The Orlando Pride have promoted interim manager Seb Hines to a permanent head coaching role, signing him to a multi-year contract to lead the club into the 2023 season.

Formerly an assistant coach with the Pride, Hines took over as interim head coach for 15 games in 2022 after Amanda Cromwell was suspended and placed under investigation for allegations of workplace misconduct. At the time of his interim appointment, Hines became the first Black head coach in the NWSL, and now he makes more history as the league’s first-ever Black full-time head coach.

“After evaluating what we want the future for the Pride to be, listening to player feedback and discussing with Seb, it became very clear that he has earned the opportunity to continue leading our Club,” said Pride chairman Mark Wilf.

Orlando announced other infrastructural changes on Friday, including expanding the General Manager position to become Vice President and General Manager of Soccer Operations and committing more resources to player development, analytics, scouting and medical services. As part of the restructuring, the club parted ways with GM Ian Fleming. The changes come one month after the NWSL terminated the contracts of Cromwell and Pride assistant coach Sam Greene after an investigation substantiated claims of retaliatory behavior.

Prior to the announcement, Just Women’s Sports spoke with Hines about the appointment, charting a new team culture and his vision for a revamped Orlando Pride.

(Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Let’s start with your opening thoughts on the incoming coaching announcement.

I’m just super grateful for the opportunity to lead this team in the next couple of years. I’m really, really grateful for Mark and the board and ownership to trust me in this process. I know it comes with a great responsibility, and I’m just really, really excited to get going and just really want to make the city proud. Now we can create something where the public can be excited about coming and watching the Orlando Pride.

Can you describe what your journey has been like from joining the squad as an assistant coach to taking this next step?

Yeah, so I retired [from Orlando City] at the end of 2017. And as it worked out, the Orlando Pride were training at the same facility as we were playing, so I was very close to [former Pride coach] Tom Sermanni. A lot of credit goes to Tom because he took a chance on me, coming out and watching training and being a part of training. My first year I volunteered, and then Marc Skinner came in and I asked him if I could still volunteer just to be a part of it. The third year, Mark took me on as a second assistant. From that moment, I was in it. Marc moved on, Becky Burleigh came in, and then obviously Amanda Cromwell came in last year. So, this would be my fifth year with the club.

Having seen a number of coaches go in and out, what do you think the value is to having someone who knows the club so well leading the team?

I think it’s not just me knowing the club; it’s knowing the organization, knowing the people. I’ve been here eight years now, so I’m in and around people constantly with my son playing youth soccer and my kids going to school. I get to get a feel for the city and the people. One thing I want to do is create an environment and a team that people are proud of and they know what they’re gonna get — an identity and a philosophy that everyone knows, when they see an Orlando Pride player, team, they know exactly what they’re gonna get.

So, I think like you said, I’ve been through a lot. I’ve seen multiple coaches come in and leave. And I think it’s just going in there and doing it my way and seeing if it progresses and gets better. We got a little taste of it towards the end of the season. It’ll be nice to start day one and hit the ground running straightaway.

In the second half of the 2022 season, the Pride turned into a gritty team that became difficult to play against. What further principles are you hoping to implement with the squad now that you’ll have a full preseason with them?

Like you said, we were harder to beat. I think we had to build a foundation to get results in games. Now, there’s no hiding place — we conceded too many goals and we didn’t score enough goals. So everything in the two boxes wasn’t good enough. I felt like when we did take over, we tried to control the middle. We tried to control with possession. I think we got more passes than we usually get and we weren’t as transitional. And some of our goals were beautiful, like they were really good goals.

I think what you’re gonna find next year is we’re building on what we created — have more grit, more determination, play with no fear, just go out there and give everything right from the start, and ultimately put the ball in the back of the net. Because we do create good goal-scoring opportunities, but ultimately we are going to get judged on goals and results.

Are there any particular players you view as part of that core, whether young players or players you brought in last season?

We did a big revamp toward the end of 2021. It allowed us to have younger players come in and get minutes and get that experience under their belts, playing against some top teams, against top individuals. So for them now to have that experience to then go into next year knowing that, “This is what the league is about, this is what I need to step up to,” you can’t replace that.

Some of our younger players are getting full 90-minute games and coming off the bench and making an impact, so we had to rely on them a lot in this last year. I think it will only help us moving forward. Obviously we’ll look to add more players to our roster and become a real competitive team in 2023.

There’s been a lot of conversation in recent years about how off-the-field culture shows up on the field. Where would you say the locker-room culture was at the beginning of last year and what changed between the beginning and end of last year? And what sort of cultural principles would you like the team to have that carry over to the on-field performance?

I think one thing that we want to do right from the start within the first week is define our core values, define our culture. I think we did a little bit of it when we took over to try and define who we were, but I think that can be done in preseason. And that’s going to be a very important piece of it. As we move forward and as we look at 2023, it’s making sure that everyone’s on the right page. Everyone’s going in the right direction. And we saw bits of that last year, but I feel like that can be a real collective effort from everyone within the coaching staff to the players, and everyone’s just bought into what we’re going to try and do next year.

That was the most encouraging thing for us, because we recognized that we weren’t a team of individuals. We were a team that had to stick together to grind out results, and we did that. We worked hard together. There were periods last year in training that I pushed the players. Like, we were doing double days, we were doing afternoon sessions in the sun. And it was ruthless. It was relentless. But it brought them together, and when you go through those sort of tough times, and then you get the results on a Saturday, it only spurs them on to do more.

As you mentioned, the big rebuild started at the end of 2021 and there was even more coaching turnover in 2022. The Pride have been a project of patience, having not made the playoffs since 2017. What made you excited to take on this role full-time, and what would you say to the people who are waiting for the fruits of that labor?

I think you’re absolutely right. It has been a club that’s had a lot of change throughout the years. And I think in my position now, I feel like we can have stability. I feel like with my vision going forward, we can create something that everyone can be proud of, everyone can be excited about, the city can be excited about, ownership can be excited about what is going to be coming from this team. So everyone’s bought in, everyone’s invested in it.

One last question: Next year, is it playoffs or bust?

[Laughs] That is our goal — playoffs, for sure. We’re not a million miles away. We can really make a good run up for it. Obviously it’s not going to be easy. No one’s giving you three points on a Saturday or Sunday. So we know we’ve got to do the work, and that is our expectation. Nothing less than that is acceptable, really.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

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.

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.

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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.