October 23, 2025 • 55 mins
U.S. women’s national team legends Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach sit down with Sarah for a live interview as part of the Women’s Sports Foundation's Athlete Leadership Connection. They discuss how Abby and Julie handled the transition from pro athlete to post-soccer life, why women's sports are inherently political, learning how to enjoy the ordinary and not just the extraordinary, and how Julie and Abby’s new podcast with Billie Jean King, “Welcome to the Party,” adds another layer of radical joy to the women’s sports world.
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Listen to “Welcome to the Party” here
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Listen to “We Can Do Hard Things” here
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You can find the "We Can Do Hard Things" book here
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we gotta
stop trying to test the old theory that New York
is the city that never sleeps. It doesn't, but I
need to. It's Thursday, October twenty third, and on today's show,
we'll be skipping the need to know and getting straight
to my live interview with US women's national team legends
Julie Boudi and Abby Wambach from earlier this week. I
sat down with them in New York on Tuesday as
(00:22):
part of the Women's Sports Foundation Athlete Leadership Convention and
all day conference ahead of the Foundation's annual Salute the Gala.
Faudi and I co hosted alongside Ari Chambers and Latina Robbinson.
Last night. What a Time, What an after Party? What
an apple I'll be taking Today, Julian, Abby and I
chatted about their new podcast with Billy Jean King, Welcome
(00:43):
to the Party, Threats to Title nine, pivoting from greatness
on the field to life after sport, and so much more.
These are two of my absolute favorites. You're gonna love
this one. That conversation's coming up right after this. They
(01:03):
need no introduction, but they're gonna get a little bit
of one anyway. Joining us. She's a two time Olympic
gold medalist, a World Cup champion, a six time winner
of the US Soccer Athlete of the Year award, and
a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. She's
still the highest all time goal scorer for the US
national team, and her one hundred and eighty four international
goals are second all time for both female and male players.
A New York Times bestselling author, she's part of the
(01:24):
ownership group of Angel City FC of the National Women's
Soccer League. Is the co host of the podcast We
Can Do Hard Things and Welcome to the Party. She's
got a gold card that allows her to get a
free burrito from Chipotle every day for the rest of
her life. It's Abby Wambach.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I do not still have that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I gonna say so.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
It said lifetime, and then I went there one day
and I swiped it and it was like wow. So
I used it often and I would go with my kids.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So lifetime of burritos too quickly, It's true. I use
joining her. A two time Women's World Cup champion, two
time Olympic gold medalist, and National Soccer Hall of Famer
who played for the national team from nineteen to eighty
eight to two thousand and four. She finished her international
career with two hundred and seventy four caps and served
as the team's captain from two thousand to two thousand
(02:15):
and four and co captain from ninety one to two thousand.
Former president of the Women's Sports Foundation, she's co founder
of the Julie Fatty Sports Leadership Academy, a co owner
of Angel City FC, a soccer broadcaster, and co host
of the podcast Welcome to the Party. In nineteen ninety seven,
she was the first American and first woman to receive
the FIFA fair Play Award Weed of the Worm on
(02:36):
the dance floor. We once partied so hard at her
house the cops came, but we thought they were faking.
We asked if they were strippers, it's Julie Baudy true story.
We're like, we're not that loud, this must be fake,
And they were real and they did not take their
clothes off. Week Can we start with that story?
Speaker 5 (02:56):
Yeah, we were making It was after an espnW summit
that we did in southern California, and we'd always have
a party at my house after for all the ESPN employees,
and we were doing an arm wrestling competition and it
was like a Wednesday night, and I told my whole block, like,
we're having a party.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
We're gonna be loud.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
So they all knew. So I knew that, like the
block knew we were good. And so we were like
people were chanting.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
On who they wanted.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
It was Rachel Epstein and myself and Rachel is like
one hundred pounds soaking wet, and she beat my.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Asses in khakis. Yeah, she was wearing khakis.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
And so they were chanting, chanting, chanting, and these cops
come in from the side gate in like full on,
like bulletproof vests.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
No, and they were California cops, so they were like
kind of.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Hot, kind of hot cops.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Yeah, and we were like, yell or strippers, we know
what's going.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Down after the Women's Summit haha, and they were like,
we're actually real cops. There's a noise complaine. Anyway, that's
not what we're here to talk about. And we could
spend a lot of the time talking about I don't know,
Abby playing beer pong with Taylor Swift, But do you
want to tell that story?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Real quick, sure, yes.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
So we after the twenty fifteen World Cup, we were
invited our national team to go to a Taylor Swift concert.
And this is you know, I wasn't necessarily swifty then
I am now. So we all went to the concert,
and afterwards Taylor invited us to like an after party
(04:35):
in the parking lot. And so what she did was
like she she basically encircled or squared off this space
with all of her all of the trucks that traveled
like the gear from from venue to venue exactly. And
inside of this huge square, she like had basically an
outdoor fair right like there was like drinks and games,
(04:59):
and there happened to be a beer pong station. And
so our team, because we were celebrating the World Cup,
went straight over to the beer pong station. And you
guys might not know her, but Ina Garten, she's very
famous chef, cook baker, barefoot. She came over with Taylor
(05:20):
and Taylor well, she was playing beer pong with us.
She was playing with wine. We were playing with beer,
and Taylor Swift came over and was like Abby Wambach
is playing beer pong with the barefoot contessa Ina Garten.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
This is incredible.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, yeah, And I think you had to give them
both some tips, right, you were the coach unofficial I did.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Aina did not know how to play, and I just
basically said, you get the effing ball in the effing cup.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
It's good coaching right there. It's good coaching.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Okay, So we did not swear, Abby, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Well, they're children.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I can't make that promise.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
They're babies, make not so much.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
We're here for the Women's Sports Foundation Athlete Leadership Connection,
which is helping all of you athletes get the transition
skills you need to go from your sports to a
successful career after competition. And that means we're looking out
at a whole room full of people who will soon
or maybe hopefully not too soon, depending on how great
you are as athletes, be transitioning from competition to careers.
(06:19):
So I want you both to take yourselves back to
the moment that you decided to hang them up. Maybe
you've got one game left, maybe you know you've got
half the season left. Whatever that moment was when you knew, okay,
this is going to be it. What were you feeling,
what were you afraid of? What were you most looking
forward to and remembering that time in your life and
combining it with what you've learned since. What is your
(06:41):
advice for the women in the room about that life pivot? Abby?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Okay, So a couple of things.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
One, I don't necessarily recall the moment that I knew
I was.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Going to hang them up.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
It was over a period of a couple years where
one day I would the way that my body felt,
the way that my spirit felt, I was like, I
need to be done today.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
The next day I was like, I can hang on.
I got this, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
And I did a lot of that, like a little
bit of up and down. And it wasn't until we
had won the World Cup, because it was the one
tournament I had yet to win. And it wasn't until
we won the World Cup in twenty fifteen that I
started to get like really.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Like excited and also terrified about.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
The prospects of actually retiring.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
The way that I played the game.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I don't know if I would recommend doing it to
other people, because I very much consumed myself with the
game and the sport so much so that I didn't
give myself like a plan. B. I had yet to
graduate from college. Big regret.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I didn't.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I didn't necessarily get involved in the business of it all. Yes,
I did appearances here and there and I and I
was endorsed by a couple of companies and did great
and did commercials.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And all of that.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But I didn't bother myself to think about the after,
mostly because of fear. If I'm being perfectly honest, like
who would I be without the game? But I think
also there was a part of me that felt like
I didn't want to complicate or infect the game or
(08:35):
the process that I was in and needing to go through.
