Tragic news: A crucial player’s retirement was announced by the Phoenix Mercury head coach because he left his contract to sign a new one.

Tragic news: A crucial player’s retirement was announced by the Phoenix Mercury head coach because he left his contract to sign a new one.

Nate Tibbetts, the new head coach of the Phoenix Mercury, is “sensitive” to the concerns about gender bias raised by his hiring. However, he isn’t worried after talking with Mercury players, he stated at his opening news conference on Friday.

Strong debate resulted from the Mercury’s hiring of 46-year-old Tibbetts, who has no prior head coaching or women’s basketball experience, and making him the highest-paid head coach in the WNBA.

Following the revelation, Muffet McGraw, the former women’s basketball coach at Notre Dame, specifically turned to social media to highlight the disparities ingrained in the coaching pipeline, declaring, “Gender bias is real.”

When questioned about the backlash against his employment, Tibbetts responded, “I don’t really live online.” To be perfectly honest, after talking to the guys and seeing how nice they were, I stopped worrying about things that they weren’t concerned about.

“I am considerate of the circumstances. As far as I’m aware, there are just three male head coaches in the WNBA. Therefore, I accept accountability for that. Whether you agree or disagree, I’m going to do all in my power to support our players and attempt to place them in situations where they can succeed. I’m aware that some people have doubts about that. But I’m mostly focused on that.

During the news conference on Friday, Nick U’Ren, general manager of the Mercury, also addressed the criticism.

“We understand the importance of diversity and opportunity because we are a WNBA organization,” U’Ren remarked. “I think that was reflected in our selection process, candidate pool, and finalist pool.”

Nikki Blue, the acting head coach, hands off to Tibbetts. After Phoenix fired head coach Vanessa Nygaard in June, Blue assumed leadership. It was Tibbetts’ contributions that convinced U’Ren not to continue with Blue as the head coach on a long-term basis.

“I won’t give you negative information about Nikki no matter how many questions you ask me,” he remarked. In the end, Nate’s contributions were what mattered, not what Nikki or any other contender lacked.

Tibbetts has held several assistant coaching positions in the NBA, but this will be his first season as a WNBA coach. Prior to joining the Orlando Magic in 2021, he was employed by the Cleveland Cavaliers and Portland Trail Blazers.

 

KATIE LEDECKY, AN OLYMPIC SWIMMER, WILL GET THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM
Gold medal-winning swimmer Katie Ledecky at the world competition
The most decorated athlete in women’s swimming history is Katie Ledecky. (Getty Images (via Zheng Huansong/Xinhua)
At a White House event this afternoon, seven-time Olympic gold medallist Katie Ledecky will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the country.

The most decorated women’s swimmer in the history of the sport is this Team USA star. She has won the most gold medals of any swimmer, male or female, in the World Championships, with a total of 21 in addition to her seven Olympic golds.

 

According to a White House press briefing, the distinguished award honors 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.”

Ledecky is one of the 19 medal winners that the Biden administration has selected for this year. She enrolls in a class covering human rights, politics, sports, movies, religion, and science. Along with Michelle Yeoh, the actress from Everything Everywhere All at Once, the first Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and posthumous winners Jim Thorpe—the first American Native to win an Olympic gold medal—and assassinated civil rights activist Medgar Evers, they are among the other 2024 honorees.

Two notable members of the USWNT, Megan Rapinoe and Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, were named to the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom class. Ledecky was the seventh female athlete to receive the distinction, following Biles and Rapinoe as the fifth and sixth.

During the world cup, USWNT star Kelley O’hara poses with an American flag.
Kelley O’Hara, a defender for the USWNT, will call it a career at the end of the 2024 NWSL season. (Jose Breton via Getty Images; NurPhoto)
Following a distinguished career for club and nation, Gotham FC and U.S. Rearguard for the Women’s National Team Kelley O’Hara declared via Kelley on the Street today that she will be leaving professional soccer at the end of this season, with the 2024 NWSL season being her final.

Prior to announcing her retirement, O’Hara said to Just Women’s Sports, “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.” “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.”

Depending on where Gotham finishes this season, the 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medallist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion. It is difficult to adequately summarize her playing career, which will always span some of the most significant moments in USWNT and NWSL history.

After reverting to defense, O’Hara participated in every minute of the USWNT’s 2012 Olympic gold medal campaign. Her spectacular goal in the 2015 World Cup semifinal while coming off the bench is legendary. She also solidified a legendary international career by playing in every knockout game of the national team’s 2019 World Cup victory after recovering from a persistent ailment.

After spending years in the trenches with the team’s previous incarnation, Sky Blue, O’Hara returned to help Gotham win a title in 2023. It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 that gave the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship. Her 15-year career included two professional women’s soccer leagues in the United States (she won her first title with WPS’s FC Gold Pride in 2010), as well as significant off-field and on-field developments in the sport.

Following the Washington Spirit’s game-winning goal in the 2021 NWSL Championship in Louisville, Kentucky, O’Hara celebrates. (America TODAY Sports/Jamie Rhodes)
O’Hara has a reputation for having a never-say-die attitude on the pitch, which makes the right flank her stronghold when it comes to attacking possession and defensive transition. She has also received recognition in recent years for her fierce competitiveness, which pushes her teammates to greater heights, whether they are starting with her or supporting them from the bench.

However, the truth that injuries have a cost is sometimes lost on spectators who are watching from home. Regarding her late-career success in the NWSL despite suffering injuries, O’Hara remarked, “I feel like I’ve never coasted either. I’ve never taken anything for granted.” “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.”

O’Hara’s recent ankle and knee problems kept her out of commission at Gotham, which made her realize how important it is to pay attention to her body. It truly wears you out to get hurt and then get hurt again and again and just keep doing it.

