Cassidy Gale is a two-time wakesurfing world champion. Just 20 years old, the Michigan native is currently in pursuit of her third world title. She spoke with JWS about her path to success and where she wants to go in the future. 

How did you first get into wakesurfing?

I started wakeboarding when I was seven. That was kind of around the time when wakesurfing was just starting. And I tried it, but I was too small. So then I waited a few years and I tried again when I was turning 10. I just did it for fun and I eventually started learning more tricks and stuff. I entered my first competition when I was 15, and from there, I realized that I really liked the competitive side of it. And so I started learning more tricks and setting more goals to learn more and more tricks.

Was anybody in your family like, hey, let’s go try this? 

My older brother and my dad would do it. That’s kind of why I wanted to start it, because I watched my older brother do it. I was like, Oh, I want to do that, too. I grew up on a lake in the summers, so we would do every water sport we could.

Did you have any other role models in your sport? 

Yeah, when I first started I really looked up to Ashley Kidd, who is still the number one. She was one that I would always watch her videos and try to learn everything that she’s learning. And now we’re competitors. It was definitely surreal when I first turned pro, when I went from watching all those people to being in the same division as them. But it was really cool when I was first starting out.

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What does it mean to be a professional wakesurfer in terms of training, competition, and sponsorship?

For me, because I live in Michigan, I obviously can’t train all year round. I think a lot of other pros live in Texas, or Florida, or Georgia, places that they can surf at least nine months out of the year. I have to go down to Florida at the end of February through May so that I can practice for the season, because the season starts in April. It’s definitely a lot of practice. When I’m in Florida in the winter, I’ll try to ride about an hour, every day. And then the same within the summer. That’s harder with competing and traveling, but I try to ride like an hour every day.

My main sponsors are Malibu boats and Tommy’s boats, so that’s a boat dealer and a boat company. For most companies that want to sponsor you, they want you to be at a professional level, or just right below it. Sponsors will support you with products and some of them give you incentives. But most of them want you to be almost at a pro level if it’s a bigger company.

You were a freshman in college when you won your first World Championship. Since then, have you balanced school and competition? 

It’s definitely not easy. Starting my junior year of high school, I started going down to Florida in the winter. So in high school, I would do online, and then college I’ve pretty much only done part time. I’m now a sophomore, only studying part time, because I’m really just focusing on training. But it’s definitely a balance. I mean, I’m sure there’s some people that can do it, but it’s just a lot harder when you’re a full time student and you have to surf for an hour a day and work out and travel.

How has COVID impacted your sport and your training?

For training it hasn’t impacted it too much. For competing, almost all of our competitions were online this year. Which is completely different. Mentally, it’s completely different from competing in person. There have always been online competitions but this year it was forced. If you wanted to compete you had to do them online.

I found that super frustrating because how it works is you could film it as many times as you want but your video had to be 45 seconds from the time that you threw the rope. You can do as many tricks as you want, but I found that so frustrating because I could never get it perfect. When you go to a competition you only have one shot and it is what it is, but I found for online, submitting your own video, it took me 300 tries to just get something that I was okay with. But it was definitely a whole different experience this year.

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Besides COVID, what is the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome so far in your career?

I would say competing in general. I would get really nervous when I first started competing, to the point where I could barely even surf well. I’d surf really well in practice and then once I started competing, I would just get so nervous, and I would choke and I wouldn’t end up riding well. I think that that’s probably the biggest thing that I’ve had to overcome. Just learning over the years how to mentally handle competing and handle the nerves and be able to ride under the pressure.

What really helped me over the years to get over the nerves is just being more confident in my riding. So practicing my specific run, over and over and over, to the point where I was just like, Okay, well, I know I can do it. I’ve done it at home. I can do it here.

You’re already very accomplished, and you’re still really young. What are your goals for the future, both on the water and off?

I think for wakesurfing, it’s obviously to get another world title. That’s probably the biggest goal. Off the water, it still kind of has to do with wakesurfing. I definitely have goals to work with sponsorships with bigger companies. In the future, I want to build enough relationships where I can work at one of those companies or have it translate into another aspect of my life where I’m more working a job versus just being an athlete that is sponsored by them.

