January may have just gotten underway, but 2021 is already shaping up to be a crucial year for the USWNT. With an Olympic contest scheduled to—hopefully—take place this summer, the women once again find themselves poised to prove their worth on the field in order to notch a win off the field in their continued fight for equal pay.

In December, the team settled with the U.S. Soccer Federation on working conditions, opening the door for them to appeal the partial summary judgement handed down by Federal Judge Gary R. Klausner this past May, which dismissed the majority of the team’s equal pay claims.

Judge Klausner’s ruling focused on the fact that the WNT and MNT separately negotiated their respective collective bargaining agreements with the USSF, which resulted in different pay structures. However, Jeffrey Kessler, the women’s team’s attorney, argued the women were discriminated against at the bargaining table based on discrepancies in how the U.S. federation treats its male and female players.

That argument will be put to the test this year as the USWNT Players Association begins negotiations on a new CBA, which will take effect when the current CBA expires on December 31, 2021. Though it’s too soon to tell, the new agreement could be used as a tool in a potential final settlement agreement between the USWNT and the U.S. Soccer Federation. And now that the team has been awarded long-overdue equal working conditions, you can expect these upcoming CBA negotiations to be focused exclusively on equal pay.

As those conversations start to take shape, the women will undoubtedly leverage their prowess on the field as they flex fresh legs in the upcoming SheBelieves Cup and steady their focus on Tokyo.

A gold medal this summer would mark the first time a women’s team has won gold in the Olympics immediately following a World Cup championship. It would also put the 2016 Olympics firmly in the rearview, after the USWNT crashed out of Rio in a disappointing quarter-finals loss to Sweden.

“We’ve got a lot to do,” Sam Mewis told Kelley O’Hara on a recent episode of the Just Women’s Sports podcast. “We’ve got a lot we want to accomplish this year. It’s business time. We’re in the office. It’s go time.”

Mewis, who was recently named the 2020 US Soccer Player of the Year, was an alternate on that 2016 Olympics squad. O’Hara started three of the team’s four games in the tournament, and has since said that losing to Sweden was a low point in her career. This summer, both Mewis and O’Hara will have a chance to rewrite the script.

But first, the USWNT will face off against #26 ranked Colombia in back-to-back matches as part of the team’s January training camp in Orlando, Florida, with the first game slated for January 18 (7pm ET on FS1). Fresh off a 2-0 win over the Netherlands in Breda, this will be the players’ first home match in 313 days, as they embark on what promises to be a consequential 2021 campaign.

Tyler Wright is now the first woman to ever win a Championship Tour event at Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu, but her history making performance on the 2021 tour doesn’t stop there. After battling back from post-viral syndrome that took her away from surfing for more than two years, Wright is not only crushing waves, but using her voice to expand conversations about equality in the sport. Wright recently sat down with JWS to talk about being the first surfer to wear the Progressive Pride Flag, her activism around the Black Lives Matter movement, and how illness changed her perspective on life. 

To start here, I want to acknowledge the tragic passing of a recreational surfer at Honolua Bay. How did surfers react to that?

It’s always tragic and it’s always sensitive and kind of traumatic. No one ever sees it coming. I think there’s a lot of shock involved in what happened at Honolua and the tragic passing of that gentleman. I think it caught everyone by surprise.

You put up some impressive scores including a perfect 10. How does it feel to be back in the water for the 2021 Championship Tour?

I’m really grateful that I can even be in this position again. It’s been quite the journey to get here and to be able to really go out and enjoy the start. To be back in the water and start the 2021 championship season, I feel really grateful and intentful on what I’m here to do.

In addition to your perfect 10, you made history by adding the Progressive Pride Flag to your jersey. What drove you to do that and what was the process like to get that done? 

There’s a few different things that really led me to that. I fell in love a few years ago, and that changed my life forever. It was one of those things. I had a few conversations with my friends at the time — this is back in 2018 before I got sick — it kind of came up then, and because of the incredible human being that I had met, wanting to thank her. I wasn’t really publicly out. I think it’s been quite the journey between there and now, and understanding the importance of representation, the importance of inclusion and what it actually means to see that in surfing.

I essentially asked the WSL if I could surf with the Progressive Pride Flag, and they were completely behind it and have supported me all the way through. It’s two-fold. Honoring those who have come before me and also for the generations to come to know that this is a safe space. And we’re aware as well that it’s important to continue these conversations around equality and inclusion

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I think a lot of people in the LGBTQIA+ community, myself included, can really relate to the inner journey that you have to go on before you can exist publicly as this full version of yourself and everyone goes on a different journey. I’m curious if you could share a bit about your experience and what it means to be an out athlete.

