Madison Ellsworth is a defender for the Oregon State University soccer team. Below, she spoke with Just Women’s Sports about the recent protests, what she’s doing with other Beaver athletes to drive change at Oregon State, and what needs to happen to move the country forward. 

What was your reaction to the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests?

It surprisingly hit me really hard. Obviously, there have been so many other murders of innocent black people in the recent past, like Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, but for some reason the George Floyd killing really affected me. I was pretty emotional. I cried a lot. I did the run for Ahmaud and, in my head, I thought that we had this movement on social media and I figured that would kind of be the end of it. To have it happen again, so soon, it was just a slap in the face.

My emotions were all over the place. On my team, there’s me and one other black girl. We felt so isolated and lonely during this time. Before I posted my message on Instagram, I sent it to my coaches and my team because it was mainly directed at them. I kept thinking, “This is affecting everyone. Why isn’t anyone reaching out to me?” There were a lot of different things going through my head last week.

What has your team done to support student athletes and the black community in general? What has Oregon State done?

Actually, I’m on the diversity and inclusion committee for SAAC [Student-Athlete Advisory Committee], so I’m in the process of figuring that out. We are probably going to have warm up tops and gear for our fall sports. And maybe bracelets and informational cards to give out to fans about the Black Lives Matter movement. We want to educate the fans on what’s going on in the community and make sure that our student athletes feel appreciated.

At Oregon State, and I’m sure this is the case with a lot of schools, black population is concentrated in athletics. After talking with football players and wrestlers and other athletes, there’s a feeling that we are being used for our athletic ability and people couldn’t care less about what’s going on right now. This weekend we actually had a forum for all student athletes so that black student athletes could share their stories. We are going to keep doing these forums and we want coaches to come to them, too. We want to continue to educate everyone on what’s going on.

In the past few weeks, have you noticed any changes in the culture around Oregon State athletics? 

Within the athletic department, I’ve noticed that we, as a black athlete community, have already gotten so much closer to each other because we are the only ones who understand the struggle right now in athletics. We know that there needs to be change. We need to break down the barrier of sports and look outside of sports. For a lot of us, who we are comes from our sports, but recent events have changed everything. There are football players who eat, sleep and breathe football saying that they’re unmotivated to play now. They’re saying, “I don’t even want to play football. I just want to talk and be heard.” That’s insane to me. Everyone just feels so passionately about this.

Why do you think it’s important for individuals to speak out?

I just don’t get why you wouldn’t want to speak out. To me, being able to live your life without being killed for the color of your skin seems like a basic human right. In my opinion, I would be speaking out if this was happening to any other race, too. I don’t think you can use the excuse that it’s not affecting you personally to not speak out. Everyone at least knows someone who has firsthand experience with the effects of racism. There’s no excuse. In my opinion, if you’re a decent human being you would speak out on this because it’s not even controversial — it’s just racism versus not racism.

I hate the excuse of “I don’t post politics on social media, blah, blah, blah.” There are so many other ways you can be helping besides social media. I had a discussion with one of my teammates because she hadn’t reached out to me or my other black teammate and she hadn’t posted anything. So, from my perspective, she was a part of the problem. I told her that and she was like, “Oh no, I didn’t mean that.” You just have to make it known to everyone around you that you support the movement — you can’t just assume that people know that. I think that’s why it’s important that people post and spread awareness.

What do you think about the athletes, both collegiate and professional, who have spoken out and showed support specifically for the Black Lives Matter movement? Why is that important? 

God bless them. I don’t think people realize how much power they have. One of my teammates, who is a forward and has always been the cover of Oregon State women’s soccer, came to me because she was worried that she didn’t have the platform to speak out and be heard. First off, I said, you do, because the Pac 12 is huge and so many people look up to you. People just don’t realize that about themselves, though. Seeing people in power, like LeBron James, speak out and be strong in their opinion is so necessary to inspire others.

What do you feel like needs to change in the immediate future?

Well, for starters, people need to vote. So many people don’t even know how to vote. It’s hard, though, because there are so many black people who are incarcerated and they don’t have the right to vote. And there is such a high population of people of color in poverty who don’t have the best resources or the best access to vote. It’s difficult, but I do think that everyone who can vote, needs to be voting. There’s really no excuse for people to think, “Oh, my city is fine. I don’t need to vote.” Even local positions, like the chief of police, are so crucial. In Eugene, last year, there was an incident where a black male was killed by a police officer and there were no repercussions. I went to a protest and it made me realize, you know, even in Eugene this is a problem. We need to focus on who we are giving power to.

Do you have an opinion of the argument that we should defund the police departments? 

I saw someone post about that today, and I automatically thought that they were trying to take away the police department. It seemed a little drastic. But I do think the idea of taking some funding from the police department and putting it towards other organizations and community resources is a great idea. I think that police officers are extremely valuable and necessary, but they have too much power at this point. The fact that they can pull someone out of their car for no reason and then hurt them with no repercussions is crazy.

How does the country move forward?

I feel like the only way for the country to move forward is if there are some big action steps taken by police departments and the government. What sucks is that we have a president who couldn’t care less right now and who can’t take control. At this point, it starts with us. There are actual ideas and ways, like the 8 Can’t Wait campaign, for us to make a change. I think people are tired of feeling like no one cares about them. So, taking steps like implementing reforms shows progress and shows people that those in government positions do actually care.

How do you think we can educate more people about these issues? 

I think the solution could be to start in the classroom. There needs to be an updated curriculum. The most memorable thing I learned in middle school was about the Holocaust, and we spent maybe two class periods on it. This event shaped the world and we only spent two classes on it. At the same time, though, we spent three weeks talking about the Oregon trail or Christopher Columbus. There needs to be a revamp on the entire curriculum.

What are your next steps, personally? 

I don’t even know. I’ve been so overwhelmed by everything that’s happening right now. For me, I think the next steps are to continue focusing on Oregon State athletics and thinking of how we can educate people and continue to make this a topic of discussion. Being the diversity and inclusion chair, I know my group is focusing on how we can continue the Black Lives Matter movement in the fall and throughout each season, fall, winter, and spring. We can’t let it just be a trend.

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.