How do we get more young girls into wakesurfing?

I think getting them into the sport is so important because I know that wakeboarding is really common. It’s well known, but wakesurfing is fairly new. So I think just getting it more out there and having more people become aware of it, we’ll then get girls into it. I’ve always wanted to do a camp for girls, like a wakesurf camp for girls. It hasn’t happened yet, but that’s always been something that I’ve really wanted to do, whether it’s here in Michigan, or it’s in Florida, or I start up other little camps around the country. That’s definitely something that I think is really necessary to get girls into it.

The New York Liberty dominated Indiana on Thursday night, winning by a whopping 36 points in the Fever's home opener. 

A sold-out crowd of 17,274 was in attendance to watch as star rookie Caitlin Clark finished the 102-66 defeat with nine points, seven rebounds, and six assists. It’s the first time since January 2021 — her freshman season at Iowa — that Clark's been held to single-digit scoring. 

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"The physicality is definitely up there... I'm easily pushed off screens," she told reporters after the loss. "The game seems a little fast for me right now. The more I play and the more comfortable I get, it's going to slow down a little bit. It will be easier for me to make reads, see things develop."

The Fever were outscored by a combined margin of 57 points in their first two games — the largest two-game point deficit in WNBA season-opening history, according to @ESPNStatsInfo.

"We've got to get to a level of toughness," Fever coach Christie Sides in her own postgame remarks. "When things are going south on us, we're not stopping the bleeding."

"I have great perspective on everything that happens," Clark added. "It was the same in my college career. There were some moments that were absolutely amazing. And there were some moments I was not happy with how I played and how my team performed. That's just life, that's just basketball."

Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu, who herself experienced a rocky rookie season following a much-hyped college career, offered up some insight on the matter.

"In this league, there are tough defenses all centered around not letting you get the ball, trapping, not letting you score," Ionescu said. "There were many factors that played into what was a tough first season for me in the league, but it helps you be able to figure it out. You have to have those experiences."

But it was reigning league MVP Breanna Stewart that truly stole the show, racking up 31 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, three steals, and two blocks on the night.

"In general, I just wanted to come out more aggressive coming off of last game," Stewart said after putting up the 24th 30-point game in her career.

Stewart she also commended the fans inside Indianapolis's packed Gainbridge Fieldhouse, noting that she hopes that level of support to continue across the WNBA.

"This is how you want every game to be and when it's a sell-out crowd, it gives you a similar playoff atmosphere feel," she said. "People want to be a part of this and the thing now is to continue to sustain it, continue to take the momentum that we have and turn it into something more."

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert admitted to a "faulty rollout" of the new charter travel initiative on Thursday, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Ahead of Tuesday's season opener, it was announced that the only teams flying private this week would be Indiana and Minnesota. The announcement came mere days after the league made a new charter flight program for all WNBA teams public. At the time, they said it would be implemented "as soon as we have the planes."

But as two teams out of 12 chartered to their first games of the season, others like the Atlanta Dream and Chicago Sky were forced to fly commercial.

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A town hall meeting between Engelbert and the players was held in response to the confusion. Everything from the league's new media rights deal to private travel was covered in the meeting, with players submitting their questions ahead of time. Sky center Elizabeth Williams told Sun-Times reporter Annie Costabile afterwards that cross-country flights were prioritized.

"Flights that are across the country like [the Lynx] going to Seattle, crossing multiple time zones, or flights that usually require a connection, those were the priorities," Williams said. "That’s why New York didn’t go to DC with a charter, but Minny goes to Seattle."

What’s unclear under that metric is that the Atlanta Dream played the Los Angeles Sparks on Wednesday, which could technically be classified as a cross-country flight. 

On Tuesday, rookie forward Angel Reese shared a photo on her Instagram story lamenting the league's use of commercial flights.

"Just praying that this is one of the last commercial flights the Sky has to fly," Reese posted. The team still has at least three commercial flights awaiting them in the near future.

