Welcome to Good Game of Sarah Spain, where we're in Ohi, California for the espnW Women in Sports Summit, just casually but relentlessly stocking our fave Alison Felix and hoping we could finally convince her to come on the show. On today's show, we're talking to Molly McCage and Cassidy Lickman
of Athletes Unlimited Volleyball. They'll give us a scene set on where the current season of AU Volleyball stands, how Athletes Unlimited gives the power and decision making to the athletes, and what it's like to talk trash one week and high.
Five the next.
Plus some footy love and proof that I've still got it. It's all coming up right after this welcome back slices. Here's what you need to know today in the WNBA, it's official. The Connecticut Sun sent out a release on Monday announcing that the organization has parted ways with head coach Stephanie White. During her two seasons with the Sun, White led the team to a fifty five and twenty five regular season record and a seven and seven postseason record,
including two semi finals supeire. She was the twenty twenty three WNBA and AP Coach of the Year and was selected as an All Star Game head coach in that season. On Monday, we shared reporting from the Suntimes Annie Costable that this split was likely, with sources saying White will be heading back to head coach the Indiana Fever. We'll keep you updated on White squereabouts as we get them.
In soccer, Lynn Williams and Lindsay Horant scored just minutes apart in the second half to help the US women's national team rally to a three to one win on Sunday in the second of back to back friendlies with Iceland. Forward ms Sears made her national team debut, seven in in the second half and scoring in stoppage time. She also had an assist, becoming the first US player with a goal and an assist in her first national team game.
Before the game, the team celebrated Mouse Swanson's one hundred caps and counting an honored retiring US women's national team star Kelly O'Hara. At halftime, a few of Kelly's fans and teammates, including Sammy Mwis, Midge Purs, and Lynn Williams, recorded messages for her in honor for retirement. We'll put the link in our show notes. Sunday's win come on the heels of Thursday's win over Iceland three to one in the team's first game since winning gold at the
Paris Olympics. Teenagers Alyssa Thompson and Jayden Shaw, along with Sophia Smith.
All scored in the win.
Next up, they play Argentina this Wednesday in Louisville. Toick College soccer. For the fourth time in program history, the Duke women's soccer team are champions of the ACC regular season. The number one ranked Blue Devil's beat number two ranked Wake Forest on the road to nothing in front of a record crowd of three thousand, seven hundred and sixty
one bands at Spry Stadium in Winston Salem. Sophomore Mia Oliaro scored a brace for Duke in the second half, and the Blue Devils d hung on for the team's eighth shutout of the season. Duke is now thirteen to one in one overall and eight oho to one in the ACC, while wake Forest fell to eleven three and
two and six two and one in the conference. To volleyball Week four in Athletes Unlimited Volleyball wrapped up last night and today marks the last draft of the season, with the top four players in the standings selecting their squads for the final week of play. That's at one pm Eastern. You can go to auprosports dot com slash volleyball to see the teams and the schedule. And we got lots more AU Volleyball talk coming up with today's guests.
We got to take a quick break. When we come back, it's Molly and Cassidy.
It's time for group chat where we take the t from the texts to the airwaves, and it's Athletes Unlimited Edition joining us now.
She's a professional.
Volleyball player, a middle blocker and Athletes Unlimited Volleyball. She's the chairperson of Athletes Unlimited's Player Executive Committee. Was the twenty twenty three AU Pro Volleyball Blocker of the Year. Is a Nike athlete and a U T Austin alum. She's the Queen of Finding long Pants. She's a dog mom to Franklin and I got married in her hometown.
It's Molly McCage. What's up, Molly, what's up? You got married in my hometown.
Hobart, Indiana. That's right, that's right. Destination I've heard for many Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful place you have to go.
Yeah.