I was terrified the minute that I realized I was
playing golf in My agent, Dan Levy at the time,
he said, do you think that you're going to go
on and try to play for the Olympics, because the
Olympics were just like seven or eight months later, And
(08:57):
I said, I don't know. I don't I don't know
if I'll make the team, because you know, as you
get older, you get a little slower, and I wasn't
scoring goals at the same clip as as I had
in the past, and so when I decided to hang
it up, it was it was both a relief and
also the scariest undertaking of my life because now I
(09:20):
had to learn how to become a person. I literally
had a summit months after I retired with my wife
and sister in law and agent. They called it Abby Summit.
And the first day of the summit, it was literally
written on the agenda, teach Abby how to calendar.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Because I did.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
I thought you were really going to a summit in
the living room.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Summit in our living room, Abby, Summit in the living room, and.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Not your first intervention.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
No, not my first intervention. I'm newly sober at this point.
And my agent brings over his cell phone and this
is a real life story.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
He brought it over to me.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I'm thirty five years old, and he shows me his
calendar app on his iPhone and he said, so, here
is a calendar, and you know, and every day there's
there's a dot that tells me I have something to
do that day. And he had a dot on every
single day and I said, you have something to do
(10:22):
every single day, he said, And he opened every single one.
He's like, yeah, these are things that I tell you about,
things that you have to do. Because he's the one
holding the calendar. Yeah, and so he was teaching me.
So this is all to say, fear not. When your
time comes, you will get there. And when your time comes,
(10:44):
I am sure all of you in this room know
how to calendar much better than I did at thirty
five years old.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Oh yeah, Well, you know, there's a lot of athletes
that say either they're so excited about the prospect of
not having a wake up call a practice, here's lunchtime,
here's film time, And then a lot of them that
say the opposite. Sue Bird was like, we're basically just
kids our whole life. They're like, and now have a snack,
that's right, and now take a nap, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Right, and tell me what to do. Yeah, I'm a happy,
happy camper.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I like being told what to do and then doing
it well as opposed having to come up with it
for myself.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Thank you, what that's right?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
The rest of your life looks like once you don't
have practice and a coach every day tools, what about you?
Speaker 5 (11:22):
I was not, like considered one of the greatest goalscorers
to ever play the games.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
My retirement was a lot easier.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
I think Abby and I have had this discussion quite
a lot on the pod about perhaps when you're considered
one of the greatest of all time to play a sport,
which I was not. I know is surprising, but I
had great vocal cords, so there are too.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Humble please everybody, and you don't already know look up
everything she come.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
No, no, I mean, and I'm not saying that in
a sense like, yes, I played on the national team
for eighteen years, so I had to have some skill set.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But like when you're.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
One of the greatest to ever play, as Abby was,
as Mia was, as Alex Morgan was, it's a very
different story, and.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
So there's a lot of pressure and that comes with that.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
I never felt as much of that pressure because I
felt like my importance was to keeping the team cohesive
and the leadership side of it and the captain side
of it.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
But I didn't have.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
The burden of every day having to score to keep
my team in a game right, which is something that's
very real for those guys and crazy enough. And I
don't know where this comes from, but I think it's
probably my parents because they always like were very supportive,
but like very chill about me playing, like they didn't
(12:45):
really come to that many games. They came when I
was on the national team of course, to Olympics and
World Cups. But like growing up, it was like, this
is your thing, go do it, probably because I was
the fourth kid and they were like oversports, but I
mean it was a very different age, of course, so
I don't know. I always felt like it was soccer
second almost versus what you're hearing from Abby, which is
(13:06):
a very linear, focused locked in. I was all over
the map. I wanted to do other things. I wanted
to learn about other things. I was always, you know,
reading outside of sports and doing jobs outside of sports
and broadcasting before I was even done playing, So I
was always thinking what's next, versus when you're one of
(13:27):
the greatest in the world, you have to kind of
think now, I got to get my team over the line,
and so I think it was a very different mindset.
I was thinking, I can't wait to be done with
soccer almost in a sense. I love soccer, I love
the people. The thing I missed the most, honestly, which
you guys will experience, is I miss the every day
with these crazies, right, which is why when Abby's like
(13:49):
you wanted to do a podcast together, Yes, like it's that, Like,
that's the gift of sports is that you have these
teammates that are with you forever. Literally, I tell them,
you are stuck with me for her, and they are
and they will be, and they'll be your friends that
are rider dies.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
For the rest of your life guaranteed.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
That's the gift of sport. So yeah, mine, mine was
very different. I got to a place where I was like,
if I have to play Mexico in a friendly one
more time where it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah, well, I mean if you're right. Though, it's so
much of like the camaraderie, the locker room. The identity
of being an athlete is a very hard thing for
a lot of people to move on from. You can
be a lifelong athlete and competitor, but the idea that
what you're playing means something and everybody's watching it and
cheering it on is a tough thing to say goodbye
to you. The thing about the teammates Foudi's old podcast
(14:39):
Laughter Permitted, she would have these reunion episodes that were
such a hot mess. It was like thirty members of
her nine ers on a zoom trying like you're muted
or like cutting out like trying to celebrate the women.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Randy Chestain, You guys are too young. But she's the
one or two other her shirt when she scored in
the ninety nine World Cup, that iconic photo is late
to every practice, everything right and without fail, nothing changes.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
We'd be like, where's branding.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
She's not on, she's late on in the zoom, but
I text her tell her her on the zoom.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
God damn it, Brandy.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Where are you? But it's so fun to hear all
these years later they still as soon as you call,
they're all hopping on and to hear you all, I'll
chat and have that connection still, you know, Abby, I
don't know how many of you listen to Abby's other podcasts.
We can do hard things, but it is literally life changing, educational,
perspective shifting stuff. It's so so good. And you over
(15:33):
the course of the podcast have even shifted your perspective.
And I know at this point in your life you've
really considered your athletic career from a different lens than
in the years you were playing, and even in the
couple of years after retirement, where you were so embedded
in sport culture that you thought of it the way
that most people in sports think of it. Then you
immediately marry a woman who is like, couldn't be farther
away from the sports, as she calls them, Although she's
(15:54):
getting in, she's diving in. But how do you see,
perhaps differently now that your soccer career played in turning
you into the person that you are now, the businesswoman,
the podcast or the writer, Maybe differently than even just
if I'd asked you this ten years ago.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Well, it's been almost ten years since I retired, and
I think I've needed that entire ten years to what
I call recover from professional sports. You know, I kind
of touched on it a little bit in my last response,
and the the reality that professional sports is this mountain,
(16:37):
this hill that we're all trying to get to the
top of as like the success. You know, we are
told that in order to be successful, that you need
to be famous, you need to be an athlete, at
least in our athletic world, right, And I have spent
the last ten years trying to unwind and unravel this
(17:00):
not of confusion around the search for relevance in the
pursuit of championships, and I think I've done quite a
bit of like, I've done a lot of therapy and
trying to understand.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Like, what the hell was that?
Speaker 4 (17:22):
How how did I do all of that? How did
I score those goals? And why was I so motivated.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
To play so long?
Speaker 4 (17:34):
And why was I so motivated to and take a
sincere amount of responsibility and the success of our team,
and why did I approach.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
It like that.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
I've been asking myself all of these questions and what
one thing that I do think and a reason why
I call it like recovering from professional sports is because
I think I prioritized the extraordinary way more than I
prioritized the ordinary, and I didn't spend enough time building
(18:06):
those foundational blocks of the ordinary parts of my life.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I e.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Calendaring to understand, own and take full on accountability for
the totality of my life. I just did that in
one arena, and that was sport soccer.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
That's what I knew. But what I ended up doing
was I ended.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Up creating this sincere imposter syndrome for myself in the
arena of my life outside of sport. So when I retired,
I was like and stripping away the identity of soccer player.
