Ashley Hoffman plays as a midfielder for Team USA Field Hockey. A graduate of North Carolina, she helped lead the team to a national championship and won the Honda Sports Award as the nation’s best player in 2018. Below, she talks with Just Women’s Sports about Team USA’s failure to qualify for the upcoming Olympics, what comes next for the program, and the personal goals that keep her motivated. 

Can you first walk us through how teams qualify for the Olympics? 

Two years ago, the FIH (the International Hockey Federation) started an international pro league in order to get field hockey on the map and make it more accessible to both viewers and players. Nine of the world’s best teams compete in a round-robin style tournament with games from January to June.

During the last Olympic cycle, a team could qualify for the games just by winning certain summer tournaments, world leagues and continental games. But they changed the process completely, so that this time around it was very dependent on your pro league results, because those determined your qualifying draw. So results from the 2019 pro league determined both your world ranking and who you had to play in your Olympic qualifying matches. Higher ranked teams played lower rank teams, which is obviously a huge advantage. We ended up coming in last place, which really hurt our rankings, and when they announced the qualifying matches, we drew India.

What happened in your Olympic qualifying series against India?

Well first of all, India hosted the series since they were the higher ranked team. And we had to play two games, back-to-back. Whichever team had the highest aggregate score after the two games won the series. India ended up scoring more goals across the two games and clinched the aggregate 6-5 victory. Despite coming back to win the second game 4-1, we fell short in goals scored, lost the series and did not qualify for the Olympics. It was heartbreaking.

Were you confident heading into the series?  

Going into both games, we had a clear plan in place based on how we knew India played. We’d played them before, and felt like we knew them in and out. When we actually got to India, I think their home crowd was a huge distraction. There were so many people there, all cheering for India of course. In the first game, we fell apart and went down five goals, so coming into the second game, we knew we had a huge mountain to climb. We had to make up a lot of ground in order to win the series and clinch our Olympic spot. I was proud of how we fought in that second game because we made a comeback, but unfortunately still fell short by two goals.

Captain Ashley Hoffman scores @USAFieldHockey's first goal of the Pro league season ????

➡️ https://t.co/SONSpAedQO pic.twitter.com/f30S2QDqP4

— Bleacher Report Live (@brlive) February 7, 2020

What was the makeup of Team USA ahead of the series? Were there a lot of veteran players on the roster?

No, actually. We only had two Olympians from the 2016 games on our roster. And then if you looked at the average cap number for India compared to our team, there was a significant difference. India was very experienced. However, I think the ability to hold her own against India and almost come back just shows the potential we have for the next Olympics and even the World Cup, which is in two years.

Why was the roster so young? Did a lot of players retire?

Players usually retire around the age of 30 or even before, but I know we had some girls that probably could have kept playing that didn’t. We’re one of the only full time programs in the world, so our players are limited in the jobs they can have outside of the team, because our training is like a nine to five job, even though it doesn’t really pay like one. A lot of girls coach for extra money because our income is very tight. We’re definitely not living a glamorous lifestyle by any means. Then again, it’s all of our dreams, so we’re willing to sacrifice. But by the time players are 30, there’s a lot of factors to consider, and it’s common for players to then want to move on with their lives. Having kids is obviously a huge factor, as it’s hard to come back from that.

Where does the team go from here after not qualifying for the Olympics? Are you just focused on the World Cup in a few years? 

We’re focused on the Pan American games and the World Cup, both of which will happen in about two years.  After we did not qualify for the Olympics, which was the first time since 2004 for Team USA, our head coach was removed. We changed training facilities, moving out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and temporarily to Chula Vista, California. There have been a lot of different organizational changes, and as a team, right now I think we’re all focused on finding a place to train and get better.

What does your off season normally look like (pre-coronavirus)?

It’s actually kind of crazy with the pro league, which now goes from January to June. I’m typically only home for about five weeks of those six months. We’re training so often that my teammates and I always joke that our house is just a storage unit because we’re never actually home. Thankfully, I grew up about 40 minutes from Lancaster, which is where we used to train full time, so I didn’t have that extra rent burden that many of my teammates had.

What do you think Team USA will look like once training resumes?

It’s stressful, but we’re in a rebuilding phase again. We have a new coach and we will hopefully have a home training facility soon, so right now we are just trying to define our culture and goals moving forward. How we come out of losing the qualifier and the chaos of this pandemic will really determine the future of our program. We want to build a program that makes players want to stay involved until they’re in their mid to late thirties and that allows players to have a baby and still come back to play or have another job and still play. I think all of the hardships that we went through this past year, and all the hardship that the world is going through right now, gives us an opportunity to change the narrative and alter our future course.

What is your individual goal as a field hockey player on Team USA moving forward?

My goal is to become one of the best players in the world. I want to aim high because it keeps me motivated. I find that when I ask the younger girls who I coach what their goals are, it is usually something like making the national team or going to the Olympics. But for me, I want to think bigger than that. I want to win an Olympic gold. I want to be the best in the world, not just the best in the country. That’s what motivates me to put in the work.

I’m not sure I thought about my goals in the same way in college as I do now. I’m the type of player who plays best when they’re making the players around them better — I’m definitely more of a distributor than I am a fancy goal scorer. It was in college that I really solidified that identity and found out what my strengths were. And then when I made the national team, I started dreaming bigger.

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.