Kelley O’Hara launches Players’ Pod with Just Women’s Sports

Kelley O’Hara revamps Just Women’s Sports podcast

She’s back! Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Cup champion Kelley O’Hara is taking the working formula from her Just Women’s Sports podcast and expanding on it in her newly launched Player’s Pod. It’s a natural transition that reflects the growth within the Just Women’s Sports company as a whole.

With a year of podcast hosting under her belt, Kelley O’Hara attempts to create a more complete picture through her podcast by reaching out to everyone that makes up the women’s sports landscape including coaches and investors.

When the Just Women’s Sports podcast launched a year ago, Kelley O’Hara kicked off the inaugural season with fellow USWNT superstar Alex Morgan. She’s stuck to the USWNT theme for the debut episode of the Players’ Pod, but this time chose to reflect on some of the USWNT’s most successful years with former USWNT head coach and current President of San Diego Wave FC, Jill Ellis.

Rarely do players and coaches have the opportunity — or even the desire—to rehash past memories and decisions. It’s not easy to explain to one of the best players in the world why she was left out of a starting line up, and it’s uncomfortable to ask a premier level coach how they felt when their own players went to the higher-ups to try to get them fired.

On Episode 1 of the Players’ Pod, Kelley O’Hara and Jill Ellis are refreshingly candid with each other as they reflect on Ellis’ tenure with the USWNT, her triumphs and falls and the team’s trophy/medal winning performances contrasted with their embarrassing losses.

Though it appears that Ellis and her players had an open line of communication at the time so these difficult conversations had already been had, this is a unique opportunity for those outside of the team to understand the tough journey and decisions that went into preparing for and winning back to back World Cups.

So I highly suggest tuning out the city noise and mayhem on your way to work and listening to fascinating stories from the women’s sports world through the Players’ Pod.