Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're still reeling over Meryl Streep's cameo in the SNL fifty special and Eddie Murphy as Tracy Morgan and the return of Linda Richmond.
Y'all, I'm for klemped talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic.
Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island discuss. It's Tuesday, February eighteenth, and on today show, we'll be chatting with one of our absolute faves, Sam Muis, former US women's national team player, an editor in chief and host of the Women's Game podcast on the Men.
And Blazers Network. We'll talk about the US roster for the.
She Beliefs Cup, head coach Emma Hayes, desire to reimagine women's soccer, and a whirlwind off season full of weddings. Plus college hoops gets a ranking shakeup, it's a major award, and we get a little petty tender gress.
It's all coming up right after this Welcome back slices. Here's what you need to know today.
In hoops news, The Naysmith Basketball Hall of Fame announced the finalists for its class of twenty twenty five, and Sue Bird, Maya Moore, and Sylvia Fowls all.
Made the cut.
Byrd is a four time WNBA champ and a five time Olympic gold medalist with Team USA. She was also a thirteen time w All Star, good for the most appearances in league history. Moore won two golds with Team USA and played just seven seasons in the w but was a four time champ and a six time All Star. Fowls is a four time gold medalist, two time WNBA
champ in a two time finals MVP. Molly Bolan, a star in the first ever women's Pro Basketball League, is also a finalist, and Jennifer Azy, who played in both the w and the American Basketball League, is as well. Fun fact, Yukon star Azy Fudd is named after Jennifer Azy. Next step will be the Nasmith Honors Committee considering these names, and then the new class will be announced on April fifth. At the NCAA Men's Final four to college hoops this weekend was Chaos.
Number seven.
Yukon made a statement against number four South Carolina, knocking off the game Cocks in Columbia eighty seven fifty eight. Yes you heard me right, eighty seven to fifty eight. That was a twenty nine point shalacking. And the aforementioned Azy Fudd, a grad student guard who's missed numerous games throughout her career due to injury, looked like the best player on the floor. She led the Huskies with twenty
eight points and hit six threes in the win. Red Scherd, senior Page Beckers and freshman Sarah Strong added double doubles, the former posting twelve points in ten assis and the latter sixteen points and thirteen rebounds. Beckers also moved up to number eleven Connecticut's all time scoring list during the game. Here's the call moments after it happened, right in front of the player she passed on the list, Rebecca Lobo.
Take a listen.
It's kind of a significant bucket there. Oh sorry, partner, Date Becker is just poet by you.
We need the mister.
That's true.
We were going to cut the crassed off at eleven, but we thought alters updates the page. Backer's down two thy one hundred and thirty six points, accounting just twenty behind D on that list as well.
That's impressive, by the way.
Shout out to Rebecca Lobo because she keeps me giggling with her posts about her kids. So remember a few months ago she got the late night text from her daughter in college who said, quote, what was the deal with the gold medal and starting the WNBA and stuff?
I need it for an assignment end quote. Well, this time it was a friend of her daughter who texted her using her married name Russian and said, quote, hi, missus Russian, you just got mentioned in conversation with my friends, and I said, I'm friends with the family, and my friend goes to be honest, I didn't know.
She was still alive. I am dead. Please keep sharing these kids, keeping you humble. It's so good.
Right after the Yukon SC game number three, Texas hosted number five LSU and an SEC clash and set the Tiger's home holding the sixty five fifty eight l just their second loss of the season. Friend of the Show in Longhorn, sophomore Madison Booker paced Texas with a sixteen point ten board double double, while senior guard Rory Harmon added five assists and ten points, including a couple clutch buckets down the stretch. Also got a shout out Lsusannissa Moro.
She had fifteen points and twenty rebounds in the losing effort. That's her fifth straight game in double digits and her fourth twenty rebound game of the season. Over in the ACC, number ten NC State and number twelve UNC went down to the wire in Chapel Hill, Tar Hills pulled out a sixty six to sixty five upset thanks to two big free throws by Grace Townsend with less than five seconds left in the game. Sophomore guard Brnia Kelly set a new career high in the win and led UNC
with twenty three points, including five made threes. Also, we can't forget the big one last Thursday night in the Big ten, number six USC upsetting Number one UCLA at the Galen Center seventy one to sixty, the Bruins'.
First loss of the season.
Trojan sophomore sensation Juju Watkins was unbelievable in that game, thirty eight points, eleven rebounds, eight blocks, and five assists per ESPN. That performance made are the first Division One player of any gender in the last twenty seasons with at least thirty five points, five blocks, and five assists.
