Rachel Jones is a junior midfielder for the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team. UNC, as part of the ACC, is playing soccer this fall while much of the rest of the country waits for spring. Jones spoke with JWS about the unique situation and what it’s been like to be a student-athlete in the time of COVID-19. 

The NCAA has said that it will allow for championships in the spring, and that the games you’re playing now will count toward that. What is the team’s plan for making that work? 

We haven’t really gotten many details, but I did ask our Director of Operations the other day if we would be able to go home for winter break and he said, “100 percent.” Once the season is done in the fall, it’s just going to go back to normal. We will just come back whenever the semester starts in the spring. Even if we can play games, it wouldn’t be until February so we would still have an extended pre-season to be able to ratchet things up again.

What do you think about the ACC’s decision to go ahead with fall sports now that you are about a month into the season?

I’m really grateful for it just from a mental health sense. I think everybody was in a tough space when we were trying to figure out if we were going to have a season or if we were going to be able to play with our seniors again. Also, the protocols that they have set in place have really given us an opportunity to do what we love while staying safe. We’re getting tested three times a week, so it’s really unlikely that we’ll play and then figure out later, “Oh, we played with someone that was positive.”

Has it been difficult to stay focused on the season given everything going on in the rest of the country?

Yeah, this has definitely been the hardest season since I’ve been here at UNC. Everything going on is just draining in general and being in season is draining itself. Everybody on our team is in a tough place and we’re really having to put our arms around each other and push each other through. We’ve been in classes since the first week of August and we’ve only had one day off. Everything just adds up. I think we’ve done a really good job of hitting the field, walking across those lines, and letting everything else fade away. We enjoy being together and we let soccer be our escape from everything else.

Your team is undefeated so far and ranked No. 1 in the country, which is awesome and kind of no surprise given how historically good UNC soccer is. What has allowed you to come out with such a fast start amidst all that’s going on?

I think it’s really a testament to our core values as a team. We have 13 core values that we try to live by and one of them is that you always have control of your attitude. I think we’re really prepared for this situation because of how Anson [Dorrance] has taught us to deal with whatever comes our way. We know that we always have our team to help us. We have really good team chemistry, so nobody feels like they’re going through it on their own.

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— UNC Women's Soccer (@uncwomenssoccer) October 2, 2020

I know you said you were super excited to get the chance to play this year, but did you have any personal hesitations about playing in the beginning?

Before the ACC came out with their protocols, some people were a little sketched out. We had decided from day one that if we were going to go through with this, we were going all in. We have to be in a bubble because Anson is high risk and his family is high risk, too. We knew that we couldn’t take any chances with this. We had to decide from day one that we weren’t going to see anybody outside of our team. And if we did, we were going to have to be masked, six feet apart and outside.

At the beginning, we were scared that other teams weren’t going to take it as seriously as us. But once the ACC came out with their protocols, those feelings of nervousness went away and we were just excited to get some games in.

Anson Dorrance is a coaching legend. What has he done amidst all the external factors to keep this team calm and focused on their goals?

Throughout the summer, we had weekly team meetings with him. That was really nice because we obviously hadn’t seen each other since March and we started to feel like a team again. He kept us in the loop and he made sure that we kept our eye on the prize. He can’t control a pandemic, obviously, but he made sure that if we got to play, we were ready. He didn’t let us slack off at all. And then, with all of the racial injustice stuff, he did a really good job having conversations as a team immediately and making sure that those conversations have been sustained. With all of the outside factors, I think he did a really good job addressing them and not letting anything go unsaid.

How it started How it's going

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— UNC Women's Soccer (@uncwomenssoccer) October 7, 2020

How has dealing with all of the chaos leading up to this season given you any perspective on the rest of your playing career? 

First of all, it really made me realize that I am an upperclassmen now. I think when you normally go from sophomore to junior, you don’t really feel like anything is different. But when we had our spring season taken away from us and when we were sent home, it made me realize that I’m not always going to be here. I have to make the most of my time here and just embrace every aspect of it, and enjoy it as much as I can.

How has the team adjusted to playing without Lotte Wubben-Moy, Lois Joel, and Alessia Russo, all of whom signed with English clubs instead of coming back to the States? 

Well, that’s another way the pandemic has affected us. Players from England had to decide whether they wanted to take the chance and stay here without knowing if we would even have a season, or if they should bet on themselves and try to start their professional career early. Anson told them to bet on themselves — he really thought that they were ready to start their professional careers. And as you can see, Alessia scored her first goal in her first start. It was tough for us to lose them, for sure. But I think it shows just the depth of this program. We’re never dependent on a few players, we’re a team.

I saw that a couple freshmen players have earned starting roles at UNC. Have any of these players really surprised you?

With Alessia, Lois and Lotte leaving, it opened up opportunities for other players to earn playing time. A lot of players have come through and made the most of that opportunity, and we are really appreciative and proud of them. We have three or four freshmen who are starting and absolutely killing it right now. We love every single one of them and we’re so glad that they all came.

I know this is still a few years away, but do you have personal goals of playing professionally once you graduate or even prior to graduation?

Yes, I definitely want to try and play in the NWSL.

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.