I just didn’t get it at first, you know. When I first fell in love, I said, “No, I will not be known for my sexuality. My sexuality will not be part of my career.” I think people expect that if you do identify with the LGBTQIA+ community, that you all of a sudden don’t have internalized homophobia, whereas I felt that I was raised in a really homophic, racist, and sexist environment so I had that in me even though it’s not something that I really knew.

I think through this all, and when I got sick, and then through COVID, it allowed me to come back and ask “What athlete do I want to be? And what do I want to stand up for?” I just started noticing who was speaking about it and how inspired I was.

It’s been a journey to find out who I am, and what kind of athlete I want to be, and who I want to stand up for. It’s not something I embraced as a younger athlete, but I’ve been in the sport for a while now and am a bit more settled in who I am.

Generally speaking, when people think about surfing, they envision this environmentally conscious, laid back, liberal culture, but what would you say is the reality for LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC surfers and what work needs to be done to make the sport more inclusive?

The way I see it is that we’re not exempt. We’re not exempt from society’s great issues. The work does need to be done. It’s continuing those conversations whether that’s behind closed doors or in public. Like every sport, different issues show up in different ways and we have to think about how we dig in and get in the game, how we show up, how we do better.

You’ve been very public with your activism, what has been the reaction? 

I’m sure there’s been a lot said on social media — I don’t put too much value in that. The conversations that have come from the Black Lives Matter protesting in Cabarita in October have been incredible. I feel extremely lucky to be in this position, and to have the platform that I have and to be able to use it in this way. It’s something that I don’t take for granted. I don’t agree with being a-political. It’s a human rights thing and human decency and I just don’t see how anyone can really argue with that.

Appreciate you sharing that. Looking at your career as a surfer, for the past two years, you’ve been battling through post-viral syndrome. What powered you through that time and has it changed your perspective on the sport at all?

Yup [laughs]. I don’t know what got me through that time still, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It was really rough, but I had a partner at the time who was with me for everything and helped me through that and without her, I wouldn’t be here today. I’m incredibly lucky that I am here today. It has changed me. I think that and COVID has given me time to think about what I want my career to be about and what I want to stand up for.

I definitely look at my sport a little bit differently. Two and a half years out is a long time for someone in the middle of their career to be out of their sport and to be able to reflect. Some of what I saw I didn’t like, and so I was vocal about it, and I will continue to be vocal regardless of what anyone really thinks. I think surfing has views and I want to challenge some of them. We’ve done a good job marketing ourselves as counter culture, rebels, progressive, but I think surfing is on the conservative side and has a dominant hetero-patriarchal ideology at its core. I definitely think there should be a few different voices in the conversation at surfing’s core to create a connected community. What will that look like? I don’t know. How does that happen? I don’t know. But you can change it publicly, you can change it behind closed doors, you can change it with conservations.

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In the same vein of personally being changed, from the sport side, you just mentioned being away from a sport in the middle of your career for two and a half years. Did the sport change at all in terms of style or technique in that time?

In a technical sense, I’ve watched a lot, and the things that I look for haven’t changed, but I think surfing is always progressing and you can really see that in our next generation between the ages of about sixteen and twelve at the moment. I’m so psyched for them to hurry up, well not to hurry up, to absolutely take their time with respect to the growing up process, but also the quicker they come up, the earlier I can retire. They are so good.

And what I like to see, which is probably one thing that I will note as being different, but the next generation, when they’re in the line up, they know they belong in the line up and I think that’s something that’s really different from when I came through. I love seeing the difference of mentality and I feel like that’s our biggest progress, the younger generation owning that they are that good. I love it, I love to see it.

That’s incredible to hear. As a parallel, you went through some really heavy stuff during the time that you were sick — periods of isolation and being apart from the things that you love. So many people are going through varying degrees of that right now this year. Do you have any general advice on staying focused and keeping your eyes on the horizon?

This year is rough and being able to conceptualize this year while we’re still in it and while so many different things are going on is almost impossible. It’ll take us a few years to really process what this year’s been about. One of my biggest things is having to adjust your expectations of yourself. I know with COVID it’s like well, if I get out of bed I nailed it, and if I don’t, you know what, I nailed it too. You have to find that balance of, without pushing yourself over the edge, engaging with things that you still like. For me, I love learning so I essentially just deep dived on the internet on women’s sports, sexism, racism, and read so many different books. I never ever watched sports in my life and now I’m the biggest women’s sports fan there is, I’m such a nerd. I’m trying to learn as much as I can and that’s what I really got engaged with. It’s something that helped me understand who I am a little bit more — the representation of these other incredible athletes and representation that I don’t have in my sport.