And speaking of sensational performances. How about Vanderbilt's MICHAELA. Blakes, who scored a Division one women's freshman record fifty five points on Sunday in a ninety eight eighty eight OT victory over Auburn. That was her second fifty plus point performance of the season. Freshmen, y'all, unbelievable. Top twenty five seating has totally changed thanks to all those contests, so we'll link to this week's restructured AP Top twenty five in our.
Show notes More hoops.
We know the unrival players are still out of breath from the one v one tournament, but they got to get back out there for regular season. Three on three play tonight Rose versus Vinyl at seven thirty Eastern and Phantom versus Laces at eight thirty eastern. You can catch those games on TNT now. The one v one Queen Nafisa Collier two hundred thousand dollars richer after her victory on Friday, and her lunar owls teammates heavier in the
wallet by ten thousand each. Thanks to her dub They get to enjoy the spoils of victory a little longer. They don't return to play till Friday to the Mats and the Bars. Friday wasn't just Valentine's Day, it was also the Super Bowl of NCAA Gymnastics. The nation's two best programs, number two LSU and number one Oklahoma went head to head down in Baton Rouge, and the Tigers took down the Sooners by a margin of just zero
point three seven five. LSU posted Season I scores involved and on the floor in the win, and it was OU's first loss of the twenty twenty five season to lacrosse. The WL Championship series is over and the Boston Guard are the first champions in league history. Boston down the New York Charging twenty two to seventeen on Monday for
the win. Still waiting to hear what's next for the league with the Pick, some videos we've seen of fans swarming players like Guard captain Charlotte North postgame make us super hopeful for what lies ahead. The Maryland charm were eliminated from competition on Saturday, but in the postgame press conference, goalkeeper Kaylee Waters expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to suit up. It was pretty moving listen to this.
I held my head walking out, but I saw these girls, heard these girls calling my name asking for autographs. I don't know why I'm getting worked up, but you know, so I wanted to stay out there and do the autographs because I felt better than being in the locker room and thinking about possibly not having another game. You know, the game just means a lot on and off the field, and I think this experience has really allowed myself and everyone to connect with what's out there. It's brought the
crowd to us. It's really put it in our hands the impact and influence that we have. So I really just thank everyone for being here, everyone who put this on. You know, win or lose. I'd rather have the opportunity to lose than not.
Play at all.
So thank you, Paul, Rachel, Mike, everyone for this who made this possible.
Well, you're tugging on our heart strengths, Kaylee, so agree, and I hope there's more for this league in these players. If you want to check out either of those WL videos,
will throw them in the show notes. Finally, in Dude Hoops, MNBA All Star Weekend came and went, and if you ask me, I still haven't found the formula to top WNBA All Star This year's festivities featured a lot of remixes on old formats, some that work better than others, but what stood out to us was there was no stuff Curry, Sabring and Escu three.
Point shootout rematch now.
When asked why the league chose not to bring back the contest that broke the internet, MNBA Commissioner Adam Silver said it felt forced this year in contrast to the sort of organic way things unfolded in twenty twenty four.
They couldn't find a way to top it, they said, makes sense.
I think if Caitlin Clark had been in, that would have been the step up that they were looking.
For from last year.
But Clark said she wants her three point contest debut to be at the WNBA All Star Game in her team's home city of Indye this summer, and honestly, we love that she's save in that juice and that attention for the women's game. A quick note to share with our beloved slices.
Our little show.
Not yet even a year old, just got some big news. We're nominated in the Best Sports Podcast category for the Ambies, the Podcast Academy's Awards for Excellence and Audio. We're up against some other wonderful nominees, including a few friends who are now obviously enemies, Jamel Hill, Pablo Torre, Rich Eisen. The awards are March thirty first and in Chicago this year,
with the hilarious and wonderful Tig Nataro hosting. Now, this is a relatively new award show, just the fifth iteration, but we're told it's a major award, so we're big happy about it. Send us your good juju for the win. And while we're celebrating good show news, I will be at the iHeart Podcast Awards in Austin, Texas on March tenth to receive one of the three Icon Awards, paying tribute to the creators, organizations and podcasts that have made
groundbreaking industry contributions. So I'm getting the twenty twenty five Social Impact Award for championing equity and sports. It's coverage, equal pay for female athletes, and better investment in women's sports infrastructure.
I am super.
Honored and I can't wait for that, and just grateful that the show is so new and already being recognized. It's pretty awesome. Okay, that's enough patting ourselves on the back. I mean for now at least. I'm sure we'll do it in the future, but we got to take a quick break when we come back. Sam mwis Queen of the Women's Game, our favorite soccer pod, both the Friendlies and the Good Vibes FC episodes.