"Obviously, I think all teams should be able to get chartered," Reese told the Sun-Times. "But I know moving forward... going in the right direction, being able to have some teams [chartering] is cool. Within the next weeks, everybody will be flying charter, which will be really good."

On Thursday, Lindsay Schnell of USAToday Sports confirmed that the league intends to have all teams on charter flights by May 21st.

Brazil has been named the host for the 2027 Women’s World Cup, with FIFA announced early Friday. 

The decision came after a vote at the 74th FIFA Congress in Bangkok, with Brazil earning 119 votes to the joint European bid’s 78. 

This will be Brazil’s first time hosting the Women’s World Cup, with the country having hosted the men’s World Cup twice before in 1950 and 2014. It will also be the first Women’s World Cup held in South America. The tournament will follow the same 32-team format as the 2023 WWC in Australia and New Zealand.

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Brazil winning the bid was not entirely surprising after FIFA issued a report just last week, stating that the Brazilian bid had pulled ahead as host following technical inspection. After evaluation, Brazil was given a score of 4.0 out of 5, compared to the 3.7 awarded to the Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Brazil ranked higher in a number of key areas, including stadiums, accommodations, fan zones, and transport infrastructure. Though considered to be a frontrunner, the US and Mexico withdrew their joint bid prior to the technical inspection period, saying they would instead focus their efforts on 2031.

On Friday, Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) president Ednaldo Rodrigues called it a "victory." 

"We knew we would be celebrating a victory for South American women's soccer and for women," he told reporters. "You can be sure, with no vanity, we will accomplish the best World Cup for women."

"We are working on a transformation, not only for the country but for the continent," added bid team operational manager Valesca Araujo.

Brazil intends to use 10 of the venues utilized at the 2014 men’s World Cup, including holding the final in Rio de Janeiro on July 25th. The CBF's proposal outlines that the 2027 tournament run from June 24th through the end of July. Last summer’s World Cup began at the end of July and concluded on August 19th.

Another notable element of Brazil's newly unveiled plan to grow of the women’s game is that "all [men’s] clubs wishing to take part in high-level national and continental competitions must now provide a structure for a women’s team." While the definition of "structure" was not specifically identified, the country has set targets with CONMEBOL to help increase the number of women’s club teams in the country.

In last week's inspection findings, FIFA noted that selecting Brazil as the next WWC host could "have a tremendous impact on women's football in the region."

Chelsea did what they needed to do on Wednesday in order to make Saturday's slate of season-ending WSL fixtures interesting: Beat Tottenham.

The Blues are now number one in the league, with an edge over Manchester City on goal differential thanks to an eight-goal outing against Bristol City last week. 

Yesterday's result tees up a league finale for the books as Chelsea looks to send coach Emma Hayes off with another trophy to add to her cabinet. The Blues will play FA Cup winner Manchester City at Old Trafford on Saturday, while City is away at Aston Villa.

"We will be leaving nothing on the pitch, we will be giving everything and no matter what the result is," Chelsea midfielder Erin Cuthbert said after Wednesday's win. "At least we can look each other in the eye and say we gave everything."

It makes for a thrilling end to Chelsea's Emma Hayes era, as the decorated WSL coach will take over the USWNT in June. And it comes after Hayes all but conceded the title race early this month after Chelsea fell to Liverpool 4-3.

"I think the title is done," Hayes said at the time. "Of course, mathematically, it's not, but I think the title is done. Our job between now and the end of the season is to keep pushing until the end, but I think it will be very difficult.

"We will never give up. But the title is far from us; it's not in our hands. I think City are deserving, their consistency has put them in that position. Of course, we will go to the end, but I don't think the title will be going to us this year."

Be it mind games or Hayes truly thinking her team was that far off, her words lit something in Chelsea. Their following two performances showed the team’s determination to have a shot at some silverware.

As for Saturday's schedule, Hayes believes her team is facing the "tougher of the two games."

"It's a fitting finale for me, being my final game," she told BBC Sport. "As I said to the players if someone gives you a second chance in life, make sure you don't need a third one. We're in the position we want to be in, and we'll give it everything on Saturday no matter what."