I thought that maybe I would vanish. Literally, I thought
that there was a part of me that maybe I
(18:49):
would cease to exist. And so in these last I
would say, like three or four years, I've been really
harnessing and understanding like, oh no, like this person was
also a soccer player, this person is now a retired
soccer player, and this person exists and will continue to exist.
(19:09):
And I'm so grateful for the We Can Do Our
Things podcast. I'm so grateful that Julie wants to do
this new podcast with me, because entering back into the
women's sports world with a new perspective around all of this,
because sports is a vehicle by which right, and it's like,
how how you get to use this vehicle in which
(19:32):
way will be based on what your preferences are and
what you're interested in doesn't have to necessarily be to
be a player on the field. Forever, I myself was
a player, and now I myself am going to go
into this new space being a business person and try
to figure out how to get more representation and women
(19:52):
talking about women's sports. We need more representation in every
vertical of the women's sports business, and the media is
really absolutely one of those.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Sorry it was a super long ago.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Oh no, it's a great answer. We're going to get back
to what you saw missing in the space and why
the podcast arrived. But I want to quickly touch on
when you talk about it, and when you've had other
athletes talk about the chasing of the peaks at the
expense of the every day. If your entire life is
pretty unhappy until you win, and then the next morning
you wake up and all that's left is to go
try to win again, that's empty. Yeah, And whenever you
(20:24):
talk about it, the thought in my head is how
when people reach that level of fame and success that
we all think we want, the nicest compliment people pay
them is, oh, they're just like a regular person. What
a strange dichotomy that the best achievement once you've become
the most famous is to be as normal as possible,
which reminds us all that, like, the actual joy is
in the every day, but we have to separate that
(20:45):
from what we've built up as the only accomplies.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Wait to sum that all up, that's good, thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I'm going to take that with me.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I've listened to a lot of your podcasts, you know
it helps. We got to take a quick break more
with Julian Abbey right after this. You're very familiar with
the Women's Sports Foundation former president lap it Up, and
(21:14):
while you were in that role, you actually served on
a Bush administration commission that reviewed Title nine. You're going
deep cut President George W. Bush. She had expressed concern
that the law Title NIND promoted women's sports at the
expense of some lower profile men's teams. Where do we
keep hearing that all the time? Uh? He actually appointed
(21:34):
a panel to suggest changes, but you and the Women's
Sports Foundation helped lead the charge with a dissenting minority report.
So I want to hear about that experience of actually
trying to argue against the sitting president and then what
you learned in that fight that you've applied to later
activism and work.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Gosh, this is deep. Well, what I learned.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Is something that women's sports has taught us, right, Like,
you're often the minority voice. You're fighting for something that
for my entire career people told me to shut up
and just be grateful about stop asking for more. You
should just be happy that you have.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
A US women's national team that in soccer.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Those kind of responses, and I found myself suddenly on
this Blue Ribbon commission that was very lopsided for those
who wanted to make some changes to Title nine. And
so you have to find your voice as a minority voice,
which can be uncomfortable because there's a lot of people
staring at you, shaking their heads saying you're crazy. And
(22:43):
you know, I'm in my twenties and I'm playing on
the national team. And the amazing thing is I had
the Women's Sports Foundation who literally were with me by
my side that entire time, saying, We've got you.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
What do you need?
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Need research, you need data, you need stats, right, We're
here for you. So much so that on literally the
night before we wrote our dissenting opinion because we couldn't
get the group to come around to what we wanted,
and we wrote a dissenting report. It was three am,
and we had literally Senator birch By, who was considered
the godfather of Title nine, sitting on the floor with
(23:23):
us crafting the report and talking about why this mattered
so much.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
And the whole reason he.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Drafted Title nine was because his wife, who he says
was much smarter than him, who did much better than
him in college.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Who did better with.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
All of her testing getting a lot degree, never got
into any law schools, right, she couldn't get into any schools.
And so Title nine was obviously about an educational amendment,
and the fine print was about women's sports. So he's
sitting on the floor, and it just gave me hope
because you saw in the moment when you needed it
(24:03):
most these people rally in the Women's Sports Foundation and
Donna Lopiano and a lot of class who's sitting here,
and Billy Jean King of course is one of our
partners on the podcast, of how much it mattered to
them and they would do anything to help us get
through this moment. And it also gave me a like personally,
(24:24):
like you discover a lot about yourself when you have
to be the one voice that's dissenting all the time,
of like, Okay, I've got to speak up in a
way I've never really had to, or I've had teammates
around me that you know their strength and numbers.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
And that's what I love about.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
Being a team is you're much more willing to speak
up when you know you've got a team that has
your back. And now it was a.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Much harder situation so.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
It was hard.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
It was really hard.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Learned a lot about people and that there can be
compromised in situations like that, which was a bit disappointing.
But but I really think what we did with the
descending opinion was important and was Sarah. It's a deep
cut into the history of Title nine, but it was
an important moment where we made sure that there wasn't
(25:12):
some setbacks too. As we all know in this room,
I think the most profound piece of civil rights.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Legislation and on the sports side that we've ever seen.
I know that you like to be humble, but I
have to take a moment and commend you. And I
think it's a lesson for everybody in this room because
being the dissenting opinion, being part of the minority, being
the squeaky wheel for something that a lot of people
don't care about sucks, and people think that you're not
fun often if you're that person, and there is no
one more fun than Julie Foudy, that's right. And I
(25:40):
just want to say that in your life, you're going
to have this opportunity to speak up for stuff that matters,
and people are going to say you're a nag or
your shrill or your bitch or whatever else women get
when they fight for righteous things. And that is not
who you are, but it can be who you are
on that moment if that's what's required, and you can
still be fun and great and everyone can love you.
I don't know a single person that does not love
(26:01):
Julie Foudy. And first, while I'm an overshare already, but
I also share a lot of my very fun life
because I'm constantly being accused of being a nag and
complaining all the time. I'm complaining about shit that should
have been fixed a long time ago. Not because I
want to spend my free time doing that. I want
to spend my free time throwing costume parties, which is
usually what I do. But when I am throwing costume parties,
(26:21):
I'm complaining about shit that should have been fixed years ago.
But you can be both, and I let people grind
you down and say that you have to just be
pleasing all the time.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
No, And and what's funny is you can bring the
humor into the descent, like there was a there was
a moment when they took a really important vote.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And as everyone knows who knows me, I have a tea.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Bag for a bladder is what I call it. It's leaky,
too much, too much, just enough.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
You have children, you get to say whatever you want.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
And this has been my whole life, not even just
post kids, right, like even like doing pliametrics on the
national team. They're like, foudy, put a diaper on. We're
doing jumps. And so there was a point during one
of the hearings where we had to take a very
important vote and I was off in the bathroom going
tinkle real quick, and I would sprint. I would sprint
(27:11):
to tinkle and then i'd come back and I missed
this vote. And I was like, you took a vote
without me here, and they were like, yes, you were
in the bathroom. I was like, okay, from now on,
I would like to make a motion that we bring
a porta potty into this arena, into this room, and
I will knock once if it's yes, not twice where
(27:31):
it's no.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
And everyone started cracking up. But I missed the damn
vote because of my bladder.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
This is in like a very esteemed hall, Yeah exactly,
and it's like, you know, president of Penn State University.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
But I mean, foundy just again very quick wrapping up
how much I'm gushing about you, but you have done
a story about your alma mater, Stanford that didn't paint
it in the best light. You have gone to see
child labor in factories for a company that sponsored you.
You have done investigations into the turf that the people
that you are calling games play on. Like no moment
have you ever said they pay my bills or they're
(28:03):
too important for me to call and hold accountability for.