Her. She's a former national volleyball player and outside hitter and member of Team USA from twenty eleven to twenty sixteen. A founding AU Pro Volleyball member, was head of the Volleyball Player Executive Committee before retiring in twenty twenty two. Became Director of Volleyball in twenty twenty three. She runs her own nonprofit organization, Path, which focuses on using sports as a vehicle to teach skills around empathy, equity, and empowerment.
It's Cassidy Lickman.
What's up.
Cassidy.
Hey, Sarah.
I'm excited to have y' all on, and I want to start with the basics, because for those who have not been to AU events or seeing some of the AU leagues, they're a little bit different sometimes, and that includes AU volleyball. So, Cassidy, for those who aren't familiar, tell us a little bit about how athletes unlimited volleyball is special and different.
Yeah. So, in a traditional league, all of the players are in their teams in their different cities, they're kind of playing home and away games.
We bring our.
Entire roster of forty four athletes to one city for a five weeks of competition, and every week we reach out our teams, so you're going to see different combinations of some of the best players in the world playing with it against each other every week, and there's an individual leader board kind of counting their points based on how much their team wins, their own individual performance, so we crown one champion at the end of the season.
So it's kind of playoff intensity for the entire five week season and you know, seeing some of the best in the world battle it out.
Yeah, so you can earn points on your team wins, but also individual things. And then the leaderboard changes and at the end of each week, the top four athletes in the standings get to be captains draft a new team, and then the next week they start with those teams, which.
To me is wild.
Molly, I am an unhinged competitive person still at this point in my life when it serves zero purpose and I cannot imagine being someone's opponent one week and teammate the next. Tell us how that dynamic works or maybe
doesn't work for AU players. It definitely makes you have to adapt both like mentally and physically, right, So like every week, like we just played Orange last night, which had Betty Daily Cruz and Claire Hoffman, two of the best blocks in the league, And I'm like, I just want you guys to do so poorly, so you guys are split up next.
Week, so you're not together next week.
No, it definitely it plays mind games. And I think that the best kind of competition though, comes from like this love and respect for each of the athletes playing in this league. I you know, there is some trashhocking
through the net, but I kind of love it. And I think that every single week it's like, ooh, let's find this connection with this person, and you'll find like these wonderful connections with people you didn't think you would ever have, you know, And you get to play with people that you're like, you just graduated college and this is my eighth year playing pro, but like, let's figure.
This out in a week. And I don't know, it's really beautiful sometimes.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it can be really fun, and we've seen that and longer term situations like the WNBA where there's players that hate each other and then a trade happens and we're all like, oh, we can't wait for this, and then instead they're best friends and
we're like, oh, that's not as fun. We wanted them to keep hating each other, but it happens weak to we and like, for me, that's what my problem would be because my trashock would not be nice and then I would be paired immediately with the person that I was disrespectful and unprofessional too.
But that's me problem.
I want to talk more about how players play a role in AU Volleyball, Molly, because beyond just playing, it's different in terms of recruitment, creating rules, equity in the league, all that stuff.
No, it's truly wonderful.
So I've been part of the Player Executive Committee the PEC for sure since the very beginning of athletes and limited volleyball, and the former chairperson is Cassie Likedman, and now she's our director of Volleyball, which is amazing, and our relationship is wonderful on that. Like you know, the PEC recruits all of all forty four of these athletes.
So we also meet weekly with cass and are two co founders, John Patrick Coff and Jonathan Soros and many other people on staff just and every single major league decision goes through us. So we're talking, you know, venue design or jersey design or you know, hey, like what are the best catering meals that we should have after like all these like little decisions that really are just so thoughtful and conscious to come through the athletes first.
That's something I've never been a part of.
It's like you're hired just to be an athlete, and you perform and you go home and that's it. But to be involved in these conversations has been truly eye opening, and it helps us mold the kind of league that we want to play in and that we want to
be a part of. And so whatever small hand I've had, and like creating professional volleyball in the US, like I take so much pride in that, and it's now become so precious to me, like even way more before, Like volleyball is you know, people are saying it's having its moment right now, but I'm like, oh no, I want to make sure that this lasts forever because we do directly have a hand in it. And that's something that Athletes Limit has been really really conscious about from the very beginning.
