Jessie Warren is a professional softball player for Athletes Unlimited. At Florida State, she led the Seminoles to the 2018 Women’s College World Series title and was named Most Outstanding Player of the World Series. She spoke with JWS about what led her to Athletes Unlimited, her unique style of coaching, and how the league is working to keep everyone both safe and sane. 

What went into your decision to join Athletes Unlimited?

The idea was pitched to me in the beginning of December, and at first I was a little skeptical just because I didn’t understand the format and things like that. But then after talking to Jade Ray, who was actually going to come play but opted out to go to the police academy, I became really interested. And then Victoria Hayward reached out, and I didn’t know if my Pride season was going to run into this season. So, I was kind of a little bit like, “I don’t know if I can do it,” because obviously I already had obligations with Pride. But then once I realized that Pride season wasn’t going to run into AAU, it was an automatic yes.

And then after getting to know about the format, I thought it was really cool. It’s something different that nobody’s ever done before, obviously. And I think it’s a good difference, because it was grasping a lot of people’s attention, catching an audience’s eye about the differences in the game, obviously not the rules or anything, but just the point system. And it allows us as individual athletes to try to succeed as an individual, but also play to law and succeed as a team.

Your team went 3-0 in the first week. What are your thoughts on how the games went?

Right away I noticed that the people who were racking up the most points are those that are on a winning team. My team called ourselves the Cuties because of the orange jerseys we wore and in the practices that we had, we really focused on team runs and how we could get people in. We knew if we won innings, we would win points. And if you win innings you are going to win the game. It’s team ball. If you’re playing team ball obviously you’re doing something individually successfully, so you’re going to get some points too. I think we were most more focused on winning each inning and winning as a team than we were worried about getting ourselves points. And it kind of really showed that we were playing as a unit and not individually.

Now in the second week we will see all new teams. How do you plan to adjust to a new team dynamic and stay as consistent?  

I think that’s always the hard part. You know, if I could keep the team that I was on for the whole six weeks, that would be awesome, but it’s an even better opportunity as an individual to get to know other people and connect with them. I’m just keeping an open mind that everybody’s dynamic and their coaching style is going to be different.

Cat [Osterman] is a captain this week, and her coaching style is going to be completely different than mine, so her team will be a whole different dynamic. As a player, I’m just going with it and trusting that they know what they’re doing and just going out there and playing ball.

You were obviously pretty successful at balancing your role as a team captain, coach and player. Did you find that balance to be easy or were there any difficulties there?

I had a lot of help from Christian Conrad. He was kind of familiar with what I wanted to do and then Cat Osterman was a huge person for me to have on the team. For the experience that she has on the coaching side to help as well. But at the end of the day, I sat down with Christian, I talked about my strategy. And we kind of just all clashed minds and came up with a lineup. And then, for the girls, I was more of, “Hey, do what you guys do.” We’re going to just be laid back and chill. At the same time, we’re still going to be disciplined, but I’m not going to be someone that’s going to be down their throats or anything. That’s just not my style.

What do you think this type of a league will do for women’s sports at the pro level and specifically for softball?

This whole business is just such a great idea. And then John and Jonathan, our league founders, have done such a great job marketing this whole thing. And there’s so many people that I’ve heard from that have texted me and are just like, “This is so cool. It’s so fun to watch. I love seeing it on TV.” You don’t really see many women’s professional sports, and just the fact that this is going in the right direction, it’s just so amazing for the younger generation and the young girls that are looking up to us.

They have dreams and the knowledge that they can come play professional softball, professional volleyball, and they’re able to work at something that they may not have been able to work for before. I’m just blessed to be able to pave the road and start something for them. I’m excited for the future of all sports in AU, especially softball.

Was there anything else that you wanted to mention that I didn’t bring up?

I do actually really want to add that the hospitality and how they’ve taken care of us since we’ve been here has been great as well. We have batting cages, we have training facilities, our locker rooms are great, and we’re following the CDC’s guidelines. It’s great to feel safe with everything that’s going on in the world. I was kind of second guessing it at first. I know I had a conversation with my mom. Like, I don’t know if I want to go because of Covid. But the league has done a great job following protocols and being in contact with CDC and having great doctors here and things like that to keep us safe. I think that’s my number one thing is I feel safe.

And another thing is the mental health part of it all. You think about coming into isolation by yourself for six weeks, and then you think about your mental health being alone, because some people just aren’t good with things like that, but again, they’re doing such a great job to help us. We have trivia nights and things like that to keep us kind of busy so that we’re not going crazy in the bubble. Every Friday night we have this thing called Friday Night Lights, and last week was about mental awareness, this week it’s going to be something different, then next week it’s going to be something different. Again, they just have a bunch of activities for us to come and attend online or even in person, but in person is only for people that are in the bubble. But it’s just awesome and great to see so many athletes and know that I’m not the only one going through some of the things that I’m going through. Just being able to talk to them and relate with them has been such a great experience as well.

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.