Kiley, Jamie and Ryann Neushul are all members of the U.S. Women’s National Water Polo program currently competing for spots on the team’s Olympic roster. All three sisters played for Stanford University, where Kiley and Jamie each won three national championships. Ryann, who won a national championship at Stanford as a freshman, is currently taking the year off from school to train with Team USA. The final Olympic roster is expected to be announced in May. Below, the three sisters discuss what it’s like to all be teammates for the first time, the impact of coronavirus on the upcoming Olympics, and how they balance competing with and supporting one another. 

The Olympics are only a few months away. Where are you all mentally at the moment?

Ryann: I’m just trying to enjoy the ride, be present for it, be committed, work hard. And what happens happens. My main goal coming into this was to be true to who I am as a player and as a person. I want to look back and be proud of the effort I put forth.

Jamie: I’m getting super excited. It was nice to break into 2020 in January, and now each month just feels closer and closer. The process is grueling, but the closer you get, the more motivated you are. It’s definitely stressful, because we have a really good team with a lot of talent and a lot of returners from Rio. It definitely helps to have family on the team. Right now I’m focused on putting in the time and proving my commitment. I’m in it, and I feel like I’m earning respect from the group.

Kiley: Of course there’s pressure just to make the team, but it’s all business, everyday. And it’s going to be all business throughout the Olympics. This is an extremely competitive group, and no matter what combination of players is taken, it’s going to be a very competitive team. Right now, we’re just looking forward to the next couple of months, to just try and make this team, honestly.

The coronavirus has caused major cancellations across sports and beyond. At this moment, the Olympics are still on, but how are you coping with the idea that they might be cancelled? 

Jamie: From what we’ve heard from our coach, and what we’ve heard from the Olympic committee, it sounds like the games are going to go on, so we’re just going business as usual until it’s really, really an issue. Until we’re told that we’re not competing, we’re going to train like we are. It’s not worth spending time thinking about the Olympics not happening unless we’re 100% sure they’re not happening.

Kiley: The thought of them not happening is pretty heartbreaking. I can’t even think about that until someone in a position of power looks me in the eyes and tells me we’re not going.

How did all three of you end up at Stanford? Did you know when you were younger that was where you all wanted to be? 

Kiley: My parents really emphasized academics as well as athletics, and Stanford offered the best combination of both. It was always my dream school. There was some talk of Jamie and Ryann maybe going back east when they started looking at schools, but ultimately I think we each realized that Stanford provided the most reliable path toward a future Olympic career.

Jamie: I wanted to be like Kiley when I was younger. She was always really athletic, and that gave me someone I could look up to and model myself after. But Stanford was honestly its own thing for all three of us. Each of us separately had that goal, and Kiley and I just happened to overlap while we were there. It was special to do that together, but we were also able to forge our own path, as we were in totally different social circles and also did a lot of different things outside of the pool.

Ryann, you’re taking the year off of Stanford. What was that like to step away from school? 

Ryann: Honestly, it’s been an emotional roller-coaster ride. I was added pretty late to this training group, so I didn’t know until later than most that I was taking the year off. Which isn’t a problem, I just wasn’t thinking about it. I was really focused on my college season and getting better and taking care of my classes, and then suddenly I had to make this big decision about my future. You have to make sacrifices to play at this level. For me, that means not having that shared college experience with the grade I came in with. I still have my friends and my teammates at Stanford, and they’re not going away. And I know the decision I made was the right decision, but there’s definitely days when I think, man, I miss my school. I miss my friends. But I know this is making me a better water polo player, a better teammate, and a better sister.

Kiley and Jamie played together at Stanford, but this is the first time all three of you are on the same team. What’s that like? 

Kiley: It’s a little different because on this team there’s first just the pressure of having to make the team, and all three of us basically play the same position. We’re all attackers. There’s not a lot of competition between the three of us, though, because we are very different players, and each e of us brings something different to the table. But there’s still pressure. This is a very competitive squad, and everyday you have to show up.

Jamie: It’s definitely interesting. We technically play the same position, but we all play it in a really different way. At the same time, we view the game similarly, so it can be really fun to make those connections in the water. Kiley and I have been on a lot of teams together, so there’s familiarity there. Ryann has this really strong personality from being the youngest and wanting to carry on that legacy, so it’s fun to see her come in with the confidence she has and bring it into this group that’s super seasoned. She kind of has to scale it back some times and be more of a role player [laughs], but it’s cool to see her learning a ton and to get to make those connections in the water. It feels very natural.

