When it comes to women’s lacrosse, Michele DeJuliis has seen it all. 

An All-American at Penn State, she helped the US women’s national lacrosse team win gold at the 2009 Women’s Lacrosse World Cup, having been a part of the program since 1994. A 2013 inductee to the US National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, she served as the commissioner of the United Women’s Lacrosse League before founding and guiding the Women’s Professional Lacrosse League, which had just signed a major sponsorship deal with Nike before it was forced to fold in 2020 due to COVID-19. 

After decades of fighting for the future of her sport, watching the WPLL fold was hard and emotional for DeJuliis. But after talking with Jon Patricof and Jonathan Soros, the Co-Founders of Athletes Unlimited, DeJuliis felt confident in the direction of professional women’s lacrosse. 

As one door closed, another opened, with DeJuliis immediately pivoting to partner with the upstart league. 

“As emotional as it was for me, it was the right decision for the women that play our game,” she says. “Knowing that Jon and Jonathan have a serious passion for giving women’s sports the opportunity to be in the spotlight.

“They don’t leave a stone unturned.”

DeJuliis’ drive to grow the game of lacrosse is bone-deep. It’s what first inspired her to start Ultimate Goal Lacrosse 20 years ago. It’s what allowed her to persevere through the ups and downs and arrive at her current role as Senior Director at Athletes Unlimited. And it’s what helps her to know that Athletes Unlimited has the power to grow the sport.

Having led Ultimate Goal Lacrosse for so long, she knows not only the value of developing kids early, but also for those kids to see their sport on TV.

“It’s all the opportunities that we would have wanted in the WPLL and [Patricof and Soros] having the resources to do it,” she says. “To have our sport, as long as the major impact people in our sport have been trying for years, especially at the collegiate level to get our sport on TV. And to have that now?”

DeJuliis knows that visibility matters. And with Athletes Unlimited games airing on CBS Sports Network and FS1, as well as being streamed on Facebook and YouTube, the sport of women’s lacrosse has never had so much concentrated exposure. 

“What I love about it is that we’re able to be in so many homes across the U.S. Hopefully those people are sports freaks, or just love to watch whatever sport they can on TV, and they’re catching our games.”

Team @kwooood and Team @haleywarden25 brought us an entertaining battle to the first sudden-victory overtime in Athletes Unlimited history‼️

Watch all the highlights that led to @unkentrolable's overtime GOAL ⤵️#BeUnlimited pic.twitter.com/tTL57ZC46P

— Athletes Unlimited (@AUProSports) August 4, 2021

DeJuliis credits the people within the organization for having the vision and teamwork needed to bring lacrosse to the next level. 

“It takes a team and everybody within the AU community is all in, nobody has egos,” she says. “This is about getting a job done. Everybody is working so hard to make sure that these women have a great experience.”

Part of creating that experience has meant making the game faster. 

The Athletes Unlimited shot clock is 60 seconds, compared to the NCAA’s 90. The field is shorter and skinnier, only 95 yards by 60 yards as compared to the NCAA’s 120 yards by 75 yards. The rosters are also smaller, something that Athletes Unlimited says attracts “complete athletes” who are capable of playing both ends of the field.

These changes weren’t just made to speed the game up. The smaller rosters are also part of a larger campaign to make lacrosse more accessible and increase the chances of the sport’s inclusion at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

The sport’s Olympic goal took a monumental step forward on July 20, when the International Olympic Committee voted to grant World Lacrosse, the international federation for lacrosse, full recognition.

The decision was exciting, if not surprising for DeJuliis. 

“I think it will happen,” she says. “It’s just a matter of time. You just have to remain hopeful and do whatever you can to support the Olympic dream.”

While Athletes Unlimited’s first priority is developing a sustainable professional league, those within the organization understand that they’re fighting for the future of the sport as a whole, and that Olympic inclusion would be downright game-changing. 

For DeJuliis, the best thing AU can do is showcase the sport at its best. 

“I hope that the Olympics, anybody that’s involved in that committee, can see what we’ve got displayed here and say, ‘this is something that we gotta have’,” she continued.

Adjusting the field and roster sizes may have been difficult for athletes and organizers, but it, too, will help in getting lacrosse to LA.

In order for a sport to be included in the Olympics, it needs to have international participation from at least 40 countries on three different continents. Having smaller roster sizes makes it easier to get more countries on board. The fewer people per team, the more affordable it is for countries to sponsor and train.

“There’s so much opportunity,” DeJuliis says. “Anybody that can now dedicate time and money, the sizing of this it’s just more manageable.

“I can only imagine that countries that start picking it up, we’ll see a huge jump in their growth… [and] their ability to actually perform and be competitive in World Lacrosse.”

At the last Women’s Lacrosse World Championships in 2019, 22 countries participated. Nine of them were new to the tournament. But even during a COVID year, World Lacrosse has only continued to grow, as was made evident by the IOC’s recognition. 

“I think [World Lacrosse] has made tremendous progress from where we were two years ago to now, having that recognition is unbelievable,” she says.

Even with all of the Olympics discussion, the scheduling of the Athletes Unlimited to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics was purely coincidence. Ultimately, it was what worked for some of the players to be able to compete while also focusing on the World Cup or coaching collegiately. 

At the same time, as people are plugged into a summer of sports, Athletes Unlimited gives fans a reason to keep the TV on, during and even after the Olympics conclude. 

“I think that with all that goes on in our world, especially with all of the things everybody’s been through, this is something that people need,” she says. “It’s just another opportunity to see another cool sport that is being showcased.

“Hopefully they flip on a channel and they watch for 10 seconds and they’re like, ‘I gotta keep watching’.”

Watch now, watch next year, and there’s a good chance you’ll be watching in 2028 as well.

Editor’s note: Athletes Unlimited is a sponsor of Just Women’s Sports.

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. 

View this post on Instagram

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

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.

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.