Yeah, it's interesting how social media has given athletes an ability to speak to fans in a way that isn't just good for stuff like promoting their shoes. It's also about talking about what they love and don't love about their jobs, their leagues, their teams, their coaches, et cetera.
And it's helped clean up some of the stuff.
And Cassie, there's something to be said for a league that really listens to players, particularly women, instead of just picking up the male model and then putting some women
in it. Athletes unlimited in terms of like maternal care and some of the things that we push for major leagues and existing leagues that have been around for twenty five years to have better policies on or sponsorship places, to have better policies on au from the beginning, has said we're going to go straight to the players and
ask what they want to need. Where has that manifested itself, Like, are there moments that you could point to where you've seen it really come up where players have led the way and helping change things or set things up in a way to serve them.
Yeah, I mean, it's genuinely an unprecedented relationship between athletes and a league. You know, you see like you're saying in both in social media and in kind of the negotiation process, like the WNBPA right now has just said that they're going to back out of their CBA. Like I think we have those processes and plays across sports where athletes maybe can have a seat at the table to kind of fight for what they want. And what's so refreshing about athletes unlimited is it doesn't have to
be a fight. That we can all just sit around a round table and have a discussion and it's never an argument. You know, Like I went from the player side to the staff side, and I feel like my goals have remained the same because it genuinely the like our PEC understands that in order to have a successful league, the business as a whole has to succeed, and the business understands that we want our athletes to be happy and engaged and to love it. So it's come across
in so many different issues. Like you said, our childcare policies I think are kind of best in class. So we have moms with kids here in market, we provide you know, childcare for them, everything down to you know, in our first season, they were asking us what we want to wear, and at that time in volleyball, all anyone wore was short spandex, and some women don't want to wear that, you know, like they don't have the
right play type. And so our players said, well, some of us want to wear spandex and some want to our leggings, and they were like, Okay, you could.
Just wear either.
And it just struct me in that moment of like not having to kind of fight and like use your what a little power you had on these tiny decisions. All of a sudden, you really feel like you have a real voice and that you really can speak to all of these things. And I think all of our leagues have been built with that athlete input in them, and our founders have been really intentional about building the voice of the athlete into the organization from the top to the bottom. So I was on the board if
AU as an athlete. Now Molly's on the board with one of our lacrosse players, Like, no, that's not a thing in sports. Athletes don't get to be on the board of directors of the organization.
And it's helpful to both sides too, because that communication allows for things that like maybe on the player side you think this is unfair or I want more of X, and then on the ownership side, you wish that you could tell them this is how much that costs, this is why it's prohibitive based on other things we want to be able to give you.
And having that conversation actually.
Allows you all to end up in the same place of either it's really that important to us that we'd rather have less of this, or Okay, we get that and maybe eventually we'll work toward it, instead of that constant feeling of like someone's trying to dupe me or trick me, or you know, keep me away from the
thing that I want for their own personal benefit. That education side, have you found, Cassidy when dealing with players that know that you were in their position before you can really say this is this is something that the league isn't in a position to do yet, but we're hearing you and we want to do it later, or things like that.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I think my entire job is just to contextualize these decisions for the athletes to go, Okay, here's the situation. We can have this or this, and we all just come to kind of a really rational decision, which is so great. But also, like, I think it's important that there's no you know, rich owner who's profiting a ton off of the backs of these athletes. You know, we're set up in a way that if we are profitable, if we do well and succeed, our athletes are actually
going the benefit from that. They all get profit participation units, which is something I can to ownership for the next twenty years after they're don playing. So if we are profitable ten years from now, then all of our investors have agreed to cap their returns, so there's more than one bottom line for them, and they've already agreed to that, and half of that money goes to the mission of
AU and half of it goes to the athletes. So Molly and I as athletes in this league are going to benefit from it if we may get successful from now.
