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Imani Mcgee-Stafford Talks Stepping Away From the WNBA to Pursue Her Law Degree

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Imani McGee-Stafford is a professional basketball player who recently announced her decision to take a two-year hiatus from the WNBA in order to pursue a law degree from Southwestern Law School in LA. A University of Texas graduate, McGee-Stafford was drafted 10th overall in the 2016 WNBA draft by the Chicago Sky. Named to the WNBA All-Rookie team, McGee-Stafford went on to play for both Atlanta Dream and the Dallas Wings. Below, she discusses what inspired her to return to school and how she handled her earlier transition from college to the pros.

When did you first become interested in pursuing a degree in law? 

I started thinking about law school after Dr. Ford’s testimony in the Brett Kavanaugh hearing a couple of years ago. The fact that we would feel comfortable putting someone accused of these things in the highest job in the land was just crazy to me. Then couple that with Trump’s sexual assault allegations, and it just showed me that we really don’t care about women as a country. And that’s when I started thinking, how can I help change that? The only route that made sense to me was being a lawyer.

Do you think that your basketball career is over or do you hope to return to the league after you graduate from law school?

We’ll see what life has. But my goal is to take a two-year hiatus, which will probably end up being one, because I don’t think we’re going to have a season this year, then come back and play for a couple of years and then retire and do law.

What kind of message do you think pursuing a degree in law sends to your fans who look up to you as an athlete?

I think that because athletes are notably great at their sport, people believe that we can only be great at one thing. It is really hard for people to picture athletes doing anything other than athletics, because that is usually what they’re best at. For me, I’m totally an idealistic child when it comes to the fact that I really want to see if I can have it all. I want to live like five lives, because I just want to do so much. Hopefully fans that look up to me understand that you can do whatever you really set your mind to. I mean, I got into law school with a full scholarship. I had to work really hard for it, but it’s possible.

Looking back, did you know that you wanted to pursue basketball professionally when you were playing at Texas?

Not until my last two years. It just became more tangible towards the end of my college career. For one, I always used basketball as a means to an end. I wanted a free education and to major in accounting, and Texas has the number one accounting program in the country. That was what I focused on when picking a school. Also, I didn’t really think I was good enough and I wasn’t a “sports-first” type of person. But then, my junior year, I started off the season with an injury and I pretty much spent the whole year on what felt like one leg. But I still did really well and won some Big 12 accolades. That’s when I was like, “Wow. Maybe I can keep hanging and go far with basketball.”

Did you follow the WNBA at that point and were there any teams that you were hoping to get drafted by?

I’m different because my mom played for the WNBA, so I’ve kind of been around it my entire life. I wanted to go to Dallas, ironically, or San Antonio, because I was already in Texas and at that time was married to my ex-husband who had also gone to Texas. So I wanted to just stay close. Then if that didn’t happen, which it didn’t, I wanted to go to Chicago because I knew Pokey [Chatman] really liked me — she was the head coach at Chicago at the time. I wanted to be with whoever really liked me.

Can you remember your reaction and your thoughts when you were drafted?

Relief, probably, because it’s a really scary, nerve-wracking kind of situation as you’re waiting for your name to get called. It feels like two minutes takes forever to pass. You’re not in control, and you really don’t know where you’re going. So when I finally got drafted, it was mostly just relief, and I was excited, because I got to go to Chicago. I knew that Pokey really wanted me on her team.

What made your transition from college ball to the league so successful?

I think I was just well-prepared. Shout-out to my college coach and my family and friends. When I was getting interviewed before the draft, I talked to Dan Hughes, who’s now the coach of Seattle, but he was San Antonio’s coach at the time. He asked me a question, and it was super simple. He said, “What do you bring to the game every time you step on the court?” I don’t remember how I answered in the moment, but it was something I really thought about and took with me as I entered the league. To play at the WNBA level, you have to do something great and you have to consistently do it great, every day. Maybe you’re a scorer or maybe you’re just a rebounder. Whatever it is, you have to leave the college mindset of being a “do-it-all player” and figure out what it is you do great every day.

Some people are special and they can be that same player they are in college. But most players have to transition based on the new team they are playing with, and I think I was able to do that. What I bring every day is energy. I talk. I’m loud. I’m locked in. I’m a defensive presence and a rebounder. Defense is what I enjoy doing, and it’s what I’m known for doing. I’m going to bring you great energy, and I’m going to know the scouting report, up and down, every day. Regardless of who steps up in front of me, I’m going to be ready every day.

You have a very athletic family. You mentioned that your mom played in the WNBA, and your brother plays in the NBA. How much has your family’s experience with professional basketball impacted you as a player? 

Heading into the league, it was helpful in terms of knowing what to expect. I had the benefit of asking some of the greats — Tina Thompson, Lisa Leslie, my mom — about what to expect and how to be successful. But ultimately, around my second year in the league, I figured out how to measure my own success. That helped alleviate a feeling of pressure, as I just acknowledged that I may never actually attain the success that my family has, but that doesn’t mean I’m failing.

What was it about your second year that helped you come to that realization? 

My rookie year, I was starting. I was on the All-Rookie team. I was playing in the semifinals as a rookie. Then, the next season, my coach got fired, and I did not mesh well with the new coach at all. I went from having a significant role to not playing at all, even though I felt as though I was better than the other people in my position. That was when I had to figure out what success looks like for me. How can I measure something when it’s not really in my control? How do I take inventory of what I think my success is and make small, tangible goals, even though my playing time is out of my control? That’s when I learned to be my own judge.

Looking ahead, do you have a specific interest in terms of what type of law you’d like to practice? 

I am interested in civil litigation and public interest law. I want to be a research lawyer and help change laws around women’s rights and sexual violence. We need more women in the field. The people who make laws and policy advocate for what they know and for people who look like them. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of people of color nor women of color in those positions. I want to get to that position so that I can help people like me.

Decorated Olympic Swimmer Katie Ledecky to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

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Katie Ledecky is the most decorated athlete in the history of women's swimming. (Zheng Huansong/Xinhua via Getty Images)

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. 

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.

Exclusive: Kelley O’Hara announces retirement at end of 2024 NWSL season

uswnt player kelley o'hara poses with an american flag at the world cup
USWNT defender Kelley O'Hara will close out her decorated career at the end of the 2024 NWSL season. (Jose Breton/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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.

O'Hara celebrates after scoring the winning goal for the Washington Spirit at the 2021 NWSL Championship match in Louisville, Kentucky. (Jamie Rhodes/USA TODAY Sports)

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."

O'Hara poses with USWNT teammates Alex Morgan and Tobin Heath after winning the 2015 Women's World Cup in Vancouver, Canada. (Mike Hewitt - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

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."

O'Hara speaking with fellow USWNT members and vets at the White House Equal Pay Day Summit in 2022. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

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."

Brittney Griner Opens Up about Russian Imprisonment in New ’20/20′ Special

brittney griner talks to press
Griner was jailed in Russia for almost 10 months in 2022. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

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.

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."

USWNT Vet Carli Lloyd Announces Pregnancy After ‘Rollercoaster’ IVF Journey

retired soccer player carli lloyd
Lloyd will welcome her first child with husband Brian Hollins this October. (Dennis Schneidler/USA TODAY Sports)

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.

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.

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