At Big Ten Basketball’s combined media days in October, conference commissioner Kevin Warren announced the formation of a new position. The Vice President of Big Ten Women’s Basketball would be just the second role among the Power Five conferences to be focused solely on women’s basketball, showcasing the conference’s commitment to gender equity.

Last Thursday, the Big Ten filled the position with Megan Kahn, the former CEO and Executive Director of WeCOACH, an organization that supports the recruitment, advancement and retention of women coaches at all levels of sport. In a year when the inequities between men’s and women’s collegiate sports, and particularly basketball, have been pushed to the forefront, Khan is primed to lead the movement toward a level playing field.

Khan, who grew up in Iowa and has always been passionate about the Big Ten, will be tasked with “developing cohesive strategy to strengthen, enhance and expand the Big Ten women’s basketball operations, brand and strategic initiatives.” She’ll also serve as a liaison to head coaches, campus administrators and league’s television partners.

Just Women’s Sports spoke with Kahn about the new position, her plans for Big Ten women’s basketball and how she would like to see the conference continue to effect change at a national level.

What made you decide to leave WeCOACH and join the Big Ten?

I will tell you, I do love my job. I am so fortunate to never wake up in the morning and feel like I’m going to work. I’m just so passionate about what we do, serving coaches. Especially being able to do what we’re doing on a national level and impact so many women. I’ve passed on a lot of opportunities, but this one was just one that makes my heart sing. Having grown up in Iowa and in the Big Ten footprint, [I’m a] huge Big Ten fan. I have tons of friends and colleagues that are already in the league, and to go back to a women’s basketball-specific position at the best conference in the country is a complete no-brainer.

How do you think your experience at WeCOACH will help you as you step into your new role and attempt to take Big Ten Women’s Basketball to new heights?

My entire career journey has truly prepared me for this role. I’ve served in two conference offices, the ACC and the Atlantic 10 Conference. I’ve run two women’s Final Fours as the tournament manager, overseeing game operations, and then spent the last nine years here with WeCOACH, the last five as Executive Director and CEO.

I think that cumulative experience will help me be able to step in, come in with my own ideas, have an understanding of what it’s like to be in that position in a conference office and to really be able to elevate the brand.

For so long, [Big Ten women’s basketball] has probably not received the respect it’s deserved. Everything’s been SEC or the Pac-12, and both of those conferences have been extremely successful. But the strength of the Big Ten warrants them in that same conversation. The league’s probably as strong as it’s ever been, and that certainly was a drawing point for me when I was evaluating this position. When they first announced it, it was, “Oh my gosh, somebody gets to walk into a gold mine.”

You’ve mentioned that this job made your “heart sing.” What are you most excited about with this new role?

I get paid to eat, breathe and sleep Big Ten women’s basketball. How cool is that?

But for real, it’s everything that I love about college athletics and women’s basketball rolled into one job. So I get to come into a conference that’s already extremely successful, that has high standards for athletic excellence, academic excellence, which both align with my values. The product itself is fantastic. The coaches have done a phenomenal job recruiting talented student-athletes. They’re putting competitive teams on the floor every single night, so I have a great product to go sell. I get to talk and promote women’s basketball on a national level. I think the Big Ten has a chance to be a national thought leader and raise the bar and sort of set very high standards for what we’re seeing happen in the women’s game across the country.

And, I mean, this is unbelievable to walk into a position [where] you already have Commissioner Warren on board, right? How many times are women in our industry sort of fighting the leadership to get on board with what they’re trying to do in women’s sports? And you already have Commissioner Warren, who’s committed to walking the talk. So I’m walking into a position that has just tremendous upside.

What are your plans for growing Big Ten women’s basketball? Are there any specific strategies you’ve laid out so far?

My first official start date is Dec. 15. They’re going to be in the middle of their
conference season already. They’re less than 90 days from the women’s tournament in Indianapolis, so day one, I have to remind myself that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

In the first 30 to 45 days, my goal is to be on every single campus and meet the coaches and start really cultivating those genuine relationships. From my understanding, they haven’t had somebody that has their back every day, right? There’s been nobody in this position that they can call, that they can trust and that they know is out fighting for them and in their corner and has their back day in and day out. So that has to be priority No. 1, for me to go and start building those relationships.

And then, two, start building relationships with the internal and external stakeholders of the game — the media, your television partner, your corporate partners, your alumni, your fans. I think there’s so much that we can do in the digital space to really grow the brand, promote the brand, which in turn will help our coaches with recruiting. It will help the student-athletes with NIL opportunities and all of those things that come about from elevating your brand and really driving brand awareness in the national landscape.

Then there’s the footprint itself, with the conference spanning from Nebraska to the East Coast, you have an immense television package. I think there are 6 million alums at Big Ten institutions, so we have all the makings for success. It’s just sort of putting all those puzzle pieces in place and starting that build. We’ve got to start walking up the mountain one step at a time.

I said this in my Big Ten network interview: My goal by 2024 is that we’re selling out the semis and the championship game of the tournament. There’s no reason — Big Ten Women’s Basketball is that strong — that we shouldn’t be gunning for a massive turnaround. I think just from a data standpoint, those are some pretty big markers that we could hit within two-plus years.