She's gonna join.
Us to get another stamp on her Good Game punch card.
That's next joining us again.
She's a former professional soccer player, World Cup winner, Olympic bronze medalist, three time NWSL champion, at NCAA champion. She's now the host of the Fantastic The Women's Game podcast, part of the Men in Blazer's digital network, The Tower of Power, Mother of Finn Wedding Attendee of the Year it's Sammy Mwis.
Welcome back, Sam, Hi.
Thank you so much. I don't think I do Wedding Attendee of the Year. I think that award exclusively goes to a listenaer who went to literally every single wedding that we saw this off season.
I love to hear that because I love a lessonnaire.
But she's also you know, she's uncle there, you like you just I love that everybody wants her there and that.
She knows to be there. That's fine. I know here.
I know that brings us to the wedding speed round, which is actually what we're starting with. How many did you go to this offseason?
I went to three, which is not very many, considering two of them where Lynn Williams is Lynn bian Doola's.
See, we're all working on that. There's a lot of new names to remember. What's the wildest thing you saw one of those three weddings.
I don't know if it's the wildest, but I thought the coolest thing was at Steph McCaffrey's wedding. They played man I Feel like a Woman, like right after they walked down the aisle after doing their vows, and like it was right after the ceremony, so everybody was like surprised, and it was like such a fun first dance song that like everybody kind of got up and was just singing and dancing and it was like the coolest post vow moment ever. It was really sweet.
I love that.
And also, of course Lynn wearing a wedding dress that her father in law made her by my I mean, I.
Know what both weddings and her husband Marlee also wore suits that his father had. Crazy was such a beautiful gesture. And I just love Marley's dad so much. He's like one of my favorite people ever.
That's so cute.
Okay, which one of those three ceremonies. Did you have the biggest headache?
After Oh my god, Lynn's First Lynn's first wedding? I had an ungodly amount of There were these pink margaritas and like, and I don't usually drink margarita's, but they were so good and I just kept it was like a whole scene. But after Steph McCaffrey's I did, I was a little bit ill. I was, I was talking you went hard.
Last one?
Do you have a go to wedding gift or you just like straight off the registry?
You know what?
First Steph McCaffrey, who's like one of my oldest like kind of childhood friends, she's like from my area. I got them a guest book from the museum in Boston where they got engaged, and then like the guests like signed in the cover. So that was like a beautiful, creative gift that I was actually really proud of. And then for Lynz, I actually think I just thought my gift was going to both and going to California and Australia. So I didn't actually get her anything else.
Fair fair, just like just frame the ticket that you had to buy to face out exactly. Okay, So things were very different the last time you were on the show. You were on last August alongside Coast Becky Sowerbrun. Becky hadn't yet retired, the US hadn't yet won gold in Paris. We didn't yet know via the off season that Nicki Stanton pee's a little every time she does a slide tackle. There's just these were much simpler times. Now we have Emma Hayes as our Lord and savior.
It's official.
Everyone knows uh someone who's getting married or retiring, and we're speeding toward the first big event of the year, which is the She Beliefs Cup.
So let's start there.
What stood out to you about the roster drop for this upcoming She Believes Cup.
First and foremost, the balance of player who were on the Olympic roster last year, plus a bunch of young, new, exciting players. I think there's four first time call ups. Claire Hutton from Kansas City, who I've really been rooting for is like a fellow midfielder. I'm excited for her. Yasmin and Ryan I think has been making a statement in the NBBSL and is continuing to get these call ups, so I'm excited for her. The sisters Alyssa and Giselle Thompson.
I was gonna say, do you have a special place in your heart for the first pair of sisters since the Muies.
I do have a special vismer. I'm really rooting for them. It's such a fun and unique experience to be in national team camp with your sister. And I actually had them both on my podcast together at the end of last year, which was just so fun. I think that dynamic is just really special and something really only three pairs of sisters ever, us the Thompson's and the Fairs can kind of say that we've experienced. So I'm excited for them and proud of them. And then the other
thing is the goalkeeper. I think that's kind of the big storyline heading into this camp.
Now.
Ready, I know, I'm not ready to say goodbye to a listener. We still get to see in Chicago, So you're lucky, you're going to be there, but seeing Jane Campbell come back, who has a lot of experience with this team, she's been to multiple Olympics. Seeing Mandy McGlynn who's back in, who's been making a statement with the Utah Royals, and then seeing Valentellis Joyce, who's going to be a training player. She's not on the game roster,
but she's been doing great for Man United. We know her name when she played for Seattle, but she's been crushing it across the pond. So I'm excited to see if she can continue to get these call ins.