Different human beings have different journeys, but keep learning, keep educating yourself and if you feel like shit, it’s completely okay. It’s a judgement free zone. Don’t expect yourself to go out and win everyday. You are where you are and that’s incredible. You’re doing a great job.

I prioritize recovery, and understanding recovery as well. Some days your mental, emotional, and intellectual output is through the roof, so how do you recover from that? It’s about taking care of yourself, being mentally and emotionally aware, and asking for help as well. It’s been a rough year.

That’s all really important to hear. Shifting back to the tour, it’s changed a bit for 2021. Are there any changes that you’re particularly excited about?

One thing is the final, the surf off for the world title. For a competitor, that is what I have wanted for such a long time, just to surf the best against the best, woman on woman, best of three. I couldn’t imagine anything better, just as a purely competitive game. The way it was was cool and it’s fun, and there’s tension, but there’s way more intense competition if you’re just straight running at the person who is in second place. It’s a whole new game that none of us have played.

So it’ll be the top five surfers who will be competing for the world title at Lower Trestles?

Yeah so five and four will face off, and then whomever wins that, four and three, three and two, and then two and one go head-to-head for three rounds. It’s that next level of competitiveness, that next level of strategy and analytical thinking — it’s so fun.

Speaking of the best of the best, I was watching you in the quarterfinals against Stephanie Gilmore. That was incredible. You’re both such powerhouses, you’re fellow Australians, what is the vibe like when you’re out there competing against your peers?

Steph and I have known each other for a long time. The last ten months we’ve all gotten so close, we all live in the same area, and at the start of COVID I was kind of okay, but I wasn’t really. I was still really heavily having PTSD, I was still having heavy flashbacks and was kind of functioning, but not really and I was still really underweight. But it was one of those things where Steph was like, “Come on, you’re coming to surf.” I would disappear for weeks on end because I was so used to isolation as well, I had kind of grown accustomed to it. But her and Nikki [Van Dijk] and some of the girls, they were like, “Come on, we’re going surfing, this is what we’re doing,” and got us into a pattern with surfing with everyone through COVID, and we only hung out with each other, about five or six of us. So coming back, we’re all like, “Okay, let’s do it.”

It’s wild to me because we’re all such good friends and really care about each other and still get to go and compete. You saw that heat in Maui, we weren’t holding back. On that last wave, on that 10, I knew the wave that she [Stephanie Gilmore] had before, and before I took off on the last one, I saw where she was and it didn’t look like she made it to the end so I was like, “Okay this is big, I don’t think she’s completed and this thing [wave] is lining up so good,” so 100% when I came out of that barrel I was like, “Yup, you’re done,” purely from a smartass competitive point of view. It was pure joy because I have been kicked around, I have been schooled by Steph so many times in that same situation. In the last few years, I’ve either won or lost against Steph. Actually, I’ve only lost against Steph, this was the first time I won, I’m pretty sure.

It’s hard to explain, but if you can have such close friends on tour, you’re the luckiest, and then to go out and know full well that you’re going to go out and absolutely go head-to-head and give it your absolute all, I don’t think there’s a better combination because you know at the end of the day no one care too much about who actually wins, we’re going to do it 100 more times throughout our careers.

It’s such a special and unique relationship and it’s so awesome, from our vantage point as fans, to be able to watch you guys. For some girls out there, they see surfing as this awesome sport, but being able to go out into the water and try it is really intimidating. Do you have any advice for those who are out there wondering how to even get started?

Literally just get started. I think surfing is a real equalizer. You’ve got this whole element, mother nature, and you’re literally working with mother nature on how to get good at something. It’s a really weird sport. As for leisure, social, physical, even mental, being out there in mother nature like that is one of the most beautiful things you could ever do. So my advice is to find somewhere that’s easy, getting a lesson always helps, but if you’ve got a friend who knows how to surf, just ask.

It’s a lot easier to mess up when your friends are there. One more question, what’s one piece of advice that’s really stuck with you in life through some of your most difficult moments?

I think learning about who you really are is an incredible journey. I think a healthy relationship with yourself is hugely important and one of those priorities in life. I don’t know if it sounds selfish or not, but I feel like it is the most important relationship. If you don’t have a healthy relationship with yourself, I don’t see how you can have healthy relationships outside of that. Finding out who you are and showing up for yourself as well.