This is just the second senior staff position among the Power Five conferences that is dedicated solely to women’s basketball. What do you think that says about the growth of the women’s game and about the change the Big Ten is trying to implement on a national scale?

It’s a testament to Commissioner Warren and his commitment to elevating women’s sports as a whole and women’s basketball, and his willingness to invest in the position and really let his coaches know how much he believes in giving them a platform to raise the bar and to elevate women’s basketball. And I do think we will see others follow. I always like to say imitation is the best form of flattery, so I have no doubt others will follow suit in terms of what the Big Ten is doing … we’re just primed to be national thought leaders and raise the bar and set some pretty high standards and let’s go make others chase us, right? The goal is that we would be in a position to be at the top of the echelon.

What was your reaction to disparities between the NCAA basketball tournaments last year? Was that part of the reason you wanted to get directly involved with the NCAA again, to push for real gender equity in college sports?

It was so heartbreaking for anyone who’s invested in the game of women’s basketball and women’s sports to watch that play out on the national scene last year. It was painful, and I am so glad to see the NCAA already making significant progress. I think if you asked the trailblazers who have been investing in and leading the game of women’s basketball for 20-plus years, they’ve been fighting these same battles. And yet it was continuing to say the same things over and over, but there was never progress being made. Not to their fault, it’s just there wasn’t buy-in, there wasn’t investment, there weren’t all the things in place that needed to happen for that progress to be made.

We’ve already seen significant progress with March Madness and the expansion of the bracket. … You take the fact that all that is happening in a very short amount of time, and these are the things that have been asked for for years, that’s progress. We still have a long way to go, but it’s encouraging to already see that much progress being made.

Expanding on that, what do you make of the NCAA’s response to the inequities and what else would you like to see change?

I do know that the NCAA’s working on a revamped strategic plan. I have no doubt that there’s going to be some trickle-down effects that will come down at the conference level, come down to the campus level, just really being able to elevate.

I think it’s going to be fantastic if they can unbundle some of those media rights that have had everything so tied up, that was limiting TV revenue, corporate sponsorship activation, some of those things that were really limiting what was happening on the women’s side. The two of those will absolutely create progress. I know they’re looking at a combined men’s and women’s Final Four as early as 2027. Next year, I think, is the first year they’ll go to two super regionals, but just so much growth and opportunity is happening on the national level, which is going to elevate all of women’s basketball across the country.

Talking about combining the tournament sites, do you think there would ever be a potential for that in the Big Ten?

I am not sure. I don’t know if that’s ever been talked about. I don’t know if that’s something that the coaches would even want … It’s a good question. I’ve asked myself that question, too.

Does it even make sense? How would you do the tournament format? Because each of their tournaments are, like, five days as it is, so how would the tournament bracket look? My hope is that, even if it would never be a combined tournament, we’re offering our men and our women student-athletes equitable experiences.

Beyond establishing your new role with the Big Ten, what positive steps have you seen the conference make toward gender equity and where do you see room for improvement?

I know Commissioner Warren has challenged each of their staff members to continue to come up with innovative and strategic ideas that can help elevate women’s sports across the whole. I know the leadership in the administration is looking at how they celebrate Title IX and give it the respect that it deserves in the 50th anniversary next spring. The fact that those conversations are playing out and the senior leadership team is committed to really implementing it and showcasing it and highlighting it and making it a priority that it gets done, I think is fantastic.

Let’s look at the combined media days that they had in Indianapolis in October. They’re one of the first to ever do that — input their men and their women coaches on the exact same stage, and their men and their women student-athletes got the exact same experience in the same building across two days. And the fact that BTN provided live coverage of all of that, that was innovative. And I know they pulled that off in a very short amount of time, and that shows Commissioner Warren’s commitment to really providing those equitable experiences.

What else do you have your eye on as you step into this role?

I think the one that comes out in the most public and visible way would be around the women’s tournament. Let’s make sure our women student-athletes at the women’s basketball tournament are having the exact same experience as our men’s basketball student athletes are getting in Chicago in 2022. That’s an immediate thing that I need to understand: What plans are in place for the ’22 tournament and where we can provide change and raise the bar?

The Big Ten has five teams in the AP Top 25, showcasing the conference’s strength and depth this year. How have you seen the Big Ten grow into a powerhouse and how do you plan to build on that success in your new role?

That’s the coaches. They’ve done a phenomenal job recruiting talented student-athletes, putting competitive teams on the court night in and night out. And they’re doing it as the best-kept secret in college basketball right now. They’re not getting the respect, I think, on the national level that they deserve.

The Women’s Basketball Committee, when we get to February and March and it’s time for Selection Monday, we need to do a great job of making sure that our teams have been seen, that I’m out there actively promoting and advocating for their selection, their ranking into the tournament. I think it was last year that they had seven teams make the postseason overall between the NCAA and the WNIT. Making sure that our teams get the recognition they deserve for postseason opportunities, that’s really important to me.

Emma Hruby is an associate editor at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @EHruby.

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

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.