw. It’s not uncommon, Avery says, for Howard to sneak away and take out her art supplies.

During the pandemic, Avery set up an art corner in her house so Howard’s creativity could run uninterruptedly wild. Sometimes she draws SpongeBob, her favorite cartoon character. Other times, she creates more serious artwork, like a piece entitled “Black Empowerment.” It depicts a Black woman with a flowing afro framing her face, and atop the black curls, a small yellow crown.

Off the court, it’s not uncommon for Howard to keep to herself.

“She’s a little bit quiet, a little bit shy,” Avery says. “Even if she says something funny, something witty, she usually does it in a whisper.”

When it comes to basketball, however, Howard does not whisper.

She never has. It’s the one thing that consistently brings the Kentucky guard out of her shell. Around the same time that she learned to work around her rec-league rules, Howard set the goal of playing in the WNBA.

And when people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, Howard did not waver.

“Sometimes people were like, ‘You’re going to have to find a real job,’ And I’d say, ‘That is a real job, and I’m going to be getting paid,’” Howard said with a laugh.

Howard’s name is on every WNBA mock draft board, and it’s usually at No. 1 or No. 2 — switching off with Baylor’s NaLyssa Smith, depending on the analyst.

So yeah, she’s going to be getting paid. But when she was telling off her doubters, the draft or where she would be selected wasn’t on Howard’s mind at all.

“The goal is just to make it,” she says, “But to be a top pick, like, wow. As a young kid, I never would have imagined it.”

Maybe she should have.

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Howard was heavily sought after in high school, but at first, she wasn't interested in the recruiting process. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

Skills aside, Howard has always been too competitive to finish anywhere but first. Avery remembers taking her kids to the doctor, and to help pass the time, she would give them a big word and see how many smaller words they could find within the letters. Howard’s brother is five years older than she is, but she would still cry if she didn’t get more words than he did.

In middle school, Howard was doing a project on New York City. She made an origami replica of the Statue of Liberty, but couldn’t get the tiny crown quite right.

“She was frustrated and I had to calm her down,” Avery said. “I told her, ‘Rhyne, how many other kids in sixth grade are making 3D statues?’

“But she’s a perfectionist. She likes to finish. She’s a competitor.”

When she turned in the project, Howard got an A.

If Howard did something, she was going to be the best. Especially when it came to basketball. If you think spelling words against someone five years older is hard, try going at them on the court. And all of their friends.

“Playing with my brother, no one took it easy on me,” Howard said. “And my mom would be like, ‘Well you asked to play with him, so you can’t get mad.’”

She still did.

“I used to try and fight him all the time,” Howard says, breaking out into a giggle that sounds like she’s right back in the moment. “I’d be like, ‘Please, you’re doing too much.”

Eventually, Howard figured out how to beat her brother. Once she learned how to shoot, Howard no longer had to try to out-muscle him. Instead, she would stay outside of the 3-point line.

“I would do a few moves and then shoot it,” she said. “And then everyone would keep passing me the ball asking me to shoot.”

By the time college recruiting came around, Howard had plenty of suitors. Schools like Tennessee and South Carolina were eager to sign her, but she didn’t want to go through the recruitment process. Howard was confident that she would go to Florida, where Avery went, and play for her mother’s former teammate, Amanda Butler.

Growing up, Howard spent plenty of days on campus, painting her nails with Butler and dreaming of the day she’d play at her mom’s alma mater.

But Avery wasn’t having it. She’d been through college basketball herself, and knew how fickle it could be. If something happened, and Butler was no longer the coach, she asked Howard, would you still want to go to Florida?

Howard said yes, but Avery was not convinced. So she persuaded her daughter to go through recruitment.

“I said, ‘In the end, if you chose Florida, that’s a great choice,” Avery said. “It will be a great choice because it’s your choice. But don’t go just because you know it.”

Avery had Howard make pros and cons lists of every school she was considering. From the obvious: coaches, campus, style of play, to the not so obvious, like what kind of shoes the team wears. Howard, for the record, is a Nike girl. And Kentucky, for the record, is a Nike school. It didn’t come down to the shoes, though.