I was reading Glennon Doyle, and there was a quote, “If there’s a choice between disappointing somebody else or disappointing yourself, choose somebody else” because you have to live with you everyday. I am 100% on the journey of life, which is learning and unlearning. Actually, that would be my advice, keep learning and unlearning, keep educating yourself, never stop. Especially in this COVID time, I feel like as a young woman who has been in the spotlight since I was really young, I am still learning how to become myself, what I want to stand up for, and how I want to show up.

As the 2021 WSL Championship Tour gets underway in Hawaii, Caroline Marks, ranked #2 in the world, spoke with Just Women’s Sports about how it feels to compete on the CT again after COVID-19 washed out the 2020 season, the upcoming summer Olympics in Tokyo, and what an incredible time it is to be a professional women’s surfer. 

So bring us up to speed a little bit. How are you doing and where do we find you?

I’m doing great. I’m in Maui right now. I’m getting ready for the first event of the season, which is so exciting. It’s crazy that I’m actually saying that. The waves were amazing yesterday, some of the best Honolua Bay I’ve seen and surfed, so it was pretty awesome. I’m really, really excited to put the jersey back on. It’s been a long time, so yeah, just been in Maui and I’m enjoying that.

Surfing is definitely a unique sport in that you compete for so much of the year. Aside from the obvious, what impact has COVID had on the previous season and in prepping for the 2021 WSL Championship Tour?

I think this past year has felt like a really extended off season, that’s the way I put it. It’s weird, in a way I’ve been preparing the same as if the season would start the next day. Every day I still wake up with my daily goals and every day I’d work towards them. Once I heard the season was off, I definitely didn’t just forget about it or stop surfing a lot or stop training. I just kept on pace because I knew eventually they would say, ‘okay, we’re starting’ and I wanted to stay sharp and stay psyched.

Surfing is such an awesome sport, it’s something I want to do every single day. It doesn’t feel like a job. I wake up every morning and I want to surf anyways for fun, for my release. The last couple of months, I definitely ramped up my training and my surf hours for sure, but other than that, I have been doing the same thing. I have just been in one place instead of 10 different countries.

This tour’s title is the first that will be decided by a winner-take-all event at Lower Trestles next September, with the top five women on the tour leaderboard competing at that event. How do you feel about the new format and does it change your focus at all going into 2021?

I wouldn’t say it’s changed my focus. My focus is to win the world title and to surf my best every single event and give it my all — every time I paddle out, to go out there and win. That’s my goal, to go out there and not just to win, but to dominate and to give it my all and surf my absolute best and keep focused all year. So it definitely hasn’t changed my mindset. I’m going for the number one spot.

I’m so excited that it’s at Lower Trestles. That’s a wave that’s literally in my backyard. I live five minutes up the road from that wave, I ride my bike down there every day. So that’s really exciting and if all goes to plan, having my family there and all my close friends, that’d be so awesome.

I think it’s definitely cool to have a little change up. I’ve only been on the tour for a couple of years, I’m 18 now, but it’s cool to have a switch up. Regardless of what the format is, my goal every year is the same thing and that’s to win the world title. And I think also too, as far as from a fan standpoint, I think it will be really cool to watch the winner win in the water. I think that’s the ultimate feeling to win a world title in the water against somebody. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I saw at the men’s final last year, between Italo Ferreria and Gabriel Medina, it came down to the last final. It gave me chills. Number one and number two in the world were in the final and whoever won the final was the world champion. I think that is the most exciting thing ever. And that is the best feeling. Ferreria won the world title the best way you possibly could.

So the way the points break down this year, it’ll all have to happen right there in the waves in that moment?

Yea so no matter what, the top five go last. Fifth surfs against fourth and then the winner of that surfs against third and the winner of that surfs against second and the winner of that surfs against first, so if you’re in first place, you have an advantage because you have to surf less heats and you only have to beat one person. Last year me, Carissa [Moore], and Lakey [Peterson] were so far ahead that it was just three of us, fourth place wasn’t even in the world title race because of the points. This year you could be 10,000, 20,000 points behind from first place, but you can still win the world title. So that’s where it’s pretty crazy, but that’s where it’s also really exciting because it comes down to the last event, which is so gnarly, but so cool.

That’d be really cool, there’s nothing better than a solid in the moment contest.

And then too, you can tell all the fans ‘hey, guaranteed there’s going to be a world champ this event.’ So it’s pretty exciting.

To bring it back again to the here and now, what are you looking forward to most being in Maui?

It’s so awesome to have a little bit of a change of scenery. It’s nice to be back in warm water, warm weather. And obviously, just being around the girls in the water, just feeling that competitiveness and the free surfs and things like that. I’m just so stoked and I’m definitely looking most forward to putting the jersey on. That’s what I’m really, really excited about and I’m excited to see how everyone does. It’s been a whole year since we’ve competed — there’s been a few specialty events — but it’s been a whole year since we’ve competed in a WCT event so I’m really excited about that.