So much pressure at that position, Like there can be an incredible player at any position on the field that retires or moves on, and everyone's going to mourn their departure, but no one's going to be like all eyes on whoever's there quite the same way as the goaltender that steps into that position post Alyssenaire. Every little mistake, every little moment is going to be so overanalyzed. I feel
for those players stepping into that legacy. Of all the young players you mentioned four uncapped and ten players with four or fewer caps, any of those are particular that you're looking at that you're like Oh, I can't wait for us to get a good look at this one.
Yeah. I mean this forward's list has such a great balance. I think obviously we're missing Triple Espresso, Sophia Trinity mal not coming into this camp again. But what's really exciting about this is again that same balance I mentioned before. Players who have experience are coming back into camp Kat Maccario, Lynn Biandolo, but then there's just this array of new player as Ali sent Noor, who's actually from my hometown at Hanson, Massachusetts. I'm so excited to see her name
on this list. Lily Johannes, who has a little bit of experience the Pasal team, but she's this huge young storyline who moved to the Netherlands, plays for i AX, could have maybe played for the Netherlands national team, but chose the US and we're all so excited to have her. So I'm really focused, I think on this midfield's kind of array of talent to see how Jadenshaw is doing. I hear that she's doing so great in the North Carolina Courage preseason, but we really missed out on seeing
her last year's Olympics. After such a great kind of start to twenty twenty four, So I'm excited to see if Jadenshaw can kind of showcase herself back in that top form after dealing with what I imagine was a really difficult injury during the Olympics.
Yeah, you just got me so excited remembering.
Some of these names that like we've gotten a little taste of and then either because of injury otherwise, like Lily Johannes is such an incredible story and getting to see some of that, I'm.
Really really excited about that.
Okay, you mentioned that there's also some vets, including Emily's Sonnet. She's gonna get her one hundred caps celebration before the match against Columbia.
Do you have a fave Sonnet story?
Oh my god. Well, first of all, I have been trying to get this name. Sonnet believes cup to catch on because I this is her tenth. She believes there have been ten tournaments on every single one nobody else's. I don't think anybody else has done that. Obviously, she's won seven of them, so this could be her eighth. Whenever I think about Sonnet, we have so many memories together, her and Rose, like pulling pranks on me in the Bellamar Hotel in Manhattan Beach during national team camp, scaring
me in the stairwell sharing goldfish night. Like, Sonnet is one of my oldest friends, and I do have a very vivid picture in my mind when we were alternates at the twenty sixteen Olympics together. It was really where our friendship went through its most trying time. It was really difficult to be an alternate. And we were running sprints just me and Sonnet after a practice because we
weren't playing in the games. We didn't get what we needed in the practice because it wasn't meant for us, and we just looked at each other, like, someday we are gonna be so grateful that we were here and that we were doing these goddamn sprints right now, And I think it's it's right now. Sauna getting our one hundredth cap is such a huge deal to me because
I never reached that milestone. But to have somebody that I really was arm in arm with my whole career on the national team, from like the lowest of times to the best of times, that's Saun it for me, and so for her to reach it, I feel this like it's really this huge monumental moment for her, and I'm just so proud of her.
Yeah, her body is your body.
She's carrying the dre on for you, and she is in.
The way that you were unable to.
She is she's got those good nies.
Yeah, Goodniees.
I want to talk about Emma Hayes and the recent reporting around her goal to sort of fundamentally re imagine women's soccer from coaching to performance scientists to data analysts to marketing exacts. She wants to lead everyone that is connected into the women's game in any way in a thought exercise that sort of asks what would this look like if we weren't copying the men's game and if we actually designed everything from drills to uniforms to marketing
for women. This was incredible to hear and to see her thoughts on this.
What was your take on it?
Yeah, Lynn Williams and I, lind Bian dol and I talked a lot about this on our episode of Good Vibes. We're so excited. I think that women's soccer in the US has been waiting for a kind of three hundred and sixty degree approach to our sport, our bodies, our experience to really be implemented, and I think Emma is right to say that for so long, studies for soccer players have been based on a seventy kilogram male athlete playing in England, and that's the only data that we have.