That's awesome.
So, Molly, volleyball is the fastest growing sport for girls in America. Have you seen the game change in recent years as you've been playing, Yes, yes, I have.
I think my favorite part of the fact that volleyball has been growing so much is that you know, I'm six ' three, I walk around in life and people are like, hey, do you play basketball?
I've gotten that in my entire life, and now it's hey, do you play volleyball? Yes, yes, I do.
No, But I think because there are so many athletes participating worldwide, the level is just increasing like rapidly. Some of these college athletes, I'm like, dang, girl, I want to recruit you in this next in the next draft, like I want you on my team now. No, But I think that just coaching is getting better, participation is getting better.
The level is just getting higher.
And I you know, I'm I'm pushing thirty here, but I just want to keep playing with these wonderful athletes and like everybody's so bought in now it's like, no, this game truly is wonderful and we want to see succeed. And I'm I even love I'm not a coaching spirit. Actually I don't have. I come from a family of teachers, but there's something in me that just doesn't doesn't love teaching.
But I love being around the volleyball community and even just like like camps and going back to Texas and just being around you know, the younger generation of like, oh no, this is this is such a cool sport, and everybody's like there's such a shared love of it.
I am truly enjoying it.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, someone who is not pushing thirty, I want you to appreciate every time somebody asks you what sport, because my whole life it was always b bsketball or volleyball, basketball or volleyball, and then at a certain age it was just like no one ever asked me anymore because I don't look like I do anything, and that's a bummer. So really, just appreciate it while you still look like you're of an age to be
doing anything, is what I'm saying. Also to your point, interestingly, like I do think there's a buy in both from NIL, which sort of professionalizes athletes at a younger age to understand what it is to make a living doing something, but also knowing and seeing that there are professional opportunities on the horizon from a very young age. You're working toward that in a way that's different than when I was growing up or even Molly like when you came
out of college, Cassidy. There's three professional leagues now including AU, There's PVF and the soon to launch Love pro Volleyball. Those are opportunities for a lot of players to look out into the landscape and see something for them. When those are all concurrently happening, how do you see them all coexisting in the space.
Yeah, I think we're actually in a really good position
to work with both of those leagues. So PVF and LOVE are both going to hold their competitions in the spring, so from matches from kind of January through April or May, and we're sitting in the fall right now in October, in early November, and so similar to our relationship with the WNBA that we've had, players will be able to play in either of those leagues and then also in AU which just gets them more money and more opportunity, which is great because normally our players have all had
to go overseas. That's what you know, Molly and I dated when we came out of college. And so between kind of Us and one of those other leagues will cover the entire overseas season, and players will be able to make good money staying at home and playing playing Bible professionally.
That's awesome and I do love how the more fans get to know all the participants in every sport. The more of a draw athletes unlimited is because once you get to know the players individually, you're far more bought into them, moving teams, playing for individual points, whatever their storylines are. Like, I think Unrivaled in the WNBA is going to really benefit from us knowing all the WNBA players in all of their spaces and then going and watching them like mix it up and play three on
three the same way that athletes unlimited volleyball. When everybody drops into Nashville, we want to see players that are usually playing against each other in the WNBA.
Teaming up in AU or vice versa.
So the format really benefits from the bigger names, the more storylines people know, which we're hoping our show helps continue to tell some of those stories and get people to get to know them so that they want to go seek them out.
Wherever they're playing.
You know.
College volleyball has also grown for decades.
The TV ratings are always strong, schools like Nebraska Wisconsin drawing huge crowds for years. Plenty of other programs have also seen attendance surge in recent years, but it doesn't feel like that has quite yet made it over to the pro game. College basketball has been kind of similar. They've always had a bigger audience than the WNBA, but they're starting to be able to push that to the pros.
Do you have a sense, Molly, of why some fans don't stick around when it gets to the professional level and what needs to change for that to happen.