What do you think will be the most challenging part of the 2021 tour?

WSL is doing such an awesome job trying to make sure everyone’s safe with getting us all COVID testing and being in our bubble, but I think definitely getting used to that is a little different. I also think there might not be as many fans. The traveling might be the trickiest part. Just with timing, they really have to time everything like ‘okay I’m getting my COVID test today and then I have to wait a few days for the results’ and things like that. But other than that, once you’re in your bubble, it’s pretty awesome. You wear a mask and you know that all of the people around you tested negative, so you feel really safe. And then once you’re in the water, it’s the best thing ever because you feel free.

Is there anything about the schedule or the waves that you’re going to encounter at any of the locations that will make this tour different from others?

This year they’ve added Teahupoʻo for the girls, which is so amazing. We also have Sunset Beach and we have Steamer Lane, which is so awesome. It’s cool to have an event in California, and obviously Lowers is the most exciting ever. But it’s awesome to have Sunset and Teahupoʻo. I think that those waves are really going to push all of the girls. And I think bigger waves, heavier waves, more progressive surfing is the direction that female surfing is heading in more and more. Progression has gone through the roof the last couple of years, but it just keeps going up and up and I think those waves push the progression of the sport. I think that’s really exciting so I’m super stoked to have those waves.

You recently told the Olympic Channel that this past year really made you appreciate your lifestyle and getting to compete against your favorite surfers. What is it like to go up against role models and friends?

It’s really awesome. You know, I think all of the girls have such a great understanding of okay, when we’re in the water, we battle the hell out of each other and we’re here for one reason and that’s to win, but then as soon as you hit the sand, we can shake hands, be friends at the end of the day. I think that’s what’s so cool about all of the girls is that everyone’s cool and everyone’s nice, but we’re also all there to win. I respect that. It’s pretty awesome to compete against your heroes and it’s funny because I’m like, ‘I look up to all of you guys, but now I really, really want to beat you.’

Surfing is now an Olympic sport. What was your reaction to that news and what does it mean for the sport overall?

It’s really like a dream come true. Being a little girl, I never thought that surfing would be in the Olympics this soon. I think it’s so awesome. It definitely deserves that level of professionalism. All of the athletes and surfers I’m around, everyone works hard, everyone has a nutritionist, a trainer, everyone’s up early and doing their thing. Surfing is also such a cool and unique sport, I think it’s absolutely amazing to have it in the Olympics. That’s about the highest level of sporting you can reach so it’s absolutely amazing. It gives me goosebumps.

Will there be a shift in how you prepare for Tokyo compared to the Championship Tour and how are those two events going to overlap during the season?

I’m going to prepare like I do for any other contest. Every contest I enter I’m there to win, and I prepare the same. I prepare really hard. Every single one I try my hardest and I prepare my absolute best, so I’m not going to prepare any different [for the Olympics]. But I’m so excited and it should be absolutely incredible and so special to be able to represent my country. That’s the coolest thing ever. And to be the first one ever in the Olympics for surfing, that’s something no one can ever take away from me, which is pretty amazing.

For those who are less familiar with the technical aspects of competitive surfing, take us inside your mind a little bit. When you’re paddling out, what are you looking for in a wave and what is it that you’re there to accomplish?

Every wave is so different. Me paddling out at Teahupoʻo compared to me paddling out at Lower Trestles is completely different. Lower Trestles is a wave I describe as like a liquid skate park. It’s a really, really high performance, really fun wave. No barrels, it’s just really rippable. That’s where aerial maneuvers come into play, speed, power and flow, things like that, where Teahupoʻo you’re looking for the biggest, gnarliest barrel. So it’s two completely different things.

When you go out and surf, you’re pretty much looking for the best wave out there and to surf it your best. And the one thing that’s so cool about surfing is that it’s so unique, there’s never ever the same wave and I think that’s why you see people surf, you see 70-year-old people out there on longboards because it’s so exciting, it’s so fun, and it never gets old.

This is obviously a really pivotal time for female surfers. 2021 will be the first time that women have competed on the North Shore since 2010, and in 2019, the WSL announced equal prize money payouts for male and female surfers. These are two huge milestones for gender equality. How does it feel to be a female surfer right now and what more work does the sport have to do?

