The WPLL is the first and only women’s professional lacrosse league. Founded in 2018, the league is presently made up of four teams. Beyond growing the game and providing professional opportunities for players who have graduated from college, the WPLL also hopes to provide legitimacy for the sport as it pushes to be included in future Olympics. 

Michele DeJuliis is the CEO and founder of the league. A US National Lacrosse Hall of Fame inductee, DeJuliis was a four-time All-American at Penn State who went on to help the US women’s national lacrosse team win gold at the 2009 Lacrosse World Cup. She spoke with Just Women’s Sports about the challenges of sustaining a young league, the impact of coronavirus, and how the WPLL’s developmental program is training and mentoring the next generation of national team players. 

Could you first walk us through your own professional background and how you got involved in lacrosse?

I’m from Baltimore, which is a hotbed for lacrosse. I played at Penn State, and after I graduated I was teaching for a year in Baltimore. But then my life took a little bit of a turn, and I ended up working for the Baltimore City police department. I did SWAT team work and some undercover drug work. During that time, I was still playing on the US lacrosse team and was still very connected to the sport. I even started a club team while I was doing police work. Then a position at Princeton opened up, and I went there and coached for eight years. I left in 2012 because my wife and I decided to have kids, but I continued to run my lacrosse club, and then I started an events business with my current business partner, Becky Wells. And then three years ago I started the WPLL. So now I’m running all of those things, which keeps me busy, and I have young kids who keep me active.

What have been the biggest hurdles in creating and sustaining the WPLL?

Right now, it’s just not high dollars, so that makes it difficult. We had to do some restructuring this year that, at the leadership level of the organization, we felt was necessary to sustain a successful league. But at the end of the day, we need sponsors and investors to step up and be consistent. One way that we have managed to be somewhat self sustainable is through the “futures” side of our league.

Can you talk about what that is?

We select and invite the top players from 12 regions of the country to a three day summit and clinic coached by our pros. At the summit, we incorporate both leadership and competence training, and we get these young women connected to the WPLL program and our athletes. It’s a mentoring opportunity. The young fans love lacrosse and they want to get to the next level. They now get the opportunity to be in front of the pros that they look up to. I think it’s really important to make that connection.

Is athlete mentorship a big part of the overall mission of the WPLL? 

It is a major part of the mission, there’s no doubt about that. That is something that I am really passionate about, and I think that we have been successful in that mission so far. This is also the second year of our partnership with US Lacrosse. For younger athletes to get on the US track, you have to come through the WPLL Futures program, which, like I said, focuses on both on-field performance and leadership development. We evaluate and recommend players to the US coaches, and that is how most of the kids get invited to the US training camps in August.

You mentioned the recent restructuring. The Fire have been dropped as a team, and travel rosters have been cut. What was the thought process behind these specific changes?

Preliminary sports are tough in general, and I think for our sport, we wanted to make sure that we could maintain a league that stays competitive and increases visibility. We’re trying to grow the game and create an opportunity to get this sport to the Olympic level. Doing all that costs a lot of money, and we knew we had to make some changes to make sure our players were happy and that we could still follow through on our mission. Dropping a team automatically saves money just because of the fact that you’re not playing the extra games. And then we also adjusted the travel roster from 19 to 15. Over the past two season, we found that when there were 19 women on a roster, not all of them were playing, and we wanted to make sure that our GMs and our coaches were being really thoughtful about who they selected for their travel roster on any given weekend.

Are ticket sales a selling point for investors and sponsors? 

One of the reasons why I wanted to create the Futures program as a way to make money is because I didn’t think we were going to make it as a league just selling tickets. Is the game growing at a fast pace? For sure. I mean, it was unbelievable how many people came to the Final Four this past year. But that type of event happens once a year. And so, on average, unless you have 20,000 people at a game, you’re not going to get the credit that we would love to get on a daily basis. It’s just not going to happen right now, at least until this sport becomes even more visible.

In terms of sponsors, there’s not a ton of money being invested in women’s lacrosse. The ones that are out there usually just dump money into the men’s game, and on the women’s side, it seems like kind of an afterthought now. I think there are some companies that don’t want to admit that, but I’ve seen it. Until somebody steps up and says, no, we care about this sport and making sure that we have equal opportunities, it just doesn’t seem like a priority for a lot of companies to budget money for the women’s game. I think we struggle there, because even when we are having conversations with potential sponsors, the typical answer is that they just don’t have that money, or, yes, we can support you but can we do it with a quit date? We’ve had a lot of conversations, but not cash, and cash is what we need to help us grow.

If you don’t mind me asking, who is the main investor in the WPLL? Did you go through rounds of funding, how did that work?

I’ve been the main investor, but we do have one investor that is on the league side. We’ve also had some generous donations to our foundation and have had decent support from sponsportships, like ESPN. It’s getting better this year.

Do the WPLL players get paid?

Yes, they do. They get paid per game. And their travel expenses are covered. But they’re definitely not playing for the money. Probably 45% of our women are college coaches. Some of them are on the US national team or another international team. They play because they just love the sport and they’re not ready to hang it up just yet. And they’re talented enough to be in the league. So they’re definitely doing it for the passion and to pave the way for the younger generation. And that’s what our mission is all about. It is easier to get them to buy in when they know what we’re trying to do.

Have there been any talks of collaboration with the PLL, which has had tremendous success after just one season? 

I have had a lot of conversations with Paul and Mike Rabil, the PLL co-founders, and they are highly interested in us remaining partners. And we do feel like at some point we’ll probably all come together. I think that they’ve done a tremendous job. They also have a social media team of close to 20 people, and we have about 2, so there’s just a big difference in where we are at compared to them. They’ve got media play, and they’re doing what they need to do. They’re getting the brand out there, and people are recognizing that they have a lot of followers. We’re trying to build that same base with fewer resources. And I think we’ve been able to do a lot with a little. But in terms of collaborating and partnering with their league in some capacity, that is something we want to continue to do and plan to do for the 2020 season.

At the end of the day, it’s just nice to know that there are other people in the sport of lacrosse that are trying to do what we are doing at the startup level. We’ve got a lot of the same goals, but on our end, we need to show more growth before we can make more serious partnership moves with the PLL.

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. 

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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.

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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.