And it's just a really tremendous lesson for everybody in
this room.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Speaking of title nine, it's not perfect, but it is
necessary to ensure that women and girls keep getting opportunities
to play. There's nil shifts, there's a proposed score Act
endorsed by the GOP, the recent House versus NCAA settlement.
How worried are you abby about the future of women's
college sports and how much do we need to be
screaming about it before it's too late?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
It seems like and Julie and I have been talking
about this a little bit on our pod because the
great question, it's not like we're talking about the WNBA.
Kathy Engelbert, the NWSL losing players over to Europe, and
it seems like nothing ever changes until somebody gets so
(28:54):
pissed about it that they lose their head and they've
got to go on a rant, or they shame a league,
or they shame a commissioner, or or they have to
shame an entire government to get what they need done
or to prevent losing some rights.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Like we all know.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
What we've lost this last year or two. I don't
know what the answers are.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I feel worried.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
For our government, for sure, our administration. I feel worried,
but I also feel extraordinarily optimistic when I go to
some of these protests over the last many months.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's actually that.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Protest and women's sporting events are the only place where
this my body actually can take an actual breath, that
I'm with my community, that I'm watching something that is
fun and engaging, and to watch angel City FC play,
it's just like it feels a little bit like a
(30:03):
dream to be a part owner of the team and
to be able to watch these women do the thing
that I did in front of twenty thousand plus people.
When I played, there were like one thousand to two thousand,
maybe like that was a good game that was like
a good turn. Yeah, for the end of a cell
or even previous leagues, WSA and WPS. I don't have
(30:27):
an answer, but I have this Women in jerseys and
in uniforms out there on the field are inherently political,
whether we're out there screaming it from the top of
the mountain or not. Just using your body as a
(30:51):
person in minority is a political statement. When we walk
into rooms, men see us differently, They experience us differently.
When I walk into a room with my wife, who
literally calls it the sports for meetings for her, we
(31:14):
have sat across men and they look at me. Obviously
I'm more male, presenting more mask and Glennon is more femme.
But like at the end of the day, we also
have this thing that they know that I could beat
them at any sporting event there was.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
And so.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
I don't have the answers, but what I do know
is that our participation in women's sports really does matter,
and it matters in a very deep, meaningful way because
this is the thing that they cherish the most right
and I think that if we remember that every time
we go out, whether we want to be outwardly spoken
(31:54):
about it or not. We have to have the ability
to play. And if these are the things that are
at risk or potentially could be attacked, we have to
make decisions and stand up and fight for ensuring that
that these games and these women and these leagues are
solid enough that women always.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Have a place to play.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
I can't talk about the NC DOUBLEA only because it's
a confusing place.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
It is, and more so every day. Yeah, at this point,
if you run, there's something that department you're basically a GM. Yeah,
a salary cap almost for how much money you can
allow each player based on the settlements and everything.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Can we can we just put like a cap on
transfer portal, Like why do we have why can't we.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Limit it to one?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You get to transfer one?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
One you get I think you get one freebie and
then if you want to transfer again after that, because
who's to say whether your situation requires it, you have
to sit out of here. Yeah, yeah, and there is
some sort of penalty, but it's not such that it
prevents players from finding an opportunity that fits them because,
because we do know, women's sports is rife with toxic environments,
So to force an athlete to stay in a situation
that isn't good is not the answer, but.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
There should be a consequence and then a second one.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah, And.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
I firmly believe, like you also have to teach a
young adult that, like it's not always going to be great. Yeah, right,
toxic environment is very different, but like there are environments
where you're just not playing right, and like it takes
a couple of years to build into the program or
get good enough or confident enough that you could do it.
And if you're constantly just like, oh, oh, let's take that,
(33:24):
let's go over there, because that's a shiny object that's
you know, dangling a little more money or the possibility
to start over there, then you're never building community, right,
And I look back at my Stanford people, like it
is robust, the thread of people that are still close
and friends and tight, and I just want people to
(33:45):
have that community.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
And I feel if you're changing.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Every year, completely agree.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
Yeah, And there's no loyalty to the team either, right,
like from a fan standpoint, because you don't know how
long they're going.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
To be there. Well, And that's one of the big
things that drive so much interest in women's basketball at
the collegiate level that men's loses in the one and done.
And so if it becomes the same where every single
year all the women are changing teams are leaving, it's
going to be harder to keep. This leads me perfectly
my next question. But I do want to quickly to
your point, Abby, say the anecdote that I always share
when you talk about the power of women in sport. Foudy,
(34:17):
you were there when we were with Angel City at
the Sydney Opera House ahead of the World Cup. I
interviewed the captain of the Afghani women's national soccer team
and she and her team had been airlifted and flown
to Australia to escape the Taliban when it took over
their country, and they were told that they were going
first for the educated women and the women who were athletes,
(34:38):
because they knew that they were the most embodied, the
most sure of themselves, and the most quote unquote dangerous
to the advice. No that the girls, the women a Yeah,
that they were the most dangerous to the ideas of
the Taliban, were women who played sport because of what
it means to be embodied. Yeah, And so to know
that you have that kind of power, and to look
(34:59):
at the organizing power of the ninety nine ers and
the organizing power of the people who fought for equity
and pay women's soccer, of the WNBA flipping the Senate.
These examples of women athletes and teams that come together
because they already know what it means to fight for
a singular cause. Best idea wins. We're all going in
the same direction. That's not how life works. You're going
to find out later, once you're not on a team anymore,
how much it sucks when people aren't best idea wins.
(35:21):
Let's work together. But that's why women are so important.
You brought me to my next question. Though. We are
celebrating so much incredible growth in women's sports, record investment,
better coverage, more media, all that other stuff. But it's
a lot of change happening very fast, and I look
across the space and I think about a lot of
the investors are now men's sports owners because of the
billions required to be a part of the game. Leadership
(35:42):
maybe without as much vision then, because it's not people
embedded in the game, it's people who have the money
to play it. Toxic environments that are still happening across
the space meddling from if any of you saw this,
But there was an op ed in the Wall Street
Journal that said that Caitlin Clark getting fouled repeatedly was
a hate crime and Congress should look into it. To
me as a little toe dip of can we get
politics involved in shutting down women's sports and affecting the WNBA,
(36:06):
which is predominantly queer and people of color. To me,
that felt like a shot across the bow to try
to get Congress involved in a space that's very progressive.
What worries you the most? Because we're so excited and
it's all positive, but I feel like there's some things
we need to be keeping an eye on.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
What worries me the most is that. And I think you.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Need the male allyship for sure, and there and so
I don't mind male owners and institutional investors jumping into
women's sports at all. I mean, look at Mark Walter,
Kimber Walter, right, we're just talking to the King or
about this the other.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Day with the Dodgers.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Perhaps if Billy Jean King doesn't become a Dodgers owner
and develops the relationship that she has with Mark and
kimber Walter, who are of course the owners of the Dodgers.
Then the PWHL, which is the Women's Ice Hockey League,
doesn't get founded by Mark and kimber Walter, and they
are the single owners of six teams. I mean, they
(37:11):
have brought that league to life. What I do worry
about is what you talked about is when you get
into situations and we've seen it happen inside these buildings
where the institutional investor comes in because they see the
rate of return in the valuation skyrocketing on women's sports.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
We're living it with Angel City. Haven't seen that, and.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
Instead of having a seat at the table as co collaborators, right,
what you see is the women getting pushed to the side,
and maybe they're given a token roll as a woman here,
but that the main business decisions.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Are happening with the men in the room.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
And that's what I do worry about, because obviously we
believe that when we can co collaborate together men and
women like that collaboration means innovation and it means really intelligent, smart.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Thinking outside the box.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Because as we know, men and women's approach women's sports
very differently, and women approach business very differently. I think
we're builders of community, We're builders of unity, We're builders
of messaging and emotional, visceral things that matter to the
women's sports fan, which is very different than the the
male sports fan. So I do worry about that, but
(38:32):
I see it actually as an incredible space with so
much potential for innovation, to rethink how we build stadiums,
how we build out infrastructure with training facilities. We are
at this moment for women's sports where we're building facilities now.