And so for Emma to come in and really spearhead this change and this kind of what will be a trickle down effect in the program in US Soccer and the NBCL, even in the Super League, it's like it's been a long time coming and I feel so grateful
to Emma for realizing how important this is. I think one of my biggest takeaways what was that she wants to implement this board of people who will oversee players when they're with the national team, with they're with their club teams, when they're when they're at home training, because I think that the communication between national team and club team has always been a little bit off, and I think that for a group of people to be overseeing
the whole well rounded athlete and considering what's best for them where they are in their mental cycle, how much they're traveling going back and forth from club to country, I think it's just a huge deal and it's so important that Emma is implementing this. Now we have this break in the cycle, she can get a lot done.
We have this thirty million dollar gift from Michelle King, and that's really going to, I think, support this movement to improve the experience for women athletes in the us ACA program.
Yeah, the way you're talking about it has me thinking about this interesting nuance where you're both humans and products, because ultimately, if you had essentially two major businesses that shared an important product, they would have to communicate about that product. And in this sense, there hasn't been great communication from the national team to the clubs about what's
going to make that product work right. And we saw it unfortunately after the Olympics with some players that had plans to come back to the NWSL and couldn't because of injuries that they felt were sustained with their national team because of mishandling. And so that is the same case that has to happen here in terms of the US communicating with clubs. I also think, you know, when you are not intentional about seeing the ways things are
made for men, it's easy to miss them. And when you suddenly decide to take your gaze and look at it and say, what might have been made with men in mind is the default. It suddenly becomes clear everywhere. There's this great book in Visible Women. It's about exposing like data bias in a world that's designed for men, in all the spaces that we don't even think about it as simple as like what temperature.
Rooms are and things like that.
Yeah, but I feel like she's like applying that mindset to this. And one thing she said is she wants you to ask soccer to have a distinct women's coaching education department, so the licenses would be specifically tailored to women's soccer, so physiologically, anatomically, technically, tactically.
Psychologically, socially, and emotionally, which.
Oh my god, duh, I know. I mean, it's kind of like the sports bra. It's like, yeah, duh, why didn't we have a bar that you could go to that had all the women's sports? And now I was like, yeah, do why don't we have licenses specific.
To women's sports? Because one thing this feels like to me is this could be.
The step that we need to help solve the problem of abuse and toxicity that's so rampant in women's soccer, Like having people have to get actual training specific not just to soccer, but to women.
Does that feel like to you that could be this important step?
I think that, I mean, this mindset and this approach to the women's game is certainly leading us along a better path towards preventing abuse and harassment, like we have just recently been talking so much about with the settlement fund coming home with the Nbasel. And I think to your point earlier Emma's inclusion of this licensing for coaches to be trained and licensed for the women's game, there
are tactical differences in the game. I was reading in this article about the expected goals ratio that has been studied in the men's game doesn't always apply in the same way to the women's game. And why is that?
We have no idea and we should figure that out, even as much as the type of hotels that the team is staying in to account for our women gathering in social spaces differently than the men are, and can we consider that when we're putting our team here for a month, shouldn't we consider the spaces that we're being social And I find it so fascinating and I'd love
to read that book that you suggest. I think we can all learn so much more about this because we do all kind of go through our lives not even realizing how much of the world is designed for men.
Yeah, well, put the link to the book in the show notes. Everyone should read. It's everything from like crash Dummies to you know, science studies and medical studies and everything, and how much there is intention behind everything. Just because it arrives to us already done doesn't mean that somebody didn't plan it when they started it. I have a quick question for you that I've asked a number of people in the soccer space, and I'm wondering if you
have a brilliant thought on it. I know that there's abuse across girls and women's sports of every kind, but for whatever reason, it feels to me like soccer has a prevalence that's different. And a lot of the spaces it might be an overseeing body or one person who manages an entire national team that's the problem. But in soccer, it's like, how does this happen on so many teams in so many spaces, in so many countries.
And I'm my.
Theory, which is terrible, probably, but is that there's a subjectivity to the sport that allows coaches to use their power dynamic differently, like with five starters in basketball, and a very clear idea of like who's out there doing the best. It's a little harder to threaten someone with benching or to not play them and claim that it's for a valid reason, versus with soccer. There's a lot more players. You can claim it's a strategic difference or that someone's just not a fit.
Is that part of it?
Is there more power in the coach to make those decisions and hold them over players.
