Haylie McCleney has been a member of Team USA since 2013. She was a four-time All-American at Alabama, where she ended her career as the program’s all-time leader in batting average (.447), on base percentage (.569), walks (199), and triples (16).

Team USA qualified for the Olympics by reaching the gold medal game of the WBSC Women’s Softball World Championship in 2018. What was it like to try and play for a championship after hearing the news? 

We only knew about an hour before warmups that we had qualified due to Japan beating Canada. It was crazy. Individually, we were dealing with all kinds of emotions, like, Oh my God, each of us now has a real shot at playing in the Olympics because we’re on this roster already. The only spot that had been secured was for Team USA as a whole, but each of us has to try out every year to earn a place on the team. So naturally when the team qualified, everyone is thinking about what they have to do to keep their spot. But then we had to immediately lock in and say, let’s go win a gold medal. We ended up doing it. We walked off in Japan, against Japan, in extra innings, which is pretty insane.

Do you remember what was going through your head when you found out you’d made the Olympic roster? 

I just realized how worth it the journey had been. I started playing for Team USA when I was a sophomore in college, and honestly, I just saw it then as more of an opportunity to play some extra games. At the time, college softball was everything. It was all anyone watched, and no one was really concerned with the national team because softball wasn’t in the Olympics. And then in 2016, which was my senior year in college, it was voted back into the Olympics. Suddenly people started paying attention. The team started to evolve. And having the opportunity, personally, to evolve with the team has been really special. To go from playing for nothing other than the opportunity to wear USA across your chest, to now having the opportunity to compete for a medal, to potentially end up on a podium with a gold medal around your neck, listening to the national anthem… It’s amazing. And it was only when the final roster was announced that I felt the full shock of like, I’m actually going to the Olympics.

What are you most looking forward to at the Olympics?

You know, most Olympic athletes know well ahead of time that their sport is going to be in the games, so they know they have a shot at competing. We had no idea until 2016. And we still don’t really know what our careers look like after 2020, because it’s not guaranteed that softball will still be in the subsequent summer games. Not a lot of teams have had the journey we’ve had, so we’re just doing everything possible to make this year count, because we don’t know if this opportunity is ever going to come again.

What does your current training schedule look like at the moment?

We’re traveling all across the country on our Olympic tour, playing in different cities against colleges and other teams. Honestly, my life has been a whirlwind since October, and it’s going to continue to be that way until late July when we head to Tokyo. And I’m totally okay with that. I’m living my best life right now. I’m playing softball for a living, I don’t have to have another job, which is unlike anything I’ve experienced in the past. I’ve always either had school or had another full time job. This is the first time in my life where I actually feel like a professional athlete, which is super cool.

What’s the team dynamic been like given the range of ages? 

I think the age difference between the oldest and the youngest is honestly really beneficial for us. We have so many different perspectives, which are great to have, especially in high pressure games. We’re playing NCAA teams on this tour, and there’s pressure to do really well as the Olympic team. There’s 78 games, and we’re supposed to win all of them. That’s a lot of stress to carry with you day after day, which is why I think having the perspective of older players, like Cat [Osterman] and Monica [Abbott], comes into play. They’ve been through this before and they know when we need to step back and remember that this is about the process and the big picture.

At the same time, sometimes you have a tense situation where, instead of panicking, everyone just needs to play free and loose like little kids again. And that’s where the younger players’ perspectives, like Rachel Garcia and Bubba Nickles, come in — they’re always smiling and just happy to be there. Honestly, they probably had no clue a few years ago that they would be on the Olympic roster, so they’re full of gratitude and just genuinely happy. That helps our dynamic a lot.

How would you describe the international competition? 

The closest thing I would compare it to is like the Women’s College World Series on steroids. These women are on a whole different level. I mean, they’re in their late twenties, early thirties, in the peak of their athletic prime. And the way they approach the game mentally is just on a completely different level than what you see in college. We only have six teams in our Olympic bracket, so we don’t have to worry about preparing for every single country. But these six teams have really good athletes, so we aren’t taking the competition lightly. Australia is historically a very good international program. Italy has really good pitching and they’re really scrappy at the plate. Canada is always a team that we compete with. Japan is very disciplined and they’re going to be playing in their home country. It’s going to be a battle, but we’re going to be ready for it, and I like our odds.

Transitioning to your life off the field, I know your fiance also plays softball. What’s it like being able to share that with her? 

I wouldn’t have met Kylee if it wasn’t for softball. We played on the same travel ball team when we met. I was 17. And we talked to each other for about a year and got really close, and then we started dating my freshman year of college. So we’ve been together for a little over six years now. And we are planning on getting married after the Olympics. But it’s not just my relationship with Kylee that I have to thank softball for. Almost all of the relationships I have in my life center either around the game of softball or sports in general. The coolest part about softball is not only all the cool places I have been able to travel to, but also all the cool people I’ve been able to meet. What is crazy about it is that at the root of the game, it’s a sport of failure. If I’m batting .400, that means I’m failing six out of ten times. But you can still be an All-American with that number.

Last question: is there a particular moment in your life where you were able to get over a hump because of the lessons you’ve learned as an athlete? 

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from playing this game for so long is to just keep moving forward. Two years ago, I was hired for my first full time job at Florida A&M as a strength and conditioning coach, and I was immediately thrown into the fire. I was in charge of running all the strength and conditioning programs for eight teams at FAMU with only four weight racks. But even though I was in way over my head, I was able to react to the pressure and chaos because of what I’d learned playing softball. I wouldn’t have nearly as much perseverance, grit, or selflessness if it wasn’t for the sport. Every day at FAMU, I woke up at four am to get to work at six, and then woke up the next day to do it all over again. And I did that for almost two years. Now, when I look back, I know that it was the best situation I could have been in after graduating, because it helped me grow as a coach and a person. It was another reminder that I’m not sure who I would be without the sport of softball. It means everything to me, and I want to play as long as I can and as long as my body will let me. I can’t let it go.

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.