Look at Kansas City, of course, with Angie and Chris Long,
(38:54):
who are two amazing owners of the NWSL, right, you're
seeing it with the Denver sumbit.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
They're building the.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
Second facility and training facility that they're.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Going to own. And when women start owning their.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
Facilities in their stadiums and what happens that infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Can build it differently, build it different I think about
Angel City. Is anyone here been to an Angel City game? Okay?
So I'm telling you it will change your feeling about
how all sporting experiences can be. And one of the
small things that y'all thought of that I can't believe
no one else did before is When the game ends,
there's a level of the stadium that opens up, and
(39:29):
the bar is still open, and it becomes a place
for everyone that just watched the game to come mingle together,
oh to party. And when I started my show Good Game,
I literally named it that because I thought women's sporting
events were the good place, and that's a TV show,
so search engine optimization wasn't going to help people find
my show, so I did name it Good Game instead.
But I thought I was thinking of Angel City Games
and how at the end of the game, pretty much
(39:50):
everyone in the stands is someone I would want to
hang out with and talk to more, and the diversity
of representation and the people who were there to watch
were people I wanted to be friends with. So I
was so glad that that space was open after so
I wasn't just sitting alongside people in a line, but
actually with them. And I think those kind of ideas
will come out of the women's sports space if we're
creative and innovative, realizing that we don't have to just
be men's sports with women playing them, Which brings me
(40:14):
to your show, Welcome to the Party, which is not
yet recorded. In that bar after an Angel City game,
but a good kind opportunity for a live show.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I think, good call there.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
What did you see missing in the space? Why did you?
I mean, you already have one of the most successful
podcasts in the world, and you already have achieved so much.
Why did you want to do a show about women's sports?
Speaker 4 (40:33):
Two reasons, well more than two, but too like personal
and then more business. It's like, honestly, the reason why
we started We Can Do Hard Things is because Glennon
looked across the podcast landscape in twenty twenty and saw
a bunch of.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Mediocre white dudes.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
That have like taken over the manisphere and thought they're
doing it. Maybe, yeah, we can try.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
This, and also probably ew yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Mean yes for sure. And so that's one reason in
terms of why we started podcasting in general. And then
this kind of this transformation that I've been going through
for the last many years.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I miss sports.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
And I've been actively kind of staying outside of it.
Before I felt like I was ready to come back,
and I and I was kind of kicking the idea
around with Glennon. We took the weekly New Hard Things
podcast independent and are now running it ourselves because again,
(41:43):
once you all get into the world of business, you
will realize that there's a lot of people between you
and any community that you're trying to serve, and oftentimes
along that path there are middle men or people that
are taking percentage points, percentage points percentage points away and
(42:04):
or changing the content as it goes out to appeal
and appease to sponsors or bigger business that you're in
bed with, right and so this idea in this move
to go independent was to have complete autonomy and control
over what ads we run, if we run ads, how
(42:25):
we do the content, etc.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
And not being attached to.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
A bigger corporation that in you know, in the world
of the corporate landscape, feels a little bit daunting right now.
So in the process of building out the independent production company,
I started kicking out around the idea with our ad
agency that we work with, what would it be like
(42:50):
if I started a podcast and how much money do
you think we could make and how would this work?
And so that's honestly when I started thinking about it,
and I knew Julie was trying to figure out a
place for her Laughter Permitted podcast to land, and unbeknownst
to me, I just decided. One day on the drive
to an Angel City game, I said to Glennon, I
(43:13):
think we're going to start a women's sports podcast. She's like,
that's amazing. And fast forward thirty minutes I see Julie
who's talking to Billy Jean King. They were also talking
about starting getting together and figuring out a podcast world
that maybe Billy could tap into, and I was like, well, maybe.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
We should do this.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
So Universe inspired very.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Much did And of course it was at an Angel
City game.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yes, yeah, it very much did. It very much did.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
And you know, it's it's not for the weary, Like
podcasting in general, it's a heavy lift. It's not just
like I'm going to show up and talk about like sports.
It's like there's a ton of pre production. There's there's
thinking about long term calendaring. Here we are with the calendaring.
If you take anything away from this, figure out the
(44:03):
calendar and you'll be good.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Well now, and then just get Billy Jean King to
do a podcast with you.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
That helps that Now you can be a whole lesbian
because you had the half of talking ideas to death
with your other podcast, and the other half is of
course sports that's right.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Oh yes, now I'm a full lesbian moment.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
We got to take a quick break more with Julian
Abbey right after this. We're running out of time. But Foudy,
do you have a quick thought on why you thought
that this was? What do you want to add to
the space that is there?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
I think when you have someone like Billy Jean King,
who has literally been the thread that runs through all
of women's sports for four or five decades, right, and
and then you go into a playing career beyond that,
like this woman has fought for every sport at every
for everything, and when she was considering and she's been
(45:07):
asked a lot by a lot of people to get
into the podcast world and said, I'm really interested in
this because also she was the one that taught our
team and said to me thirty years ago, what are
you as players doing about this? You, Foudy, what are
you doing? You get the players together and you fight,
you have a voice, and basically like spread her fairy
(45:28):
dust on us as she does and said do more.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
You can do more and unleashed.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
What I think became then equal pay for the US
women's national team. In twenty twenty three, it started thirty
years ago with Billy Jen King saying that to us,
and so to have the opportunity to archive her stories
and her voice and what she's done in this woman's
sports to days is one and then two. It's like
what Billy taught me.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I then passed on to Abby, and Abby passed.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
On to Alamgam and Kristin Press and the next group
that had to fight for equal pay. And so the
idea of three athletes who have done it at our level,
of course, but who have cared so much about all
the things that have gone into building women's sports, and
(46:15):
like it's just fun. Like when I'm around Billy, I'm laughing.
When I'm around Abby, I'm laughing, like it's fun. And
so when she's the three of us are together, we're laughing.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
It's a party.
Speaker 5 (46:24):
When that name got thrown at us, we were like,
that's the podcast name because that's what it feels like.
And so anytime you get to work with teammates and
diar friends and mentors and icon like Billy Jan King,
you say yes as fast as you can and as
loud as you can.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Well, and it's just a couple months old, but there
have been a couple of things like live events and
other things that I think are going to be so
fun to see as you continue to build out the
Welcome to the Party space, and I do like all
the positivity, good game, welcome to the party, good vibes,
all of our shod stuff. Okay, we're out of time,
so I'm glad y'all have your popcorn because we have
one final question for both of you. We play a
little game. It's similar to bench start cut. It's a
(47:03):
little nicer because you don't have to cut anything. It's good, gooder, goodest.
Oh this is good Okay, so so bad. It's gooder,
starting with good and then gooder and goodest. Michael Singers
The Untethered Soul, Glennon Doyle's Untamed and Abby Wombos.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
Wolf Pack, wolf Pack is good, Michael Singer's good Abby Wombos, Gooder,
Glennan Doyle's Goodest.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Okay, you said you've read On Tethered Soul more than
any book ever.
Speaker 4 (47:38):
It's true, but I can't put another author in front
of me and my wife.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yes, there you go, very smart, very smart, foudy, good, good, gooder, gooddest.
