Jurnee Woodward is an All-SEC huddler for the Louisiana State University track and field team. During a protest following the killing of George Floyd, Woodward delivered a speech on the need for leadership and accountability, and shared that she had considered leaving the LSU track team after not hearing from her coaches in the wake of Floyd’s death. Below, she spoke with Just Women’s Sports to clarify a few points in her message and to share what led her to speak out in the first place. 

Talk to us about the events leading up to the protest. What motivated you to speak out?

Everything happened very quickly, but it feels like it’s been 15 years. Mr. Floyd’s horrible murder forced me to sit back and listen to other people’s stories. It made me become introspective and think about things that have been repressed from my childhood. After a few days, it was brought to my attention by several of my teammates on the women’s sprint team that our coach — Coach Shaver — had not reached out to us yet. I listened as my teammates, my sisters of color, talked about how hurt they were that our head man in charge had not said anything. I had seen people on social media say, “If you are afraid of losing your job, so you decided to stay quiet, then you are part of the problem.” I saw myself as contributing to part of the problem because I didn’t know how to approach any of this. If I go back to LSU and I still haven’t heard anything from Shaver, does that make me part of the problem?

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Had you planned to deliver a speech at the protest? 

No, it wasn’t planned. When we went to the protest, I felt like I was marching with my brothers and sisters of different colors. It felt like we were standing together for something. It’s true, in unity there is strength. I felt amazing and empowered. When we were sitting outside of the Hayward Police Department, they had a bullhorn and people were coming up from the crowd, expanding upon their stories. By hearing their stories, I felt empowered, but I also realized I didn’t see people like me sharing their stories. I wasn’t seeing young women like me — I wasn’t seeing any athletes. I approached it like I approach a race: there is no turning back. You have to walk down to the starting line in front of everyone and you have to commit.

I knew that my story could touch someone out there and call them to action. I got up there and the words started flowing. I definitely felt the surge of support when I went up there and got that megaphone. I’m an introvert, so it was completely outside of my comfort zone.  I spoke out of emotion. It was very raw for me. I was extremely drained after.

In the speech, you talked about how painful it had been to not initially hear from coaches. You said that had led you to consider leaving the team. Can you talk about that? 

Yes. First, I just want to clear the air. I am still at LSU. I am returning for my senior year and I’m still going to continue to train and compete in women’s track and field.

When I hadn’t heard from my coach, I had decided that I was going to write an email to him about how I felt because I knew that the girls were upset that they hadn’t been reached out to by any of the coaching staff. Then I decided that I would rather pray, sleep on it, and come to a level headed decision the next morning. I prayed for the words to come to me, I prayed for a sign. Sure enough, the next morning, I woke up to a call from Coach Shaver. It didn’t matter what he said, all that mattered was the fact that he did reach out.

What was your reaction when you saw the video of your speech? 

I wasn’t even aware that my aunt had taken a video of me. I’m not going to lie, it was a little hard to rewatch a video that was so emotional and so raw. I like to think that I’m my own biggest critic, so I was picking apart my speech. It was all so fresh and I had never done something like that before.

Were you surprised by the reaction when you posted the video on your social media? 

All I wanted was to touch someone. I didn’t expect people to reach out after my speech, but they did. I realized that if I can touch these people in my own community, then maybe I can touch people in other communities as well who might be too afraid to speak up. That’s what led me to post the video. I knew when I posted it that not everyone was going to be happy. I didn’t know who I was going to receive support from and who I wasn’t. So far, the video does seem to resonate with a lot of people — in good ways and bad ways. I said all that I wanted to say in that moment, but now I feel like there needs to be some clarification.

What is it that you want to clarify?

I know I wasn’t the youngest in the crowd, so there are some choice curse words that I would retract from my statement. I also want to clarify that Coach Shaver is not a bad man. He is not a bad coach. He has shown me and a lot of other athletes love and support, especially with our mental health. And the timeline of events might have been screwed up in my speech, or maybe people weren’t listening, or maybe they held onto one part of what I said. If I could do that speech again, rehearsed, I would. To be clear, I do not regret one thing that I said. Would I say it differently? Yes. But do I regret what I said? Not at all.

What do you think that LSU, specifically, needs to do to take action moving forward? 

The thing is, right after I posted the speech on social media, Coach Shaver and our coaching staff were wonderful in quickly bringing the team together on a Zoom call and addressing it face-to-face. Maybe there was some sort of miscommunication on both ends. My call for action was not just targeted at LSU, but at everyone. People need to hold other people accountable, no matter what. We need coaches and athletes to work together in order to lift up those voices that are unheard. After I posted the video, Coach Shaver had a talk with everyone on the LSU track and field women’s sprint team that I believe was important to have. Those discussions that we need to have on our teams and with our staff are going to be hard, but it is what needs to be done.

My words were not in any way meant to be harmful to LSU, which has done so much for me. I’m thankful for the opportunities that they have given me that have helped me to become the person that I am today — the elite athlete that I am today.

What were your coach’s thoughts about the video and your speech? 

I can’t speak for him, but in the Zoom call meeting with our team he said that the video touched him and that it hurt him to hear some of those words. Those words created the conversation, though. When Coach Shaver first called me, before the protest, he told me, “I see you as one of the leaders on our team.” In my opinion, I am doing what he asks of me — not just on the team, but also in life.

How important do you think it is for athletes in particular to speak out? 

I think it is very powerful. It is one of the main reasons I decided to go up there and speak myself. There is definitely a level of fear of being turned away by one’s peers, by one’s teammates, by one’s coaches. In my mind, though, I am willing to give up everything for what I am and for what I believe in. I’m tired — a lot of people are tired and exhausted. But, I’m not going to stay silent. I believe in standing up for what I think is right. So do my fellow athletes at LSU, which is why we’ve now created the Black Student-Athlete Association (BSAA) to help tackle these topics at our college. Hopefully other collegiate athletes will follow suit.

I do not want this narrative to get pushed to the wayside when the fall semester begins. We set a precedent for the generations that come after us. We are leaders and it’s time that we start holding ourselves accountable.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony on Friday afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

"I'm surrounded by so many extraordinary people in so many different fields," Ledecky told Just Women's Sports on Friday. "I feel like I've made a lot of friends today among that group, and their families and their friends."

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.

Ledecky said she was surprised to learn how recent it has been that athletes in women's sports have been considered for the honor. Billie Jean King was the first to receive the award in 2009. "That kind of blew my mind that it was that recent," she said.

"There are so many great female athletes that I've looked up to for so many years," she continued. "And I know we're just going to keep pushing ahead, and doing our best to continue to get a seat at every table."

Like Biles, Ledecky receives the Medal of Freedom while she's still actively competing in her sport, a fact not lost on the 27-year-old. "My goals in the pool are to continue to push forward and swim good times, hopefully win some more medals. And then secondly to continue to do good things out of the pool, whether that's inspiring young kids to learn how to swim, get into the sport, set big goals in whatever pursuits they're interested in."

"I've recognized I've had a long career now, and it's important to reflect every now and then. But at the same time, I'm still competing and still working hard into the future."

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.