While other young American athletes dreamed of playing professionally, Ifeoma Onumonu and Imani Dorsey of NJ/NY Gotham FC never grew up envisioning that future for themselves. Not only was soccer expensive, but it was also difficult to picture being a pro given the lack of prominent Black female soccer players.

While girls’ participation in sport is generally limited by a lack of exposure to female athletes and coaches as role models, the drop-out rate for girls of color in urban and rural centers is twice that of suburban white girls, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation.

“Growing up, most of my role models were men, white men, because there weren’t many other Black female athletes like us,” says Onumonu. “We were the minorities in this sport. And because of that, we never thought we’d be in this position today.”

Onumonu and Imani are both board members for the Black Women’s Player Collective, whose mission is to lift the image, value and representation of Black women as athletes and leaders.

Founded in October 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and a summer of national protests, the BWPC is made up of seven board members, 38 members and 15 advocates. Its roster includes all 43 Black women competing in the NWSL as of 2020.

For both Omunonu and Dorsey, the Collective gives them a chance to confront and address the racial inequity that has long persisted in one of the country’s most popular sports.

“Growing up in a predominantly affluent white area, it felt like I had to hide or downplay my Blackness to fit in, since I was one of few,” says Dorsey. “I had to make things that were different about me from others in my group feel less intimidating. That meant not really speaking up on Black issues that were in the news and that my family was speaking about very regularly. I was not really talking about those topics with my teammates.”

Dorsey says she often had to overlook comments about being an ‘Oreo’ — Black on the outside but white on the inside.

“Now I feel like I can reclaim that part of my identity and celebrate it, but not just as myself but as a group with the Black community,” she says.

Onumonu says her experience was similar.

“I used to just let things slip, let them slide off my back and not bring them up in efforts to stay a part of the group. I think that was damaging to myself and my self-esteem and impacted how I was playing the game and how I performed in the game,” she says.

“Now I feel like I no longer have to do that because I have such a powerful group behind me that supports me. There’s power in numbers and there’s power about talking about these issues.”

This week, the BWPC’s ranks expanded when it announced a long-term partnership with adidas. Together, the Collective and adidas will host soccer clinics and programming for girls aged eight to 15 in cities such as Atlanta, Durham, Orlando and Houston.

The BWPC and adidas, alongside the U.S. Soccer Foundation, Black Players for Change and Musco Lighting, have also committed to building 12 new mini pitches in predominantly Black communities across the U.S. by 2022.

It’s a first step, but a big one, toward making soccer a more accessible game for all.

Dorsey, who grew up in Maryland, shifted from recreational soccer to travel teams around the age of eight. Even then, it was clear to her that the expenses of competing were a prohibitive burden on families. For a chance at a full-ride scholarship in college, parents had to invest in high-level training for their children, starting in grade school.

Thankfully Dorsey, who ended up at Duke, was able to find opportunities in the national program, increasing her exposure to elite competition. But given that only a tiny percentage of soccer players ever have the privilege of wearing the crest, she knows her path isn’t a sustainable solution.

“[Soccer’s] an expensive sport and I think that’s something that we need to change, whether that means providing scholarships for players or redesigning the entire pay-to-play model,” says Onumonu, who was also in the U.S. youth national program, played collegiately at Cal and is now a member of the Nigerian national team.

“The path I had was one that I had the privilege to have, but I know that’s not necessarily the story for everyone,” she says. “And I think that’s why so many Black girls miss out on the opportunity that soccer can bring. I hope our work with the BWPC and adidas can inspire young girls to do whatever it is that they set their mind to.”

Alongside their new partnership, the BWPC is also rolling out a new logo. The vibrance of the logo represents the boldness and disruption of the organization’s mission, with a tilted “W” to signify the Collective’s ascendant ethos and spirit. The warm color palette is meant to represent the players’ love for their sport.

We are thrilled to launch our new logo with the ambition of it becoming a universal symbol of commitment to transforming the game for black women and girls everywhere!

#TheGameNeedsHer

Visit our new website https://t.co/iXTUdy99nO to join us! pic.twitter.com/sxYiP5CV2Z

— Black Women’s Player Collective (@BWP_Collective) October 11, 2021

“I’m constantly inspired by the incredible women in the BWPC on a personal level,” says Dorsey. “It’s something that is really close to my heart and I’m even more thankful to our fans who have been so supportive along the way.

“I want to encourage young girls to learn and grow from their teammates, because what I love so much about soccer is my team, and having that friendship is so important to me. Looking back, I wish I was brave enough to let my Blackness be a part of that for more of my teammates, and shed light to hopefully teach other young girls that it’s okay to have a different perspective.”

It’s been a busy couple weeks for Dorsey, who is also a part of the NWSL Players Association, which been working around the clock with players and the league in order to implement immediate and long-term changes in the wake of the Paul Riley scandal.

In this context, the BWPC’s momentum and groundbreaking partnership with adidas is providing a ray of hope in an otherwise difficult time for women’s soccer.

“Our formation as an organization gave us the realization of the power that we have together and that we should be able to openly talk about our experiences as Black women, because that is something we haven’t had the opportunity to do before,” says Dorsey.

“I think that collective power should really inspire young girls to be proud of who they are and being unapologetic about their Blackness and their experiences, regardless of what it is.”

You can learn more about the BWPC’s mission here and donate directly to the Collective here.

Jessa Braun is an editorial intern for Just Women’s Sports. She is also the Head of North American Content for the Women’s Sports Alliance. You can find her on Twitter @jessabraun.

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.