Christine Lily's Caps Record Oh.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Shit, I know you're gonna do this to me. It's teammates,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Abby Wombo goals record, Come on, goalie wins record.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Hope, So those wins record good?
Speaker 5 (48:02):
Okay, Well they have the two Christie caps and Abby's and.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
I mean it's got to be Lil wins because it's
still a standing record.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Yeah, I would say, here's.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
A standing for the US. Yeah, Christine Sinclair, Yes, and.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
We love sing Canadian Canadians careful we might be all
living there sit.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (48:32):
Yeah, I'm gonna go Abby Gooder and Lil's.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Goodest because it's little Lil. How many caps did you say?
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Three?
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Four thirty four?
Speaker 5 (48:44):
See Lily who played for over two decades, like twenty
five years with the national team. She played over the
course of span three decades, has played more international games
for the United States than any male or female soccer
player ever. Like the longevity of that woman, and that'll
be beat and one of the best players to ever
(49:06):
play the game. On top of it, not just the longevity,
like the consistency to her greatness.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Who we started with the w story, we'll finish with one.
We all did an impossible workout at one of the
Summits and then we all hopped on the bus to
drive back to the hotel and Christine Lily ran back.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
Yeah, She's like, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Quick five mile on the way back to the hotel.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
She's different, she's different.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Different, y'all are different. Y'all are the best. Thank you
so much for sitting down giving us all your insights.
Thank you, thank you for being great listeners.
Speaker 5 (49:40):
Wait hey, and I don't know if you keep us
on the pod. I know you're out of time, but like,
can we just give a used round of pause to
Sarah Spain because this woman, let me tell you, she
does a podcast every single day and is the voice
of the women's sports space. And what she does in
this space like it's my go to listen for just news, information, laughter,
(50:09):
Like to be able to do what she has done
consistently for so long, whether it was at ESPN still
with espnW, what she's doing.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Now with iHeart and all of that.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
I mean, they're pushing it out to how many radio
stations did you say where she gives updates and.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Every day I do women's sports updates now three times
a day for all five hundred iHeartRadio stations. So if
you're getting traffic news and whether you're getting women's sports
along with it instead of just listening and hearing men's every.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Day, isn't that so good? Like that's what changes the culture.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (50:36):
And I also just want to say women in general
want each other to win. Yes, And some people might
think Welcome to the Party is in competition with good
game that seriously, because I think that we have to
be very smart and strategic around how we get more content,
(51:00):
more talent, more retired athletes are current athletes in the
world of women's sports, and not just like being playing,
the talking about it also is a thing because the
world has to know who is playing and what is playing.
So we cannot be more proud that Sarah has had
the career that Sarah's had, but that she's gone and
(51:23):
is creating such incredible content. And I honestly I listen
to your stuff to know what I'm going to talk
about on my podcast sometimes.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Thank you good to quote the very wise Abby Wambach.
If there's no seat at the table, screw pulling up
a chair and build a new table. Thanks again to
Abby and Julie for taking the time to hang out.
We got to take another break stick here. If you
love women's sports, welcome back slices. We love that you're listening,
(51:55):
but we wanted to get in the game every day too,
so here's our good game play of the day. Go
check out Welcome to the Party, Abby and Julie's podcast
with the legendary Billy Jean King. And while you're there,
listen to We Can Do Hard Things, a show that
has changed my perspective and educated me on so many things. Seriously,
that podcast has changed my life. And check out the
(52:16):
book Abby and her co host's wife Glennon Doyle and
sister in law Amanda Doyle recently released the books, also
called that We Can Do Hard Things. Yours truly is
one of the guests quoted in the book. And when
I tell you the scream I scrimped when they invited
me on the show, and the squeal I squelt when
they asked if they could put my words in the book.
Y'all I love those three. I bet you will too.
(52:39):
We always love to hear from you, so hit us
up on email Good Game at Wondermedia network dot com
or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two
four fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe, Rate and
review scroll on down. Give us five stars. Tell us
you love us. It's easy watch. Realizing you're actually a
girl's girl review ten out of ten Most important life
(53:01):
Realizations rating. If you're anything like me, and you grew
up loving sports, playing sports, and wanting to be outside
all day, that meant you got the nickname tomboy, and
wanting to talk about your favorite teams and sports often
meant turning to the men and boys in your life.
They were the ones raised to believe that sports were
not just their domain, but a required area of studying
(53:23):
for them to make it through life. So you started
saying dumb stuff like I'm a guys girl and most
of my friends are guys to prove that you belonged
and that you weren't one of those girls who couldn't hang,
one of those girls who didn't get ball. It wasn't
really true, though. You had a lot of girlfriends, and
the more women that you met who played and loved
sports just like you, the more you realized you didn't
(53:45):
have to be a guys girl to prove you belonged
in sports, and in my case, finding my people other
women and non binary folks who were waking up early
to Tailgate, devouring game previews, setting fantasy lineups and dvring games,
and screaming no spoilers. When life got in the way,
the more I got to stop trying to prove myself
and just got to be myself feminine, masculine and everything
(54:09):
in between. Abby, Julie and so many other badass women
I've met over the years have now made me a
proud girls girl. Now it's your turn, rate and review.
Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Abby and Julie.
Good Game Women's Sports Foundation You the Score Act. Good
(54:30):
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 Grace Lynch, Taylor Williamson, and Lucy Jones.
Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan,
and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez,
(54:53):
and Gianna Palmer. Production assistants from Avery LOFTUS and I'm
your host, Sarah Spain
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we gotta
stop trying to test the old theory that New York
is the city that never sleeps. It doesn't, but I
need to. It's Thursday, October twenty third, and on today's show,
we'll be skipping the need to know and getting straight
to my live interview with US women's national team legends
Julie Boudi and Abby Wambach from earlier this week. I
sat down with them in New York on Tuesday as
(00:22):
part of the Women's Sports Foundation Athlete Leadership Convention and
all day conference ahead of the Foundation's annual Salute the Gala.
Faudi and I co hosted alongside Ari Chambers and Latina Robbinson.
Last night. What a Time, What an after Party? What
an apple I'll be taking Today, Julian, Abby and I
chatted about their new podcast with Billy Jean King, Welcome
(00:43):
to the Party, Threats to Title nine, pivoting from greatness
on the field to life after sport, and so much more.
These are two of my absolute favorites. You're gonna love
this one. That conversation's coming up right after this. They
(01:03):
need no introduction, but they're gonna get a little bit
of one anyway. Joining us. She's a two time Olympic
gold medalist, a World Cup champion, a six time winner
of the US Soccer Athlete of the Year award, and
a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. She's
still the highest all time goal scorer for the US
national team, and her one hundred and eighty four international
goals are second all time for both female and male players.
A New York Times bestselling author, she's part of the
(01:24):
ownership group of Angel City FC of the National Women's
Soccer League. Is the co host of the podcast We
Can Do Hard Things and Welcome to the Party. She's
got a gold card that allows her to get a
free burrito from Chipotle every day for the rest of
her life. It's Abby Wambach.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I do not still have that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I gonna say so.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
It said lifetime, and then I went there one day
and I swiped it and it was like wow. So
I used it often and I would go with my kids.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So lifetime of burritos too quickly, It's true. I use
joining her. A two time Women's World Cup champion, two
time Olympic gold medalist, and National Soccer Hall of Famer
who played for the national team from nineteen to eighty
eight to two thousand and four. She finished her international
career with two hundred and seventy four caps and served
as the team's captain from two thousand to two thousand
(02:15):
and four and co captain from ninety one to two thousand.
