Alyse LaHue is the general manager of Sky Blue FC of the NWSL. Widely credited with turning around a club that had fallen out of favor, LaHue spoke with Just Women’s Sports about how she managed to change the culture and what comes next for Sky Blue. 

(Editor’s note: this conversation took place before the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent protests. Sky Blue FC released a statement on the issue here. For an earlier interview with LaHue about how Sky Blue was adjusting to the coronavirus, click here.) 

A lot of women’s sports are marketed towards younger kids, but you make a point of trying to bring in millennials and adults. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

We have a family friendly atmosphere within our games, and that’s something I absolutely always want to maintain. But, at the same time, I’m all for the supporters groups who go out there and heckle the other team and provide a difficult arena to play in. Part of the excitement of going to soccer matches is the supporters section, right? It’s the drums beating, it’s the chants and the singing — that’s part of soccer culture.

Our supporters groups, for the most part, are not typically parents with soccer-playing kids. There are some, don’t get me wrong, it’s a whole spectrum of the rainbow in the supporters group. But for the most part it’s single soccer supporters — it’s the adult who goes out and tailgates before the game, has a drink, and then comes in and chants. It’s a whole experience. It’s a family. And for us, I want to continue to develop that side of the game as we continue to bring more families into the stadium.

We always go back to the idea that we want Sky Blue to be the community’s team and to represent the community, especially in this region of the world where we’re basically the New Jersey/New York City team. You can’t find a more diverse area than where we’re at. Our fan base needs to be representative of that and that means that we need to cater to all of those different fans. As a women’s sports team with a really small front office and a limited budget, it can be difficult to reach all of those fans in big meaningful ways. But we’ve tried our best at the grassroots level to find ways to reach all of those groups and make sure we’re not overly focused just on one.

You have been one of the first people to recognize and embrace the diversity of fans in women’s soccer. Why do you think it’s taken so long for others in the league to do the same? 

I think when you have more diversity in leadership, you’re going to get different opinions at the table. Typically, our league has more or less looked one way. There is a prototype of who has owned the teams within our league, who has run the teams within our league.

Truthfully, it’s always been heterosexual white males, and there’s nothing against them. We wouldn’t have a league without them and their investment. But they look a certain way.

And we know that diversity makes good business. You make better business decisions when you have more people at the table who are representative of the populations that you’re trying to reach. Soccer is the world’s game. It is a diverse game. And again, I go back to specifically feeling it here in New Jersey/New York City, a very diverse region. We need to be representative of that.

I’m constantly pushed by Julie Evans, my Director of Operations, to think through people of all abilities and what that means within our stadium. She has pushed me in so many different ways that I’m so grateful for. That’s what you need around you — other people who are going to push you to say, “Have we thought about the closed captioning? Have we thought about making it a safe and friendly environment for folks with autism within our games? What can we do for them?” It takes diversity at the table and people with different backgrounds, beliefs and opinions to be able to embrace the fans, who all look different.

Sky Blue FC has quickly transitioned from a club players were trying to get traded away from to a club where players are excited to join. Can you talk about how that transition happened and what the vision was like on your end? 

I appreciate that, first of all. I always say you can have a vision but you have to have a team around you that’s willing to actually execute it. I always use the metaphor of picking up an oar. There can’t just be one person rowing or the boat’s going to spin in circles, right? You have to have everybody on both sides of the boat rowing. You have to have people who care. I can’t rely on the media to get fans out to our games. There has to be an effort from us on the inside. So, when I came in as GM, I started with having people around me who care as much as I do. I’ve always said this is a lifestyle, not necessarily a job. You have to believe in what we’re doing, and believe in the diversity of our league, and believe in the opportunities for women’s sports that aren’t necessarily on the table yet.

It was certainly a lot to do in a year, but at the end of the day it felt like there were just some really simple things that needed to be done to improve the club. I know it sounds naive from the outside, but I think this club lost track of listening to its fans and that, to me, goes such a long way. Listening to the fans was step A of the process. And I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made in the last year. There’s more to come.

Do you think the club lost track of listening to its players, too? 

In a way, yes. You need the community to be a part of the fabric of the team. It can’t feel like this is the team of Alyse LaHue. It needs to feel like this is the Sky Blue family, and there are a lot of different people in the family. You need all of those people to have their voices heard. For me, it started with having all of the hard conversations, like, “I need you to get off of your chest all of the anger that you have towards this club, and I’m willing to hear you because I need to know what those things are.”

In the beginning, listening to the players’ exit interviews was absolutely crucial. The players really had three or four top concerns. So during the offseason, I started to think of how I can fulfill every single one of those top four things. That’s always the vision I start with: “How can I freaking do everything?” I’m never going to aim to fulfill just one of the four concerns. That’s not my standard. I always start with the biggest vision — the biggest, craziest thing and go, “Okay, how can we do it?”

That’s awesome. In women’s sports, there are so many people who say, “Yes, but…” it’s exciting to hear you say, “Yes, and let’s go.” 

I like that. I might just steal that whole phrase to be honest. Instead of “Yes, but,” it’s “Yes, and let’s go.” I think that’s the point, right? “Yes, but there’s a pandemic.” I don’t care. We’re going to go figure out how to make a community with our fans right now and we’re going to engage them digitally.

You became interim General Manager of Sky Blue in April of 2019, and then you were seemingly “on trial” from then until September, when the job became official. What were your thoughts around some of the doubt that surrounded your initial promotion to GM? 

I like that, “On trial.” I never thought of it that way. To me, titles are just cute to have, but really the proof is in the pudding. It’s all about what you do, not even necessarily what you say. If I was an account executive, I would behave in the same way and be just as audacious. That’s the most important thing to me. I was never worried about sort of being on trial or this or that, I just knew that I had big lofty goals. I believe that this club can be one of the best clubs in NWSL. I firmly believe that. I’m doing what I can to get us there, and I believe that, from there, we could be one of the best clubs in the world.

What’s next for Sky Blue FC? 

We have to be a destination club for players. It’s what this area deserves. This is the New York City/New Jersey team. There’s a grittiness, there’s a pride behind that. It took me a while to figure the whole thing out, but I think I’m getting there and embracing it. This women’s soccer club in this region has to be a North Star. It has to be something that other people and other clubs want to emulate. I know that’s an audacious statement if you look at where we were a year ago, but that’s what I believe and that’s what I’m trying to do.

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.