“People don’t see the uncertainty that comes with being hurt,” she went on. “As athletes, we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, and 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 that sometimes you don’t.”

Moving on from her playing career wasn’t a decision O’Hara made lightly. But when she started thinking about it really during the previous NWSL offseason, she realized that 2024 would be her last year. “Once I was like, ‘Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,’ I have had a lot of peace with it,” she stated. “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.”

Although she feels fortunate to have developed relationships that go beyond simply sharing a locker room, she stated she will miss her teammates’ everyday interactions and all the incredible memories they have made. “You’re basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day,” she thought. “Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long.”

O’Hara celebrates her victory in the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Vancouver, Canada, by posing with USWNT teammates Tobin Heath and Alex Morgan. (Image courtesy of Getty Images/Mike Hewitt/FIFA)
The Stanford alumna added that she became aware of how much playing gave her the freedom to just be creative every day when the NWSL suspended regular season play in 2020 because to the Covid-19 pandemic. Soccer’s tactical components gave O’Hara a way to apply her innate competitive edge and solve problems.

She is now preparing to dedicate herself full-time to her post-playing career, a new chapter she is eager to start, and channel her on-field intensity. “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 joked.

O’Hara stated that she would like to maintain some kind of relationship with the game, whether it is as a front office employee, coach, or owner. Having founded a production firm with her fiancé and done on-camera commentary for networks like CBS Sports, she is also interested in the expanding media landscape surrounding women’s sports.

“I just feel like I have a lot of passions and things that excite me,” she continues. “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.”

O’Hara at the White House Equal Pay Day Summit in 2022, chatting with veterans and other USWNT members. (AFP via Getty Images; Jim Watson)
The USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s tenure, who brought in a new era of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained rights for those in the league, have consistently emphasized their obligation to expand the game. This generation is crucial because, in comparison to 14 years ago, the playing field is now very different for new players.

“I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don’t know if any of us knew that was going to happen,” she continued. “We kind of moved forward as events developed, redefining women’s football both domestically and internationally.

“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.”

O’Hara is charging ahead with whatever the future has in store. She would also advise the upcoming generation of professionals hoping to leave their own mark.

She remarked, “If you love something, you’re willing to do whatever it takes. So whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place.” You’re prepared to endure the highs and lows and to make the necessary compromises.

 

In the new “20/20” special, Brittney Griner talks candidly about her imprisonment in Russia.
Brittney Griner addresses the media
In 2022, Griner spent over ten months behind bars in Russia. Petersen, Christian/Getty Images
In advance of her memoir, which will be released on May 7, the Phoenix Mercury newspaper spoke with Robin Roberts about her confinement for ten months, considering her subpar living circumstances and unstable mental health.

In last night’s ABC News 20/20 program, Griner said to the anchor, “I had no soap, no toilet paper. The mattress had a huge blood stain on it.” “That was the moment where I just felt less than a human.”

She talked about some of her lowest points during that period as well, shedding tears as she said that she thought about ending her own life more than once. She changed her mind, though, when she realized that her family would not receive her body back from Russian officials.

“I just didn’t think I could get through what I needed to get through,” Griner said.

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Griner was detained and charged with narcotics possession and smuggling in February 2022 by a Russian court after vape cartridges carrying hashish oil were discovered in her luggage by Sheremetyevo International Airport police. In Arizona, where medical marijuana is permitted, Griner’s doctor recommended the cartridges for his persistent pain. The two-time Olympic gold medalist admitted in the interview that she experienced a “mental lapse” when packing and that she never meant to bring the cannabis items back to UMMC Ekaterinburg when she went back to play.

“Mental errors are so simple to make,” Griner remarked. “Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn’t take away from how that can happen.”

The following July, her Russian attorneys urged her to enter a guilty plea, and she was subsequently sentenced to nine years in prison. After that, Griner was detained and sent to a distant prison colony, where she had to spend her days cutting material for uniforms for the military. It only gets worse from there.

“To be honest, it was inevitable,” she replied when questioned about why she chose to chop off her trademark long locks. “We had spiders building nests over my bed.

“I was getting sick, and my dreads started to freeze,” she continued. “They would just stay wet and cold.” You must do the necessary actions in order to survive.”

Griner was released on December 8th in a prisoner exchange arranged by the Biden administration. Shortly after her original detention, the U.S. State Department classified her case as illegally held, raising its seriousness inside the government and drawing even more attention to the problem.

She continued to feel remorse about her imprisonment, saying, “At the end of the day, it’s my fault,” and told Roberts that while she was “thrilled” to hear the news, she was also very sorry about having to leave fellow unjust detainee Paul Whelan behind. And I disappointed everyone.”

Coming Home, Griner’s memoir, will be available on bookstores on May 7.

“Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets,” Griner said in a statement to ABC News. “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.”

revealed details about the Fox Sports commentator and correspondent’s battle with infertility, including the protracted IVF procedures she concealed from the public.

“I learned how to work hard, endure, be resilient, and never give up from soccer. Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci, “I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results. But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world.” I was quite stupid to believe that getting pregnant wouldn’t present any challenges. And thus everything got started.”

With a nod toward others navigating similar challenges, Lloyd went on to discuss in great detail her road to pregnancy, sharing highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She concluded the piece by encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

“Although my tale is currently pleasant, I am aware that other women are having difficult pregnancies. “I hope more and more women will speak up about this topic because their stories helped me,” the woman added. “I see you and I understand your pain,” she said. I also hope that funding, resources, and information on reproductive treatments would be increased. There is a lot of work to be done, and hopefully I can contribute in some way.”

Lloyd, a legendary player who left the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards, retired from professional soccer in 2021. She finished her illustrious career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. Lloyd was born in New Jersey.