I don't have any opposition to what you just said. I haven't necessarily thought about it in terms of the subjectivity of the sport, but I find that interesting. I've heard Tobin Heath talk about this before and describe it as kind of US soccer having a monopoly on the dream. And when you're a little girl and you are watching the national team play, there was as I was growing up and a lot of players in my generation, there was one path to get to that team. There was
one way to do it. You had to go through the system. You had to get called into the youth national teams. You had to go to a good college, you had to play in whatever league was available and put up with whatever abuses were going on, and you had to do all of these right and career steps while being watched by US Soccer to then make the national team. There's only one path. And that's kind of how I've maybe thought about why it has seemed more
rampant in our sport or more prevalent right now. I also think we have been going through this reckoning and we are dealing with it head on, and it feels very much so out there and in the media right now, and I think that for the future and the growth of the game, we are grappling with it, and that is in the hopes that in the future it will get better and go and we can prevent it.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to have like a round table of the soccer minds and maybe folks from other sports too, because I'm interested in hearing like if they all got together and talked, would they be able to root out some of the primary reasons and could we work on either the pipelines or the people in charge in those places or whatever to help stop it in all the
different sports and spaces. Have you heard from players playing under Emma about how this approach and her view on things is already clear in the way she coaches or works with them.
Well, so it's funny that you asked that. I did just recently talk to Lynn about this, and she was saying, Yes, they're doing a lot of new menstrual cycle tracking, and that was something that even when I was on the national team maybe five six years ago, we were starting to implement that. I mean, we always had these surveys that we filled out every morning to kind of track our wellness and how we were feeling, and the menstrual
cycle started to become part of that. But Linn says, they're talking more about the science of when you're in this phase of your cycle, you actually don't need to lift as heavy because the stimulus on your body is just as much since your body is being drained by maybe where you are in your cycle. So I think that as they start to do more work in that area, that will tie into nutrition, understanding when you're ovulating, understanding
what changes you need to make throughout your cycle. So she said specifically that in that area some of those changes have been made.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I actually moderated a panel at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute with like the leading global expert on that, and the research is still not good enough to make sweeping changes,
but it's useful to track and think about. And there are some teams and clubs that have gone public with saying that we're going to try to practice based on when people are ovulating and sinking, and they found that there's actually not a lot of good research behind doing that, but there is plenty to be learned by studying the parts of the cycle and how they affect lifting and
everything else. Kate Ackerman, who's a doctor who works with the WUSAYE lines that got a massive grant to try to understand this stuff, particularly women's bodies in elite performance, is kind of helping wrangle all these different people that
are studying that. And I'll be fascinated to see if the US women's national team ends up getting enough research to contribute to things like that at the highest level, because part of it is there's just a dearth of data in the women's space to actually provide enough to know that you can move forward with decisions about how something like ovulating might affect your performance.
Yeah, I think even this comment that Emma made, how she only called into goalkeepers for on three player roster, that's unusual. Normally on a twenty three player roster there would be three. But even Emma saying I wanted an extra field player because these players are still in preseason and I need access to more subs, even that, to me is Emma showing her awareness of where these players are at in their year, in the cycle of their year. They're coming off of an offseason. Sure, they had this
January camp, they had the futures camp. They are in preseason with their club teams, but how many of these players are ready to play ninety minutes three games in a row.
Fair?
It was so smart of Emma. And it stinks to be the third goalkeeper who's not going to be on the game rosters. But it's showing this thoughtfulness from Emma that I don't know that we've seen before.
Yeah, can you think of specific ways that this approach being around in your playing days might have affected you? I mean she mentioned everything from media understanding how social media photographs that go public might affect players, to coaches.
Being sensitive to women's says.
She's like, is there a moment that you remember from your career, or you know, if specific great, if bigger picks are fine, but like where you're like, it would have been great if the people in charge had thought about this as a women's sport.
Yeah, I think. I mean the pictures thing, I totally stand by. I think that it's so interesting just the whole media landscape that I've learned so much more about it now as a editor in chief of a women's soccer vertical. But it is so interesting that like, somebody who works for the team can take a picture of you and post it and you never get to see it, and what if you have a double chin right, or your hair looks bad or you don't like it, or your legs don't look the way you want them to.
And so I think for her to even be thinking of that minuscule of a detail and just thinking about these athletes as people and as whole people who these athletes on the national team today have to worry about their media appearance and they're how they're being portrayed. And I think that it's just such an important distinction. And I the more I learn about Emma and hear her talk about this stuff, the more, I'm like, Wow, the national team is in such great hands, I think for me,
and this is something I've been pretty open about. I never was I got a chronic injury in twenty seventeen that was always going to be a part of the rest of my career, and I never really felt like the communication to manage what was always going to be an injury that was going to get worse and worse
and worse as I went. Nobody ever really fully explained it to the other side, explained what my load was, explained how we could make my career last longer, to the point where four years later I played my last game and nobody really could do anything about it. I
just got run into the ground. It happens, but it's super unfortunate, and I do think that had there been better communication and more awareness of the situation that I was in with cartilage damage and a knee that was getting worn down, my career could have been longer.