Yeah, because in recent years, we haven't had you know, professional leagues in the US, and we now have that, and so it's still pretty fresh. Normally, like Cass said, we go overseas and it's it's so sad, but it's
I feel like people just kind of forget. They're like, oh, yeah, these amazing athletes that we watched in college, they go overseas and nobody wants to pull up this JANKI link and watch them overseas with the with the different language, you know, and you know, you just kind of lose interest because it becomes too difficult to follow that athlete.
But now that we have these professional leagues in the US, we have these wonderful, amazing athletes come out of college and going directly to these US based leagues, like that connection is huge. I think that's what happened with Caitlin Clark, Like she played in the w was like, oh, we know exactly where to follow her. It is in our language, it is on networks that we are familiar with. Like that connection piece is so important. I am very, very
excited for that to happen. Like with volleyball, it's like slowly happening, but with nil and everybody bought into the college game, I think it will translate to professional.
Cassidy, what was the landscape like when you were coming out of Stanford and what did you wish you saw that maybe has appeared now that you got to benefit from late in your career.
Well, two months after I graduated, I moved to Poland by myself. She's like a very welcome to the world moment when you're kind of getting to the airport and going down and you're like, I don't know anyone in this country and some random guys picking me up and I've seen taken and like what are my life choices? And Molly's exactly right, like you know, maybe my parents could watch on some random feed, but nobody else could,
and so it wasn't. I had actually retired after playing for five years of the national team and in Europe, and when AU came about. I came back out of retirement to play in order to kind of help build this for the next generation and for players like Molly who can continue to play well into their thirties hopefully because they're at home and it's a much more comfortable situation. So I think, you know, being on national TV, it's
been a huge part of it. Like when you talk about growing the professional volleyball fan base, that's it has to be visible, right, So people have to be able to see those players that they love coming out of college and you know, directly the next fall they're on you know, ESPN for us or they're playing for Love and PBF in the spring, and to be able to
build those stars, they just have to be visible. So I think that's the most exciting thing to me is to see like the seeds of that, you know, starting to grow and like the ceilings know we're in sight. I think we're just getting started and the sport is already really massive. It's just like quietly.
So yeah, so Cassidy, then give us your pitch for the volleyball curious or the fans that usually watch college but happened checked out AU where can they watch it? And we're coming up sort of near the end of this au volleyball season. But what do they need to know to like jump in and get on boards so that they can start following the players.
Yeah, I think you need to know we have some of the best players in the world. We have a great competition going on right now between Betty Day La Cruz and Britney Appercrombie, who both.
Represent Those names are perfect, by the way, these are perfect names to South.
Amazing names, amazing names and amazing volleyball players. And they're surrounded by, you know, incredible talent that is played at some of the best colleges in the country, all Americans, National champions, Olympians.
So this is the highest level of.
Volleyball you know you'll be able to see this year, and it's an incredible competition. So I think you just tune in, pick a favorite player, you know, check where out where they are on the leaderboard, and root for whatever team they're on that week.
Maybe it's Molly, Maybe Molly's your favorite player.
Molly's a great choice. I'm going to say.
We will put a schedule in our show notes for people to check out where they can watch and how they can watch, Molly, You're still in the midst of this, and I'm sure as someone on the player committee and also playing, you're constantly changing your to do list of what you want, what you could see differently. Is there anything right now you're currently advocating for or thinking about for next season that you'd like to see change.
I think that is most top of my mind is recruiting the best athletes.
It's so wonderful that these leagues PBF.
And LOVE are here in the US and we have people that have been playing overseas for decades that are coming home that are like truly world class talent and they have world class talent friends. So bringing those people to our league next year, Like, that's just something I keep thinking about of, like, oh, she's coming to play and this team you know in Atlanta, and I really want her to play for Athletes unlimited, and like you
can even feel it here this year. You know, this is our fourth season and the level just grows exponentially every single season, and it's cutthroat now, like it's it's almost like, dang, you got to be part of this league.