It’s so incredible and it’s so amazing to be a part of. I qualified for the tour in 2018, and the very next year they announced equal pay. I’m pretty sure WSL was one of the first organizations to do that in big sporting leagues. So it’s pretty amazing that surfing and the World Surf League was one of the firsts to put the right foot forward and say ‘hey, we are going to do this, and this is the message we want to send out.’ Another thing that was really cool, I think all of the men on the tour were really, really supportive of it. They posted about it a lot, which was so rad.

I think all of the women are really pushing themselves. Like I said, we have Teahupoʻo now and we have Sunset. Almost every single event for the girls and the guys is the exact same except for Pipeline, we have Maui and they have Pipeline, but every other event, we are with the guys, which is pretty amazing. Pretty incredible of WSL to do that, and it’s so incredible to be part of this movement. I think it’s just going to keep getting better.

So a little bit about you. At 15, you were the youngest surfer to ever qualify for the women’s Championship Tour. What impact has age had on your career and how you prepare physically and mentally for a competition?

Everything happened so fast for me. I used to ride horses and my older brother used to surf and I really got into surfing because of my older brothers. I just really wanted to impress them and for them to think I was cool and that’s why I started surfing. I’ve always been really, really competitive and as a kid I did everything, I played soccer, I played tennis, I played softball. I did everything you can think of.

I’d say when I was about 12-years-old is when I realized I wanted to be a pro surfer. And the year I qualified I was doing all of those events just for experience and just to compete against gnarlier girls in different places around the world. You can experience waves in Australia and in Europe and things like that. I just didn’t put much pressure on myself. I was just there to have fun and to learn. My only goal is to get better at surfing and that still is my goal every day, just to improve my surfing. I do believe at the end of the day, overall, the best surfing does win. So every day my goal is to just get better and better at certain things.

I qualified at 15 and I kind of never looked back and it’s been the best journey ever. I was never really able to look back on it until this year because I’ve had time to reflect on how awesome and amazing my life has been. And I’m only 18 now, I feel like the best years are ahead of me.

The cool thing about being so young is I feel like a sponge. I’m constantly absorbing things and I love learning. So I love when people tell me something, I really take it and I learn from it. It’s the best life ever. I would never change it for anything. It’s absolutely amazing.

When you think about your position in the sport as it is right now and the women who came before you and what they did to get the sport here, what legacy do you want to leave behind one day for the girls who are going to come up after you?

I want to show the girls that there is such an amazing future — surfing in the Olympics and there’s equal prize money. I always think ‘why not go surf that big wave? Why not try that maneuver that guys do that girls can’t, why not?’ And that’s the message I want to leave, go out there and get it. YOLO, you only live one life. Like why not? You know, that’s kind of what I think. That’s it and have fun. Make sure whatever you do in life, whether it’s surfing or not surfing, make sure you’re having fun. Surfing’s the most fun thing in the world to me.

What would be your advice to girls who are looking to get into surfing, who, you know, may never have picked up a board, but are watching you on TV or following you on Instagram?

I think consistency is key. Don’t give up, sometimes you can have a bad surf and get a little bit discouraged, but just go out there and keep trying. The ocean is the great equalizer, but it’s so much fun, it’s such an incredible sport. I’d say just grab a friend and go out there and try it.

What’s one piece of advice that you’ve received during your career that’s really stuck with you through some of the more difficult moments?

My coach has always told me, which is still my mindset, ‘you can not base your happiness off of results.’ It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. I think that really separates me because being on the tour at 15, so young, you’re so used to winning everything and you have all these high expectations for yourself and you feel all of this pressure from everyone else that expects you to win at every level. I think just knowing that made me go, ‘oh yeah, you’re right. I’m just going to give it my all and that’s all I can ask for.’

Obviously every single time I’m paddling out, I’m giving it my all and I’m out there to win. But at the same time, I have my goals, my life goals, and I think as long as I keep working towards that every day, I’m happy. Like I said, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon and I know everything’s going to happen when and the way it’s supposed to.

Nora Dunnan is a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Five Iron Golf, an indoor golf facility headquartered in New York City that’s on a mission to grow the game and make a previously inaccessible sport available for all. In a handful of years, Five Iron has grown to three locations in NYC and expanded to cities including Baltimore, Chicago, and Philadelphia, with spaces opening in Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, and Washington D.C. Dunnan sat down with JWS to talk about Five Iron’s efforts to open up the game and life as a female entrepreneur shaking things up in a male-dominated terrain.  

What is Five Iron Golf? 

Five Iron is an indoor golf center started in Manhattan in 2017. We have golf simulators that you can come in and practice on so you can get better at golf, improve your game, learn the game. It could be a group of friends coming in to hang out and play socially. We have golf pros who give lessons, we do leagues, we do events both corporate and private, we do kids programming and then we have a full bar, a full menu so you can eat and drink and play golf all at the same time.