Former president of the Women's Sports Foundation, she's co founder
of the Julie Fatty Sports Leadership Academy, a co owner
of Angel City FC, a soccer broadcaster, and co host
of the podcast Welcome to the Party. In nineteen ninety seven,
she was the first American and first woman to receive
the FIFA fair Play Award Weed of the Worm on
(02:36):
the dance floor. We once partied so hard at her
house the cops came, but we thought they were faking.
We asked if they were strippers, it's Julie Baudy true story.
We're like, we're not that loud, this must be fake,
And they were real and they did not take their
clothes off. Week Can we start with that story?
Speaker 5 (02:56):
Yeah, we were making It was after an espnW summit
that we did in southern California, and we'd always have
a party at my house after for all the ESPN employees,
and we were doing an arm wrestling competition and it
was like a Wednesday night, and I told my whole block, like,
we're having a party.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
We're gonna be loud.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
So they all knew. So I knew that, like the
block knew we were good. And so we were like
people were chanting.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
On who they wanted.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
It was Rachel Epstein and myself and Rachel is like
one hundred pounds soaking wet, and she beat my.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Asses in khakis. Yeah, she was wearing khakis.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
And so they were chanting, chanting, chanting, and these cops
come in from the side gate in like full on,
like bulletproof vests.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
No, and they were California cops, so they were like
kind of.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Hot, kind of hot cops.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Yeah, and we were like, yell or strippers, we know
what's going.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Down after the Women's Summit haha, and they were like,
we're actually real cops. There's a noise complaine. Anyway, that's
not what we're here to talk about. And we could
spend a lot of the time talking about I don't know,
Abby playing beer pong with Taylor Swift, But do you
want to tell that story?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Real quick, sure, yes.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
So we after the twenty fifteen World Cup, we were
invited our national team to go to a Taylor Swift concert.
And this is you know, I wasn't necessarily swifty then
I am now. So we all went to the concert,
and afterwards Taylor invited us to like an after party
(04:35):
in the parking lot. And so what she did was
like she she basically encircled or squared off this space
with all of her all of the trucks that traveled
like the gear from from venue to venue exactly. And
inside of this huge square, she like had basically an
outdoor fair right like there was like drinks and games,
(04:59):
and there happened to be a beer pong station. And
so our team, because we were celebrating the World Cup,
went straight over to the beer pong station. And you
guys might not know her, but Ina Garten, she's very
famous chef, cook baker, barefoot. She came over with Taylor
(05:20):
and Taylor well, she was playing beer pong with us.
She was playing with wine. We were playing with beer,
and Taylor Swift came over and was like Abby Wambach
is playing beer pong with the barefoot contessa Ina Garten.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
This is incredible.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, yeah, And I think you had to give them
both some tips, right, you were the coach unofficial I did.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Aina did not know how to play, and I just
basically said, you get the effing ball in the effing cup.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
It's good coaching right there. It's good coaching.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Okay, So we did not swear, Abby, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Well, they're children.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I can't make that promise.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
They're babies, make not so much.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
We're here for the Women's Sports Foundation Athlete Leadership Connection,
which is helping all of you athletes get the transition
skills you need to go from your sports to a
successful career after competition. And that means we're looking out
at a whole room full of people who will soon
or maybe hopefully not too soon, depending on how great
you are as athletes, be transitioning from competition to careers.
(06:19):
So I want you both to take yourselves back to
the moment that you decided to hang them up. Maybe
you've got one game left, maybe you know you've got
half the season left. Whatever that moment was when you knew, okay,
this is going to be it. What were you feeling,
what were you afraid of? What were you most looking
forward to and remembering that time in your life and
combining it with what you've learned since. What is your
(06:41):
advice for the women in the room about that life pivot? Abby?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Okay, So a couple of things.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
One, I don't necessarily recall the moment that I knew
I was.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Going to hang them up.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
It was over a period of a couple years where
one day I would the way that my body felt,
the way that my spirit felt, I was like, I
need to be done today.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
The next day I was like, I can hang on.
I got this, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
And I did a lot of that, like a little
bit of up and down. And it wasn't until we
had won the World Cup, because it was the one
tournament I had yet to win. And it wasn't until
we won the World Cup in twenty fifteen that I
started to get like really.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Like excited and also terrified about.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
The prospects of actually retiring.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
The way that I played the game.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I don't know if I would recommend doing it to
other people, because I very much consumed myself with the
game and the sport so much so that I didn't
give myself like a plan. B. I had yet to
graduate from college. Big regret.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I didn't.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I didn't necessarily get involved in the business of it all. Yes,
I did appearances here and there and I and I
was endorsed by a couple of companies and did great
and did commercials.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And all of that.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But I didn't bother myself to think about the after,
mostly because of fear. If I'm being perfectly honest, like
who would I be without the game? But I think
also there was a part of me that felt like
I didn't want to complicate or infect the game or
(08:35):
the process that I was in and needing to go through.
I was terrified the minute that I realized I was
playing golf in My agent, Dan Levy at the time,
he said, do you think that you're going to go
on and try to play for the Olympics, because the
Olympics were just like seven or eight months later, And
(08:57):
I said, I don't know. I don't I don't know
if I'll make the team, because you know, as you
get older, you get a little slower, and I wasn't
scoring goals at the same clip as as I had
in the past, and so when I decided to hang
it up, it was it was both a relief and
also the scariest undertaking of my life because now I
(09:20):
had to learn how to become a person. I literally
had a summit months after I retired with my wife
and sister in law and agent. They called it Abby Summit.
And the first day of the summit, it was literally
written on the agenda, teach Abby how to calendar.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Because I did.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
I thought you were really going to a summit in
the living room.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Summit in our living room, Abby, Summit in the living room, and.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Not your first intervention.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
No, not my first intervention. I'm newly sober at this point.
And my agent brings over his cell phone and this
is a real life story.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
He brought it over to me.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I'm thirty five years old, and he shows me his
calendar app on his iPhone and he said, so, here
is a calendar, and you know, and every day there's
there's a dot that tells me I have something to
do that day. And he had a dot on every
single day and I said, you have something to do
(10:22):
every single day, he said, And he opened every single one.
He's like, yeah, these are things that I tell you about,
things that you have to do. Because he's the one
holding the calendar. Yeah, and so he was teaching me.
So this is all to say, fear not. When your
time comes, you will get there. And when your time comes,
(10:44):
I am sure all of you in this room know
how to calendar much better than I did at thirty
five years old.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Oh yeah, Well, you know, there's a lot of athletes
that say either they're so excited about the prospect of
not having a wake up call a practice, here's lunchtime,
here's film time, And then a lot of them that
say the opposite. Sue Bird was like, we're basically just
kids our whole life. They're like, and now have a snack,
that's right, and now take a nap, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Right, and tell me what to do. Yeah, I'm a happy,
happy camper.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I like being told what to do and then doing
it well as opposed having to come up with it
for myself.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Thank you, what that's right?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
The rest of your life looks like once you don't
have practice and a coach every day tools, what about you?