That's hard, Yeah, I mean so much of it is just a desire to be aware of things like that of every aspect, and to your point about the players and the photographs, like a lot of people might kind of roll their eyes and be like, that's part of being in the public view or do men say that?
And the problem is is that there is an oversized emphasis on the esthetic part of being a woman in the world, and whether we want to feel that way about it or not, it is a reality that it can affect our careers, and it can affect sponsorships, that
it can affect the way people see you. And so many of the photographers are male, and so many of the people making the decisions are not aware of it, like I was part of I was on the board for the Gateway Women's Advisory Board for all of its years of existence, and we actually had a breakout session once where we went through dozens and dozens of sport photographs and picked the ones that we felt like actually the player would like, showed them in action, all these
other things, and gave guidance for Gatoray to give back to their photographers on shoots based on those of us in the media, those of us were professional athletes in the room. All of that, because it does matter whether you want to roll your eze or not, Like, there is an oversized impact on women in terms of representation in that way.
So yeah, I just I's thinking about it.
I know, and the other part of that for me, I was just talking about this with my team the other day. The women in sport have always been forced into caring more about this kind of taking the wall down, showing our lives on social media, worrying about our appearance, worrying about do people like my personality? Because the paychecks haven't been coming from the sport, they've been coming from how do brands like me? How does my audience like me?
How much engagement am I getting does this company want to work with me? So historically we have always had more of a concern to appear better in photographs and to kind of market ourselves off the field, because the industry has rewarded us for that in a way that men, male athletes don't usually have to worry about.
Completely agree, my male colleagues at ESPN would always be like, I don't envy that you have to spend your time in hair and makeup, and I also understand that you do because I'm on those same comments that you get that are like, you know, I hate the earrings today and you're like, okay, thanks. I actually had like a meme save that just said Anna wintour or is that you and I would send it.
To every old man that would be like, I don't like your outfit. I'm like, okay, a a win tour, but like, yeah, you have to waste your time.
I'm like, I could be researching for the show that you and I are both going to go on and getting more data and facts to say, and said I have to sit and make sure that like no one's gonna say that like I look fat today or whatever. Anyway, Okay, we have a couple more questions. I know we're running out of time here. I want to get your reaction
to the NWSL's five million dollar player compensation fund. Do you feel confident that the league has now put enough measures in place to deal with both current issues like in San Diego and Utah and prevent future issues?
You know, I think that again, in hearing from Lynn, compared to when I was playing in the league, it sounds like there already are more guardrails, more access to HR, more clear reporting channels in place. I think that this settlement and the oversight of the Attorney's General who investigated and then came to these terms with the NBSL, that oversight that they're providing. I think is a lot of incentive for the league to follow the guardrails that have
been set in place. I think some of those things are these very clear reporting channels, background checks on coaches and athletic trainers. The NDBSL has to send updates status reports. If there has been misconduct, they have to send that up. And so I think that it is a strong incentive, a financial incentive, and also just like a public opinion incentive for the NDBSL to be successful in meeting these new standards, reporting on them successfully, and making sure that
this doesn't happen again in the future. I think that there is no way to say that nothing is ever going to happen again, but my hope is that if it ever did, God forbid, it would be handled better than it has been handled in the past. I think one other point that I've been really interested in hearing about is the protections for the front office staff. I feel as a player we are so protected by our players associations. We are given resources, they have our back
if something in our contract and being met. The Players Association, the union, that collective power is there for us, and sometimes I do worry that front office staff who could equally be in vulnerable positions. This is also their dream to work in professional women's soccer. I have seen firsthand front office and support staff be in similarly horrible situations that they shouldn't be in, and I hope now that these HR guardrails are there for them. That is my hope.
But without the backing of the union, I do sometimes worry that it's possible for those situations to continue. And I don't know enough about it to say for sure, but I do hope that moving forward that this settlement fund and the guardrails that have been put in place will be enough to make this league safer.
That's certainly what we saw in San Diego, and when I was with the Red Stars, there was no HR right. Things like that that are important, you know. Another kind of I think tentacle of all of that is protecting the players or porting the players with an understanding of
the space that they're currently in. We just had Congressman Laurie Trehannon and we talked about how there are so many outspoken folks that are speaking against trans athletes, but more often than not, professional women's athletes are actually in favor of inclusion and science backed and inclusive policy. Do you have a sense about why we maybe haven't seen
many players in the NWSL speak up. It's like it just doesn't seem like something we've seen a big stance on other than the armbands and gestures like that.