We pride ourselves on being very different from standard golf. If you come inside you’ll notice right away we do not look like a country club. We have a very urban feel, a modern feel, we have neon graffiti murals on the wall. Our staff is wearing t-shirts and we try to be a really welcoming and inclusive place. We know golf can be an intimidating sport and we don’t think Five Iron is an intimidating place at all. So if you’re a brand new golfer or an experienced golfer, you know everybody can come into Five Iron and get something out of it.

So how did this all start? Where did the idea come from? How did you get involved?

So there are four of us who co-founded it back in 2017. We opened in 2017, but we started working on it in 2015. Jared, our CEO, used to take golf lessons from Mike who is one of our other founders at another small indoor place in Manhattan, and the two of them always talked about how if they built a bigger place that was open and had event space and games like pool and ping-pong and TVs and music, good food and drinks that a lot of people would show up. After just talking about it for a while, and really wanting to turn it into a reality, they brought me on board.

I knew Jared previously, not from work, just personally, and they brought me on board to sort of figure out if it would be possible and to do some research. After a couple of years of seeing over 70 pieces of real estate in Manhattan, we landed on our Flatiron location and the rest is history.

So Five Iron starts, you’re breaking into this brand new industry, you’re doing a project you couldn’t have imagined beforehand. What kind of challenges did you face as an entrepreneur and especially as a young woman starting a business in a male dominated sport?

There were a lot of logistical challenges to opening a business that no one really prepares you for. So things like codes and building inspections and getting different licenses. That was definitely something that was new for all of us, it’s almost like you don’t know what you don’t know. Obviously we learned and we figured it out, but there were definitely some scary moments along the way where we kind of wondered ‘what did we get ourselves into.’

In terms of being a female in the golf world, it’s been interesting. Honestly, a lot of times in the very beginning, people didn’t necessarily realize what role I played at the company and sometimes we’d be out and about and they’d always want to talk to the men. I know this has happened to a couple of women who have worked there. They just kind of assume that the men are in charge or that the women don’t know as much about golf.

It’s definitely a male dominated sport and I don’t think people always assumed when they met me that I was one of the co-founders. But at the end of the day, once I get into a conversation with people, they realize I know what I’m talking about.

Have you come into any challenges with people in the space, competitors who are trying to do something similar, but are a bit more traditional and maybe thinking ‘who are these new kids on the block?’

Yea there is some competition out there that wants to stay exclusive. You have to be a member, there’s an initiation fee, and we just don’t want that. We actually got advice from somebody who ran a private indoor facility in the city within the first week we opened saying we were doing it wrong because golf is not for everybody, golf is only for people who can afford it. To which we said no, we want to make it affordable and open to everybody. And that is a big part of how our mission has prevailed.

That’s not to say that those places won’t succeed, but we strongly believe that it can be for everybody based on the clientele that we have. We still have people who come in who belong to some of the most private clubs in the country, but they love coming into Five Iron because it just has a great atmosphere with great service. We’ve proven that golf does not have to be a members only sport.

That leads me to my next question, one of the mottos of Five Iron is ‘grow the game,’ what does that mean to you, to grow the game?

To us, what’s really important is getting more people exposed to Five Iron and to golf. Like I said, golf can be intimidating and golf can be a sport where people think that if they didn’t grow up belonging to a country club or something like that, they can’t play. So one of our big initiatives is to prove them wrong by showing how much fun they can have at Five Iron.

One group that for sure is underserved is women, and we’ve done a lot to get more women in. We do ladies clinics, we have partnerships with a variety of women’s golf groups, we’ll run special deals to get more women in the space and it’s worked. We co-hosted a clinic up in Chicago with Fore the Ladies and there were over 100 women there.

Golf is a sport that I think women would love to pick up, especially if they’re in a relationship with a golfer. It can be really fun to learn and play with your partner rather than have it be an activity they disappear to go play for a whole day. Instead, make it a family activity. It can be a lot of fun playing with your entire family.

We’d love to get more kids into Five Iron, we’d love to get underserved communities into Five Iron, and that’s something we actually have a dedicated employee for. One of her main focuses is the ‘grow the game’ mission and she’s working hard to find different non-profits, schools, and other organizations who are interested in using our resources to learn and enjoy golf.

I know you have been an athlete your entire life, but didn’t pick up golf until your early 20s. Do you have any advice for girls who are interested in golf and looking to break in, but might have no idea where to start?

