Kylie Ohlmiller is a professional lacrosse player. A Long Island Native, Ohlmiller was a 4x All-American, 2x Tewaaraton Finalist, and 2x America East Conference Offensive Player of the Year at Stony Brook. She is the NCAA record holder for both single-season and career points and assists. She now plays for the NY Fight of the WPLL. Below, Ohlmiller talked to Just Women’s Sports about what led her to Stony Brook, how she developed her behind-the-back prowess, and how her eye-black became a signature style. 

Before you played at Stony Brook, it was not a dominant lacrosse school. How did you decide to go there to play? 

It’s interesting to look back because Stony Brook now has such a dominant program. They are always on the cusp of the Final Four and they are always in the top-10. The team was nowhere close to being a national contender at the D1 level when I committed. Joe Spallina [Stony Brook head coach] had come over from Adelphi a couple of years prior, where he won a ton of Division II National Championships, and was trying to build a program based on Long Island values with a blue collar mentality. Long Island is such a hotbed for lacrosse, but at the time, young players didn’t have a hometown team they could grow up idolizing. Spallina wanted to create that.

When he was recruiting me at Stony Brook and explaining his vision to me — what we could do and the potential of the team — it was so contagious. I remember him saying that he wanted to transform the team from one that no one knows about to the number one program at the Division I level — which we ended up doing by my senior year. His vision early on was to make the team a national contender every single year and he wanted me to lead that charge. He painted all of my dreams out in front of me, even when I was just a 15 year-old girl. How do you say no to that? Now that I can look back on it, that’s what made me buy-in, and I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to grow with this program.

Was staying in Long Island for college a priority for you?

I’ve always been a homegrown type of person. I love Long Island — I love everything that we’re about. Outside of Coach Spallina’s vision of Stony Brook becoming the Long Island lacrosse team, I wasn’t necessarily getting looks from other major Division I schools that were powerhouses at the time. My Long Island mentality played a big role in my decision because I wanted to prove others wrong. I realized that I wanted to play on a team where the coach believed in what I could do on and off the lacrosse field, in the community and for women’s sports. So I bought into Stony Brook, and my Long Island mentality fueled the fire.

What was your most memorable game or experience during your time at Stony Brook?

Two moments really stick out in my head. The first was during my freshman year. We were unranked and we were going down to play Florida. They were in the top-5 at the time. Odds were definitely stacked against us, but we ended up coming out and winning on their home turf. That was when people first started paying attention to us. It put our team on the map. Flash forward to my junior year, in 2017, we made the Elite 8 for the first time in program history. It was something that we struggled to do in the years before despite winning against top-10 schools during the regular season. That time around, though, we beat Northwestern on our home turf on Mother’s Day, and we were so fired up. It was proof that the years of hard work, sweat and tears could pay off — that the belief was there for a reason. That was a really special day.

In college, you were a 4x All-American, a 2x Tewaarton Finalist, and you broke multiple NCAA records. Did you imagine, as that 15 year-old girl buying into the Stony Brook vision, that you would be that successful?

I really never saw any of that happening for me. It was a byproduct of fully investing myself in the vision and the dream of it all. Obviously, none of those things would have happened without the teammates that I had on the field. I wouldn’t have the assist record without my teammates finishing the plays.

I had the opportunity to play with unreal players, my sister included. One of the accolades that stands out to me, though, is the Tewaaraton Finalist nomination because that was a first for both the Stony Brook program and for the America East Conference. It was special to be able to represent my school and our conference at that level — to be able to say, “Stony Brook is here. We might be a mid-major school but we’re here.”

You are known as the queen of behind-the-back shots. Can you speak to your playing style and where you learned it?

My playing style definitely evolved as I was growing up. My sister and I liked to have fun with it. We would always have sticks in our hands at the beach with our families, in the backyard, in the front yard, when we were riding bikes down the street. We were always trying different things and the more we did them, the more comfortable we became.

That’s something that I try to instill in the next generation now. You’re supposed to have fun with the game, so think outside the box when you’re practicing and try new things. Ultimately, if you can throw a pass between your legs or around the back, then you’re going to be able to throw a regular pass in a game. Not only that, but there are going to be opportunities to use those trick passes in real games, too. So many players — women and men — use tricks in college games now and coaches are starting to encourage that type of finesse. If you have that tool in your toolbox, why not use it?

Was it a no-brainer for your younger sister to also play at Stony Brook? How many years did you two overlap?

We played together for my last two years. She was verbally committed to another school before I went to Stony Brook. During my freshman year, since we were so close to home, she came to all of the games. She would come and hang out at the dorms with me and my friends. She got an inside look at how much I loved the program and how much success we could have there. She ended up de-committing to the other school and committing to Stony Brook. It was great. I got to have two years without her and then two years with her. Now, she gets three years without me since she’s headed back for a fifth year next season.