Like you're one of the top forty four athletes that get to participate in Athletes Unlimited like that is the kind of talent that we have and it's something that you know, as a player, executive community member, we're constantly talking about of what is the best product that we can give fans.
And another cool thing about the league is you get to promote a cause that matters to you and some of the money made actually goes so that's to your cause.
Molly, Yeah, this is one of my favorite things of Athletes Limited. My cause is one percent for the planet. So it's a giant organization that benefits any you know, environmentally conscious, you know, nonprofit and to me, just being a good global citizen is incredibly important because we only
have one earth, so let's treat it with kindness. But all forty four of by athletes, one hundred percent of their wind bonus goes to a cause of their choice, which is something that as a female athlete, we haven't been able to earn a ton of money and then contribute to nonprofits that we want to, you know, that we want to contribute to. So this is truly just so awesome and kind and it makes playing feel even bigger.
You know, it's not just about hitting the ball. It's like actually contributing to things that you care about.
Cassidy, your cause was path I assume.
It was Yes, which was also very helpful for a young nonprofit.
Yeah that's awesome.
Okay, So our last, our last order of business, and you have to do it quickly. You can't overthink it, you can't worry about feelings getting hurt. I'm going to tell everyone right now to follow Molly McCage Molly and then McCage on Instagram. She's a great follow. She'll tell you where to get long pants. You can root for her, you can find out when she's playing next. Molly, give me two players from Athletes Unlimited Volleyball that everyone should follow.
You should follow Betty de La Cruz Miha.
Okay adding her right now. I need one more.
And if you really love fashion, you should follow Berkeley oh Blad.
Names sound made up, but I'm excited to learn about these people.
Berkeley oh Blad.
Okay, Cassidy, give me two AU current playing players that we should all follow.
Okay, I think kas Brown excellent sense of humor and again Morgan hence the best defender you'll ever see.
Okay, all right, I look forward to sharing this with all the players you didn't name and then telling them you didn't pick them.
Just kidding, just kidding.
Thank you so much for coming on, mollyworks say to watch the rest of the season with you playing and get even more into AU volleyball. And Cassidy thanks for coming on as well and giving us some insight, and congrats on continuing to just push this sport forward.
We love it.
Thank you, appreciate it.
Thank you sir.
Thanks so much to Molly and Cassidy for taking the time. We got to take a quick break when we come back, did I just manifest athleticism?
Welcome back, Orange 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. Follow those players. Molly and Cassidy mentioned in our interview. One of the best ways to stay up to date on women's sports, from scores and outcomes to events, sponsorships, merch and fun off the field storylines is to fill your social feed with athletes, teams, leagues,
and media outlets. Your everyday scrolling will get an instant boost, and if you want to get to know AU volleyball, here's your chance follow Molly McCage, Morgan, Hence Betty de La Cruz, Mahea Berkeley, Oblad and Cas Brown will put their Insta handles in the show notes.
Don't forget.
We love hearing from you, so hit us up on an email good game at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy.
Don't forget to subscribe. Rate in review slices.
It's easy watch when a young person thinks your old ass is still an athlete. Rating five out of five still got its review. I swear I manifested this shit because one day, after sitting down to interview Molly and Cassidy and bemoaning the fact that no one ever asks me basketball or volleyball anymore, a twenty something dude walked past me in Chicago, stared me down for a minute, and then said, hold up, do you play in the WNBA?
I recognize you you play now? I was wearing my orange WNBA hoodie and he probably just recognized me from television and then conflated the tube.
But it doesn't matter.
This young dude thought that this old lady was in the league still got it.
Now, it's your turn rate and review.
Good Game, Molly, Good game, Cassidy, you election dread.
We are one week away and I am sweating y'all.
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 Rudder, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and
Lindsay Cradowell. Production assistant from Lucy Jones and I'm your Host Sarah Spain