Ryann: When I was growing up I went to every single game of theirs that I could. Kiley first joined the national team when she was 17, and I was 10, so I didn’t quite understand the gravity of what she was doing, but I definitely looked up to her as a kid. I definitely looked up Jamie. So now to get to play with not only my sisters, but players I looked up to, is amazing. It’s also difficult, because these are people you don’t want to let down. As a younger player, you always want to prove to your idols what you can do. You want to measure yourself against the great players in your sports. And that dynamic is just a little more interesting when two of those players are your sisters.

Do you ever take a step back and think about just how crazy it is that all of you played water polo at Stanford and now are all competing for a spot on the US team? 

Ryann: When you’re in it the way we’re in it right now, it doesn’t cross your mind because you’re just so busy getting through the day. But when you take a step back, I think it’s really cool. To all have competed at Stanford is one thing, but to also be a part of the national program together — it’s surreal to be competing at this high of a level with your family.

Kiley: A lot of sisters have gone through the national program, but I don’t think there’s ever been three at one time, which is really cool for us. We get to hang out every day together and train together. We unfortunately don’t all live together, though that’s probably for the best. It lets us have our separate time and hang out with our other teammates.

Do you think it’s changed your relationship out of the pool? 

Kiley: I think we have to hold back parts of our relationship that we never had to before. The grind is real. It’s train, recover, sleep, prepare, which means we don’t get to enjoy the same freedom we had at home. We’re a super active family, and we like doing stuff together on the weekends or in the evenings, and we just can’t do that here. It’s bittersweet, because you know that everyday you’re preparing for something bigger than yourself. But at the same time, it’d be nice to just hang out with my sisters, get a coffee, go for a run, like we used to do in Santa Barbara or at Stanford. But there’s just too many hours of training.

Ryann: The three of us are pretty tight knit, and we’re very comfortable as a family. But it’s hard sometimes because even though on paper we all did the same thing, we each have different experiences. We each have our own process. I don’t have a clear cut answer because I’m still learning how to deal with that. It’s never something I think you just have down. Every day it’s a little different, and it’s both fun and frustrating and everything that you can imagine all in one. As a family, we try to leave it in the pool. If I compete against my sisters and lose that day, no matter how I feel, I leave it in the pool. And then I come home and enjoy my time with my sisters. It’s hard, but you learn how to handle it as you go.

Jamie: It helps that we’re all in very different positions. Kylie’s obviously been around a lot longer than Ryann and I.

Kiley: Yeah, I’m old.

Jamie: So she’s a big leader on this team. And then Ryann and I are just trying to earn our stripe. If anything, we’re just supporting each other through our separate journeys. I feel the competition, and I want to beat my sisters when they’re not on my team in practice or when they’re guarding me, but in terms of the ending, the roster, competing for playing time — I feel like that’s all support. We all just hope the best for each other. We’re building each other up. The process is grueling, and there are definitely times where that’s all you can focus on, but seeing both your sisters on the pool deck definitely makes it worth it.

Ryann: I think we’re all just trying to soak it in, because we know it’s not always going to be like this. It’s become so familiar now, but next year everything will change. I’ll be back at school, and who knows where my sisters will be, or what the future will hold. This is a bond we’re going to have for the rest of our lives, so we just want to enjoy the experience because we know it won’t last.

What’s the biggest misconception people have about you as a family? 

Kiley: It’s a small sport, and when you have three kids on the national team, people obviously know who you are. We’re definitely viewed as a water polo family, and the sport is in some ways a language that we all share. But it’s not how we define ourselves. I think people assume it’s all we do, but all three of us and our parents are interested in so many different things outside the pool. We didn’t chase water polo to the highest level solely to reach the highest level. It was always about being the best people that we can be, being the strongest women that we can be. Our parents did a good job just instilling those values in us, and all of us hope that our legacy in water polo goes well beyond the X’s and O’s. That’s very important to us.

Ryann: We know it’s a great story and that it gives exposure to our sport. We play this sport because we love it, not for the media. But we also want more little girls to come out for water polo, so we’re happy to bring whatever exposure we can. It’s a hard sport. It’s widely respected, even if it’s not as well known, so we’d love for it to become more popular.

Jamie: We’re dedicated to our sport, and we’re locked in for the Olympics, but I think we’re also all excited to see how this experience helps us whenever we leave water polo and do something else. The values our parents instilled in us have helped us be successful in our sport, but they also go way beyond that. Right now, this is just a really special experience for the three of us to go through together. There’s positives and negatives to everything, but we’ll just have to wait to see what we want to carry with us, and we want to leave behind.

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.