Ashley Hatch plays as a forward for the Washington Spirit of the NWSL. Selected by the North Carolina Courage with the second pick in the 2017 NWSL draft, Hatch was named the 2017 NWSL Rookie of the Year as she helped the Courage win that year’s NWSL Shield. Below, she spoke with Just Women’s Sports about what makes her a unique forward, why she thinks Washington’s owner is setting a new standard, and her own potential future with the USWNT.

First off, how has coronavirus impacted both your life and your training?

The virus has unfortunately prevented us from starting our pre-season and is preventing us from getting together to work out and practice. It has impacted my life just like it has everyone else’s life. It has forced me to stay home and get creative with how I spend my time and how I get my workouts done. I have been preparing all off-season for this season so I’m just looking at it like a little extension to my prep and using this time to focus on some things I want to get better at.

The Washington Spirit seems to have built out a really young core over the last few years, and you have a lot of high-ceiling rookies coming in. Can you speak to what it’s like to be a part of that? 

Like you said, we have a lot of incoming rookies and a lot of people who are transferring over from either other teams or are coming over from overseas. It’s kind of weird cause I feel like I’m still one of those young players, but I’m not. Like, this’ll be my fourth season in the NWSL. But it’s super fun and it’s exciting to have a lot of young players because they’re all so eager to learn and to play and compete. And I think that just adds to our culture as a team. And off the field, because we’re all in a similar age group, it’s easy for us to get along.

The team has been in a bit of a rebound the past couple years. What has that been like and what are your goals going into this season? 

It’s been quite the ride. I mean, this will be my third season now with the Spirit and this will be my first time having the same coaching staff for consecutive years. I mean you’re always getting used to new players, but getting used to a new coach and coaching staff and style of play is very challenging to do year after year. But we were successful last year compared to the year before, and so I think this year we’re really excited because we already have that foundation and those standards have been set.

You yourself have gotten better every year you’ve been in the league. What are your personal goals going into this season? 

That’s a good question. I mean, I don’t really think my goals have ever changed. As a forward, as I’m sure every forward would tell you, you want to be the leading goalscorer on your team. You want to be the leading goalscorer in the league. You want to be helping your team by scoring goals and contributing to wins. And obviously, making the national team is something that I think every US player is striving for.

What kind of opportunities have you had with the national team so far? 

I have two caps with them, and then I’ve been in a few camps, so I’m a camp-goer, I guess you could say, but it hasn’t been consistent. I think I’m doing well in the league and just continuing to push myself there I think will help my case for more opportunities. It’s something I can continue to work toward.

The front line for the national team right now is loaded, but most of those players are on the older end, relatively speaking. You’re only 24. There’s going to be opportunities. Do you ever think like, I could be in this next batch of forwards? 

Hmm. It’s in the back of my mind, definitely. But I don’t know. I try to just focus on what I’m doing here with the Spirit. Thinking that far into the future isn’t going to help me, whereas I think focusing on where I am right here, right now, will help me be prepared for whatever happens. Like you said, it feels like there might be an opportunity coming by, but in the meantime, I just want to stay focused so I can make sure that when any opportunity does come, I’m ready and I’ve put in a good case for myself.

As a forward, your game seems pretty unique, especially for the league. You’re taller and you’re strong, but you’re also very much a skill player. Do you also see that as a unique combination? My sense is the league tends to have forwards that play big, strong, fast and straight ahead. 

That’s a good observation, and I thank you for the compliment. Before I transitioned to playing forward, I was an attacking center mid in high school. And so I was pretty crafty and had some good ball skills, which I didn’t want to lose as a forward, where a lot of times it is straight run and gun or just being strong on the ball and having a god strike. And if you’re good at those things, you’re going to be a good forward. But I think playing center mid growing up, I was able to keep a little bit of that and integrate it into my game as a forward. Sometimes it is hard because coaches want me to be a traditional nine and post up player, but that wasn’t my style growing up, so it’s something I’ve had to learn. But I would rather try and learn that than have to try and learn how to be a crafty player at this point.

Looking back at your rookie year, what stands out to you? 

I think that my rookie season, I just learned so much about the whole professional world, how to be a professional athlete, how to take care of yourself, how to play the game, how to improve, how to deal with contracts and all these other things that we’re never a part of my life before. I feel like my rookie season, I was kind of just like a sponge. I really sucked it all in. And I learned a lot from the veterans on the team and the girls who have been doing it a while. I also came to understand the business side of it, because even though I had a good season and I really enjoyed my time, I knew they didn’t want me back at the end of the year. They had to do what was best for the club and that was to trade me. So I feel like I kind of got thrown into the world of professional soccer really fast.

But with each different team I’ve been a part of, and each different club that I’ve been able to play for, I’ve learned, you know, what it takes to successfully run a club, especially from the owner’s perspective. I mean, Steve [Baldwin], our owner now, has done tremendous things for our club. He’s made such a difference in just the year that he’s been our owner. It’s exciting for the future of not only our club but the NWSL because owners like Steve kind of set that standard.

What do you think Steve’s done that’s been especially beneficial? 

He’s always high energy, and he has high belief. There’s no wavering in that. He just goes out there and represents us, and he’ll literally talk to anyone about money and sponsorships. He does a really good job of getting things in the works and getting us better sponsorships. He’s not afraid of people saying no, but a lot of people have said yes. I think he has like, no joke, five meetings a day with potential sponsors and current sponsors. And not only is he working on our sponsorships, but he’s doing a lot for the league as a whole in terms of finding partners.

He makes you excited to be a part of this movement for the Spirit. His efforts show you just how much faith he has in us as players and as a program. We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard, because we know Steve is going out to vouch for us. He treats female athletes like the athletes they are, and we know he’s going to fight for us.

You live cross country from your husband for half of the year while you’re playing. How do you two handle that part of the professional athlete experience? 

It’s definitely hard, but we just make it work and it’s kind of like a normal part of our lives now. I think it helps that he’s super, super supportive and is one of my biggest fans. It makes me so happy when he’s like, Oh my gosh, I can’t wait for this season to start, I just want to watch you guys play again. He’s just so invested and really enjoys it. And I don’t think, honestly it would be possible for us to have this long distance relationship if he wasn’t that way. So it’s definitely hard, but being with someone who’s supportive and who you truly love makes it doable.

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.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.