“I could visually see what they had going on,” Howard said. “They were going through kind of a tough time when I was getting recruited and I was like, ‘Yeah, I have to go here. I have to make a name for myself and for Kentucky. I have to be able to change the program.’”

Since she committed, Howard has been making a name for herself. She’s set essentially every record you can think of, and even some you can’t. On her senior day, Howard set a program mark for the most 3-pointers in a half with six, and the most in a game with eight.

She’s second all-time on Kentucky’s scoring list, and the guard helped propel her team to an SEC Tournament title with 10-straight wins to end the season and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats earned a 6-seed and will take on Princeton on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET.

Howard’s legacy as a Kentucky great is already cemented, regardless of what happens in the tournament.

“I didn’t envision that I’d have this much of an impact,” she said. “But I’m really proud of myself, and I’m grateful to have brought some more attention to Kentucky. It’s a really good place, and there are people around me who deserve to be noticed.”

For Avery, it’s hard to envision what’s next for her daughter. Her career at Kentucky has been historic, and the WNBA is in sight. She knows Howard wants to end her time in a Wildcat uniform with a deep tournament run. But whatever happens, one thing is for sure: The basketball community knows Rhyne Howard, and it always will.

“It’s so surreal,” Avery said. “My daughter is a household name.”

Eden Laase is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports. She previously ran her own high school sports website in Michigan after covering college hockey and interning at Sports Illustrated. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

Decorated Olympic Swimmer Katie Ledecky receives Presidential Medal of Freedom

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Katie Ledecky is the most decorated athlete in the history of women's swimming. (Zheng Huansong/Xinhua via Getty Images)

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony on Friday 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. 

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. 

"I'm surrounded by so many extraordinary people in so many different fields," Ledecky told Just Women's Sports on Friday. "I feel like I've made a lot of friends today among that group, and their families and their friends."

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.

Ledecky said she was surprised to learn how recent it has been that athletes in women's sports have been considered for the honor. Billie Jean King was the first to receive the award in 2009. "That kind of blew my mind that it was that recent," she said.

"There are so many great female athletes that I've looked up to for so many years," she continued. "And I know we're just going to keep pushing ahead, and doing our best to continue to get a seat at every table."

Like Biles, Ledecky receives the Medal of Freedom while she's still actively competing in her sport, a fact not lost on the 27-year-old. "My goals in the pool are to continue to push forward and swim good times, hopefully win some more medals. And then secondly to continue to do good things out of the pool, whether that's inspiring young kids to learn how to swim, get into the sport, set big goals in whatever pursuits they're interested in."

"I've recognized I've had a long career now, and it's important to reflect every now and then. But at the same time, I'm still competing and still working hard into the future."

Exclusive: Kelley O’Hara announces retirement at end of 2024 NWSL season

uswnt player kelley o'hara poses with an american flag at the world cup
USWNT defender Kelley O'Hara will close out her decorated career at the end of the 2024 NWSL season. (Jose Breton/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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.

O'Hara celebrates after scoring the winning goal for the Washington Spirit at the 2021 NWSL Championship match in Louisville, Kentucky. (Jamie Rhodes/USA TODAY Sports)

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."

O'Hara poses with USWNT teammates Alex Morgan and Tobin Heath after winning the 2015 Women's World Cup in Vancouver, Canada. (Mike Hewitt - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

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."

O'Hara speaking with fellow USWNT members and vets at the White House Equal Pay Day Summit in 2022. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

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."

Brittney Griner Opens Up about Russian Imprisonment in New ’20/20′ Special

brittney griner talks to press
Griner was jailed in Russia for almost 10 months in 2022. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

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.

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."

USWNT Vet Carli Lloyd Announces Pregnancy After ‘Rollercoaster’ IVF Journey

retired soccer player carli lloyd
Lloyd will welcome her first child with husband Brian Hollins this October. (Dennis Schneidler/USA TODAY Sports)

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.

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.

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