Having your little sister out there to celebrate with you and go through hardships with you is really special. And knowing that Mom and Dad are up in the stands watching two daughters is a good feeling. Some of my best moments out on the field were spent with her and she’s a kick ass All-American player too, so that definitely helps.

The Ohlmiller name is definitely known at Stony Brook and beyond now. Can we talk a little bit about your eye-black? What made you start doing that and how do you feel about it blowing up and becoming your trademark?

I always liked wearing eye-black in high school and I would play around with different styles. One day, I did eye-black triangles under my cheeks, and my friend commented that it looked like Batman. So I thought, what if I turned the triangles on their sides and tried to make them look even more like the Batman wings? I look back at pictures from high school and it’s a version of the style I wear now. As I went to college, I tweaked it into my own style and now it has become something that I’m known for. It has become my brand logo, a Halloween costume, a t-shirt design — it’s wild. I never could have imagined this but I’m grateful.

For me, the eye-black is a way to express myself on the field, which can be hard especially in women’s sports where a lot of people try to look pretty out there. I love seeing younger girls mimicking the style today — it makes me cry every time.

After Stony Brook, you were drafted first in the WPLL’s inaugural season. What was that experience like?

Unbelievable. It was amazing to be a part of the inaugural season and all of the hype surrounding it. The best part is that you end up playing both with and against some of the people you were rivals with in college. They used to be on the other side wearing opposing uniforms and now they’re your teammates. You make friendships that you never thought could have happened. And it’s amazing to be surrounded by all time greats of the sport — people that I had watched growing up are now marking me.

You are sponsored by New Balance, which owns Brine Lacrosse. What does it mean for you to have a sponsorship like that and what opportunities has it opened up? 

When I graduated from Stony Brook, I had a lot of incredible opportunities and this was one of them. I signed with New Balance right after graduation. They opened up so many doors for me in the lacrosse world. I have had the chance to design my own lacrosse stick and my own pocket — things that I didn’t even know were possible. They’ve provided me with an opportunity to see what goes on behind the scenes with lacrosse equipment and they’ve taught me how important it is to sell your brand. They’ve also been incredibly supportive in allowing me to be authentic to myself as an athlete as I’m creating my own KO17 Lacrosse brand on social media. That support is definitely something that I look for in brand deals. We were able to put together a KO17 logo that’s actually on the KO Brine stick, which is pretty cool.

Can you talk a little bit more about the KO17 Lacrosse brand? What’s the backstory? 

I was a business minor in college and that’s where I started to develop the idea of what later became my KO17 brand. After college, KO17 Lacrosse started with just a basic plan of providing a structured system of training to lacrosse players on Long Island. To this day, I still do weekly group sessions and training with Long Islanders. But as my brand has grown, I have been able to travel the country, bringing lacrosse and my brand to people on both coasts. Last year was my first full summer tour. I hit close to 30 different cities over the year with my clinics and camps.

You also recently launched the KO17 app. First off, congratulations. Can you tell us about your vision for the app and what it does? 

Thank you, it is huge for us. I have loved being able to travel the country, meeting girls from different locations and learning that we all have the same passion for the sport of lacrosse. With my app, I wanted to provide a platform where I could work with these girls on a more regular basis and help develop them into the players that they want to be, regardless of location. I’m more than excited that the KO17 Lacrosse App is now allowing me to do so! Especially in a time where virtual training is the new norm. Every week, I upload new drills for shooting, dodging and offensive work, and my subscribers have the ability to submit film of their skills for live feedback from me.

There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and sports. How have you stayed positive about the future of lacrosse? How are you staying in shape during a time when workouts are limited?

As a professional athlete, my day-to-day sights are set on the next time I get to play and that is continuously being pushed back right now. That vision is still there, though. We are training as if we are playing tomorrow. In a year from now, I’m hoping that I will be training for the 2021 World Cup. I’m hoping that I’ll be on the brink of another packed summer with KO17 clinics all over the world. Over the next couple of years, I want to expand to Australia and get back over to Japan and Europe. I want to travel and see what lacrosse is like in different places. Ultimately, I hope to meet as many young girls as possible and show them that they can be professional women’s lacrosse players, too.

Lacrosse is aiming to be included in the 2028 Olympics. Is your goal to continue playing until that becomes a reality?

Absolutely. I think all of us players want that. If my body lets me, that would be amazing. I think, no matter what, our ultimate goal is to get the sport to the Olympics. We’re going to do everything that we can in order to accomplish that. Whether we are in the stands or on the field, we’re going to be proud of the sport and of all the different countries representing lacrosse. It’s amazing to see that opportunity right there on the horizon.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this 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. 

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.

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.