Yeah, I'm interested as well. Do I like your idea of perhaps the league providing more education on how to speak about these topics. I think that in my experience as a player, when you're making a public statement, you want to feel really prepared because you are putting your words out there knowing that they will be disagreed with
by some. I think for myself, when I am speaking on an issue, I do so because I believe that it is the right thing to say, and I believe that having a platform and getting to talk about women's sports all the time requires that I also speak to the things that I feel strongly about. I am really interested in the idea of the league or the clubs providing more education, media training, access to information about what's true.
Why should we not be concerned about this? Why how can we talk about it in this way?
I mean, because like with Trump's executive order, now it feels like there's going to be a lot more things that professional women athletes actually have the lived experience to talk about and would be the strongest and best voices to speak out about what actually is needed in the women's sports space, what resources are missing, as opposed to a lot of the folks that are just dudes who are using it as a political cudgel.
I completely agree. I think it's really important, and I hope that as you know, this kind of political should show that we're in healthscape, healthcape. I hope and I do trust a lot of my former teammates, our colleagues in this space that we will continue to use our platforms to advocate for what's right, to advocate for trans rights.
But I also will say that for young players in the league, we have some sixteen year olds in the league, maybe they do need that education, those access to media training ac us on how to speak about this, how to engage with it on social media, how to engage with it in our lives. I have gone through a lot of, you know, social justice situations throughout my playing career, and I have cultivated my own opinions in my own
ways of addressing them. But I think a lot of players are a lot younger and have not been through those situations yet, and they do perhaps need to gain some experience in speaking about them privately and publicly.
Okay, So Sam Muis Broadcast School will be launching weekend.
Classes with head Professor Sarah Space, overseen by Roger Bennett, who somehow manages to make every topic joyful even when he's calling people out for their shit.
Okay, only because we should end on a slightly lighter note. What coffee brand should NWSL Boston sell in the stadium?
I mean, you gotta sell Duncan. I know, I know that some people are going to think that that is not good. There are some incredible local coffee shops in the Boston area. Mad House Coffee is awesome. I don't know if they make their own, you know, kind of beans, but I do love that place. But you gotta have Duncan. It's just so Boston. It's so Boston.
You're truly a Boston gal. Your your allegiance to Duncan. Next time we have you, we'll talk about too many balls and we'll see if you're getting any inside meetings over there to help transform their launch and get them on the right side. Of things so that when they come back out to the public, everybody is excited and enthusiastic about that expansion team.
As a Boston girl, I do hope that they can, you know, kind of recapture their fan base and figure out what brand that they want to portray. And I'm rooting for them. I love Boston and I hope it goes well. I'm here for it.
Sam, You're the best. Thanks so much for the time.
I can't wait to get back to listening to your show, both the Friendlies and the Good Vibes editions.
We love all of them, so thanks for giving us some time.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thanks so much to Sam for joining us.
If you haven't already, go subscribe to our podcast, The Women's Game. It's part of the Men in Blazer's digital network. We'll link to it in our show notes. Such a good listen. We got to take another break. When we come back, we're petty LaBelle and we're gonna stir it up.
Welcome back, Slices.
We love that you're listening, but we want you to get in the game every day too, So here's our good game play of the day.
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Rate and review, y'all. It's real easy.
Watch Petty Resistance rating ten out of ten Momentary Good Feels review. As this absolute shit NATO of news continues to rain feces down upon us, it's important to find even tiny opportunities to resist, like reminding major companies that abiding by the tyrannical and nonsensical wishes of a wanna be dictator isn't standard operating procedure.
Here's how Number one.
Google Golf of Mexico number two, click on the three little dots to the right of Golf of America number three, click send feedback number four. Click on the Gulf of America text five, select inaccurate content, six select incorrect, and the rest of the world calls it Golf of Mexico or whatever you want.
You can type what I wrote. The rest of the world.
And anyone who isn't in a Nazi cult call it the Gulf of Mexico.
Click submit. Take a long, deep, satisfying breath. Now it's your turn, rate and review. Thanks for listening, y'all.
See you tomorrow when we talk tennis with former President and CEO of the USTA Katrina Adams and former South African pro player.
Marian De Swart.
Good Game, Sam, Good Game, Naysmith Hall of Fame finalists you quote unquote visionaries who managed to build a world full of invisible bias towards men. Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie
and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Ugh, Britney Martinez and Grace Lynch. Our associate producer is Lucy Jones and I'm Your host Sarah Spain