Lynn Williams is a forward for both the North Carolina Courage of the NWSL and the USWNT. With the Courage, Williams has won back-to-back NWSL Championships while becoming one of the most prolific goal scorers in the league. Below, Williams spoke with JWS about the ongoing Challenge Cup, the secret to the Courage’s success, and the NWSL’s role in supporting Black Lives Matter. 

You are a couple of games into the Challenge Cup. How are you feeling? How are you doing in Utah? 

Good. The hardest game stint has passed. We had so many games in such a small amount of time — our mode was just to survive and hope we end up on top. Now, we’re getting into the games that matter the most because it’s the knockout round. We have more time in between games, so we’re able to train a little bit more and work on things that we need to work on, versus just getting out there and performing. The NWSL has made a really safe bubble for us, which is really cool. At first, I think everyone was nervous, but everything is going really smoothly. I think the games have been exciting. And I’m just really excited to be playing soccer again safely.

How has it been getting tested for COVID so often? 

It’s good. Personally, I don’t really mind it. The swab is a little bit uncomfortable, but it just takes a second. And, if it’s going to keep everybody safe, then that’s a price we are willing to pay.

What precautions has the NWSL taken in terms of COVID-19 at the Challenge Cup? 

Basically, we go from the hotel to the stadium and the training grounds, and then back to the hotel. Honestly, I’m not that bored yet, but it is crazy to think that I’ve only seen three things this whole time. I actually feel much safer here than I do at home. We get tested all the time, we have to wear masks, we have to follow strict protocols.

If you think about what we were doing before the tournament, though, it was way worse. It was such an unknown. Every day you would try to go train and motivate yourself, thinking that there would be a season just for it to get pushed back. And then you would hear the season’s going to start up, so you would push yourself again just for it to get moved back again. It was such a rollercoaster of emotions. Now, that we’re actually doing something, I get excited to go to the field every day. I’m playing towards something. It might be unorthodox, but at least it’s something.

"It's not IF Lynn Williams will punish you, but WHEN."@lynnraenie with a solo masterpiece ????

0-1 | #WASvNC

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— National Women's Soccer League (@NWSL) July 2, 2020

The Courage have been dominant for years, and are again showing up this tournament. How do you explain this sustained run of success? 

We get that question a lot. Honestly, I think that it goes back to 2015 and 2016 when we were in Western New York. There was a core group of us in 2015 in New York who weren’t having fun and who almost quit playing soccer. Then, in 2016, we had that same core group, but we started adding pieces. We added Paul and he brought the love of the game back into it.

We never talked about the championship or winning games. We were always talking about a growth mindset. And that has trickled along and become what we are today. We are never satisfied. I think we are one of the hardest working teams. We’ve taken that hardworking core and now we’re adding layers to it with Debinha and Sully [Denise O’Sullivan] and Sam [Mewis] and Crystal [Dunn]. With our core group, we’ve been together for five years now, so we understand each other on the field — we know each other’s tendencies.

On some teams, it seems like the national team players really run the club. On the Courage, there seems to be a clear philosophy: everyone gets in line, national team or not. Do you feel like that’s true? 

I can’t speak to other teams because I’m not on them. But I do think that here it is very clear and apparent that it’s not just our national team players who are driving us. Somebody is fighting for their spot every single day. You look at our bench and we’re stacked. We have all of these players and you could think, ‘Oh, it’s just the national team players, they’ll get it done.’ But, every day, I’m fighting for my spot and I think that’s something that drives us. At the same time, though, this team is so loving that you want your teammate to do well. So, it’s a culture that is loving, but at the same time so intense.

Do you think it’s hard to have that level of unity and intensity at such a high level? 

If Jess McDonald and Kristen Hamilton and McKenzie Meehan are all pushing me and being their best, it’s only going to make me better. And vice versa — if I’m being my best, it’s only going to make them better. We can’t have somebody who takes a day off because that’s a disservice to the team. That’s our driving force — we have a standard and we don’t let anybody fall below it.

Let’s go back in time for a second. You played college soccer at Pepperdine. What was that like? 

I knew I wanted to play soccer in college, but I wasn’t getting recruited. Pepperdine happened to be the only school who offered me a scholarship, so I went down to visit and I loved it. I ended up doing really well my freshman year. Up until that moment, I thought I could be good at soccer, but nobody was recruiting me. I thought I was seeing something that other people weren’t, or that I was delusional. So, when Pepperdine gave me a chance and I was Rookie of the Year, I realized, ‘You know what? I’m right. I need to believe in myself more. I can do this.’

If anybody can take anything away from my story, it’s that you have to believe in yourself. There are so many people who are going to say, ‘You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.’ But, if you believe in yourself and you have the determination and the skillset to do it, then you can do it.

You mentioned that after you were drafted to the NWSL in 2015, you were unhappy in Western New York. Why was that? 

Honestly, it was a shock to get drafted coming from a smaller school. But, like I said, I believed in myself. When I got to the professional level, the first year was awful. We were a losing team and a lot of us had just been drafted from winning teams. We were in Buffalo, New York, which was cold as hell and away from family. So many of us wanted to quit. I think we all convinced ourselves to come back the next year. And, like I said, Paul just saw something in us — something in me.

A couple of years ago, he said, “When I first saw you, you were an athlete trying to play soccer. And now you’re a soccer player who is also an athlete.” I think that’s the biggest compliment that he’s ever given me. I think I’ve been able to get where I am because, one, I started believing in myself and, two, I had somebody else who also believed in me. I owe a lot of my success to him.

What are your thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement and how the NWSL has taken a stand to show support during the Challenge Cup? 

I’m really proud that we were the first league back and that we are able to use our voices and our platform for change. We’ve been wearing the warm-up t-shirts and, while I can’t speak for everybody on why they kneel or stand during the national anthem, I know our team put out a statement saying that we are unified against police brutality and the social injustices that minorities in this country face. But it’s more than just a symbol, too. Our team has an auction going on for the National Black Justice Coalition and we are planning to start a foundation for underprivileged children and communities. I’m really happy with what our team is doing. It started with unity and a symbol, and now it’s action.

During the Challenge Cup, some players have knelt and other players have stood for the national anthem. It’s caused a lot of debate among fans. What’s your take on whether someone can still be an ally while standing for the flag? 

What I will say is that I don’t think you can be for the movement sometimes and not for it other times. I think you’re either all in or you’re all out. I do think it’s great when people say, ‘I want to help. I want to take action.’ Because, otherwise, kneeling for the flag is just performative — it’s just a publicity stunt.

I hear all the time that people stand for the flag because they have a military family or support the military. But, if you think about it, the flag doesn’t represent the military and its purpose is not to honor the military. The flag is to unite a nation under God — a nation with freedom and liberty and justice for all. If you can say that you think that everybody in this country has freedom, justice and liberty, then fine, stand. But I personally don’t believe that. I do love this country and this country has given me so much. I have been privileged in so many ways, but I can recognize that there are so many people who have not been privileged, and who don’t have the same liberties and the same freedoms as the majority.

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.