It’s a great question because I think for a lot of women, if they’re not really close with someone in their life who plays golf, it can be hard. Like for me, my husband taught me how to play, told me where to get my first set of clubs, helped me buy my first set of clubs, gave me his old driver. You know, without that, I would have been totally lost.

But there are so many options out there that I did not know about. So for one, there are groups like Fore the Ladies and Grueter Golf. What they’re both doing is getting women into golf — some who play and some who don’t — and showing that it’s totally fine to not know what you’re doing. They host some of their clinics at Five Iron and our instructors go over everything —  basics like, here are the different clubs, here’s how you hold them, here’s what you wear to go play golf.

By finding resources out there like Fore the Ladies and Grueter Golf, you not only provide yourself with an opportunity to ask for help or get research, but you put yourself in a community with other women who are looking to do the same. You have friends who are learning the game and friends who are buying their first sets of clubs and being a part of a community makes it a lot more fun to get into a new sport.

What does the future look like for Five Iron?

We’re excited to be in new cities and we hope one day down the road there’ll be a Five Iron in every major city and smaller cities and maybe some suburban towns, too.

I think the more and more people get access to the game, whether it’s to come in and really improve or just do something fun rather than sitting at home, the better. We hope that we can keep growing and bringing the Five Iron experience to more and more communities.

As the NWSL calls it a wrap on a record-breaking 2020 season, all eyes now turn to those stars who are working to increase the visibility and support of the league and its world-class talent. But no, we’re not talking about the players.

For decades, fans of women’s soccer have emerged en masse in four-year cycles to cheer on the U.S. women’s national team as they battle it out for Olympic golds and World Cup Championships. But despite the adulation and fanfare that accompanies each triumph, professional female soccer players have routinely returned home to leagues fighting for survival and clubs that are wildly underfunded.

Despite monumental victories on the world’s stage, funding for the NWSL and the U.S. leagues which preceded it has often floundered due to a host of factors, many of which can be pinned on the unending fight for more air time and sponsorships.

That stops now.

The launch of Angel City FC, the first majority-women founded NWSL team, and one that is backed by a platoon of Hollywood stars, athletes, and influencers, marks a turning point for the longest-running women’s soccer league in U.S. history.

Over the next two years, the NWSL will add two new expansion teams, with Racing Louisville FC suiting up next year before the celebrity-backed LA squad hits the turf in 2022. Growth is a positive sign regardless of who is signing the checks, but the derivation and mission of Angel City FC represents a new model for growing professional women’s soccer. It’s a moment that’s turning inspiration into action, one that acknowledges that parades and morning television interviews aren’t enough to keep a business going year-after-year.

 As reported by the New York Times, in a revolutionary shift from traditional protocol, the team owners worked together to implement a foundation of values for Angel City FC that were drafted in consultation with the U.S. women’s national team to ensure that the mission embodied the needs of professional female players. And unlike expansion teams in other sports battling to be the best, Angel City is gearing up to change the game for the entire NWSL by putting pay equity front and center while setting up the necessary infrastructures to make it a reality. It also marks the first time that former players themselves — Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, and Joy Fawcett to name a few — are sitting in the front office.

The founding group, led by Natalie Portman, Kara Nortman, Julie Uhrman, and Alexis Ohanian, will launch the new team at a time when the NWSL is shattering ratings records, pulling in 653,000 viewers for the CBS network broadcast of the Challenge Cup final between the Houston Dash and Chicago Red Stars — a 293% increase compared to last year’s final, which garnered 166,000 viewers. All in all, the league increased its viewership by over 500% this year compared to last.

The LA team is also getting off the ground in the midst of a larger racial reckoning and cultural paradigm shift in the United States. As Olympian and world-champion defender Kelley O’Hara noted on the Just Women’s Sports podcast with Nneka Ogwumike of the Los Angeles Sparks, “sports can drive culture.”

2020 has proven that point in a number tangible ways, from the fight for gender equality to athlete-led protests against racial injustice and police brutality. The diversity exhibited by the founders and founding investors of Angel City FC embodies the notion that pushing the ball forward shouldn’t be the burden of the players alone.

Nearly 30 years ago, a squad of girls set out to revolutionize soccer and change the archaic narratives that were holding back the potential of professional women’s sports in America. Today, thanks in large part to those early USWNT squads, the dream has been realized, and girls around the world can turn on the TV and see themselves chasing victory.

The implementation of Angel City FC  is a manifestation of years of imagining and re-imagining the potential of a professional women’s soccer league. It harkens back to the driving ethos behind the 1991 and 1999 U.S. teams, that no single player was out there for themselves, but they were all playing for each other — and for those who would follow.