Speaker 5 (11:22):
I was not, like considered one of the greatest goalscorers
to ever play the games.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
My retirement was a lot easier.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
I think Abby and I have had this discussion quite
a lot on the pod about perhaps when you're considered
one of the greatest of all time to play a sport,
which I was not. I know is surprising, but I
had great vocal cords, so there are too.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Humble please everybody, and you don't already know look up
everything she come.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
No, no, I mean, and I'm not saying that in
a sense like, yes, I played on the national team
for eighteen years, so I had to have some skill set.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But like when you're.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
One of the greatest to ever play, as Abby was,
as Mia was, as Alex Morgan was, it's a very
different story, and.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
So there's a lot of pressure and that comes with that.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
I never felt as much of that pressure because I
felt like my importance was to keeping the team cohesive
and the leadership side of it and the captain side
of it.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
But I didn't have.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
The burden of every day having to score to keep
my team in a game right, which is something that's
very real for those guys and crazy enough. And I
don't know where this comes from, but I think it's
probably my parents because they always like were very supportive,
but like very chill about me playing, like they didn't
(12:45):
really come to that many games. They came when I
was on the national team of course, to Olympics and
World Cups. But like growing up, it was like, this
is your thing, go do it, probably because I was
the fourth kid and they were like oversports, but I
mean it was a very different age, of course, so
I don't know. I always felt like it was soccer
second almost versus what you're hearing from Abby, which is
(13:06):
a very linear, focused locked in. I was all over
the map. I wanted to do other things. I wanted
to learn about other things. I was always, you know,
reading outside of sports and doing jobs outside of sports
and broadcasting before I was even done playing, So I
was always thinking what's next, versus when you're one of
(13:27):
the greatest in the world, you have to kind of
think now, I got to get my team over the line,
and so I think it was a very different mindset.
I was thinking, I can't wait to be done with
soccer almost in a sense. I love soccer, I love
the people. The thing I missed the most, honestly, which
you guys will experience, is I miss the every day
with these crazies, right, which is why when Abby's like
(13:49):
you wanted to do a podcast together, Yes, like it's that, Like,
that's the gift of sports is that you have these
teammates that are with you forever. Literally, I tell them,
you are stuck with me for her, and they are
and they will be, and they'll be your friends that
are rider dies.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
For the rest of your life guaranteed.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
That's the gift of sport. So yeah, mine, mine was
very different. I got to a place where I was like,
if I have to play Mexico in a friendly one
more time where it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah, well, I mean if you're right. Though, it's so
much of like the camaraderie, the locker room. The identity
of being an athlete is a very hard thing for
a lot of people to move on from. You can
be a lifelong athlete and competitor, but the idea that
what you're playing means something and everybody's watching it and
cheering it on is a tough thing to say goodbye
to you. The thing about the teammates Foudi's old podcast
(14:39):
Laughter Permitted, she would have these reunion episodes that were
such a hot mess. It was like thirty members of
her nine ers on a zoom trying like you're muted
or like cutting out like trying to celebrate the women.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
Randy Chestain, You guys are too young. But she's the
one or two other her shirt when she scored in
the ninety nine World Cup, that iconic photo is late
to every practice, everything right and without fail, nothing changes.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
We'd be like, where's branding.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
She's not on, she's late on in the zoom, but
I text her tell her her on the zoom.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
God damn it, Brandy.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Where are you? But it's so fun to hear all
these years later they still as soon as you call,
they're all hopping on and to hear you all, I'll
chat and have that connection still, you know, Abby, I
don't know how many of you listen to Abby's other podcasts.
We can do hard things, but it is literally life changing, educational,
perspective shifting stuff. It's so so good. And you over
(15:33):
the course of the podcast have even shifted your perspective.
And I know at this point in your life you've
really considered your athletic career from a different lens than
in the years you were playing, and even in the
couple of years after retirement, where you were so embedded
in sport culture that you thought of it the way
that most people in sports think of it. Then you
immediately marry a woman who is like, couldn't be farther
away from the sports, as she calls them, Although she's
(15:54):
getting in, she's diving in. But how do you see,
perhaps differently now that your soccer career played in turning
you into the person that you are now, the businesswoman,
the podcast or the writer, Maybe differently than even just
if I'd asked you this ten years ago.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Well, it's been almost ten years since I retired, and
I think I've needed that entire ten years to what
I call recover from professional sports. You know, I kind
of touched on it a little bit in my last response,
and the the reality that professional sports is this mountain,
(16:37):
this hill that we're all trying to get to the
top of as like the success. You know, we are
told that in order to be successful, that you need
to be famous, you need to be an athlete, at
least in our athletic world, right, And I have spent
the last ten years trying to unwind and unravel this
(17:00):
not of confusion around the search for relevance in the
pursuit of championships, and I think I've done quite a
bit of like, I've done a lot of therapy and
trying to understand.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Like, what the hell was that?
Speaker 4 (17:22):
How how did I do all of that? How did
I score those goals? And why was I so motivated.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
To play so long?
Speaker 4 (17:34):
And why was I so motivated to and take a
sincere amount of responsibility and the success of our team,
and why did I approach.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
It like that.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
I've been asking myself all of these questions and what
one thing that I do think and a reason why
I call it like recovering from professional sports is because
I think I prioritized the extraordinary way more than I
prioritized the ordinary, and I didn't spend enough time building
(18:06):
those foundational blocks of the ordinary parts of my life.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I e.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Calendaring to understand, own and take full on accountability for
the totality of my life. I just did that in
one arena, and that was sport soccer.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
That's what I knew. But what I ended up doing
was I ended.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Up creating this sincere imposter syndrome for myself in the
arena of my life outside of sport. So when I retired,
I was like and stripping away the identity of soccer player.
I thought that maybe I would vanish. Literally, I thought
that there was a part of me that maybe I
(18:49):
would cease to exist. And so in these last I
would say, like three or four years, I've been really
harnessing and understanding like, oh no, like this person was
also a soccer player, this person is now a retired
soccer player, and this person exists and will continue to exist.
(19:09):
And I'm so grateful for the We Can Do Our
Things podcast. I'm so grateful that Julie wants to do
this new podcast with me, because entering back into the
women's sports world with a new perspective around all of this,
because sports is a vehicle by which right, and it's like,
how how you get to use this vehicle in which
(19:32):
way will be based on what your preferences are and
what you're interested in doesn't have to necessarily be to
be a player on the field. Forever, I myself was
a player, and now I myself am going to go
into this new space being a business person and try
to figure out how to get more representation and women
(19:52):
talking about women's sports. We need more representation in every
vertical of the women's sports business, and the media is
really absolutely one of those.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Sorry it was a super long ago.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Oh no, it's a great answer. We're going to get back
to what you saw missing in the space and why
the podcast arrived. But I want to quickly touch on
when you talk about it, and when you've had other
athletes talk about the chasing of the peaks at the
expense of the every day. If your entire life is
pretty unhappy until you win, and then the next morning
you wake up and all that's left is to go
try to win again, that's empty. Yeah, And whenever you
(20:24):
talk about it, the thought in my head is how
when people reach that level of fame and success that
we all think we want, the nicest compliment people pay
them is, oh, they're just like a regular person. What
a strange dichotomy that the best achievement once you've become
the most famous is to be as normal as possible,
which reminds us all that, like, the actual joy is
in the every day, but we have to separate that
(20:45):
from what we've built up as the only accomplies.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Wait to sum that all up, that's good, thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I'm going to take that with me.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I've listened to a lot of your podcasts, you know
it helps. We got to take a quick break more
with Julian Abbey right after this. You're very familiar with
the Women's Sports Foundation former president lap it Up, and
(21:14):
while you were in that role, you actually served on
a Bush administration commission that reviewed Title nine. You're going
deep cut President George W. Bush. She had expressed concern
that the law Title NIND promoted women's sports at the
expense of some lower profile men's teams. Where do we
keep hearing that all the time? Uh? He actually appointed
(21:34):
a panel to suggest changes, but you and the Women's
Sports Foundation helped lead the charge with a dissenting minority report.
So I want to hear about that experience of actually
trying to argue against the sitting president and then what
you learned in that fight that you've applied to later
activism and work.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Gosh, this is deep. Well, what I learned.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Is something that women's sports has taught us, right, Like,
you're often the minority voice. You're fighting for something that
for my entire career people told me to shut up
and just be grateful about stop asking for more. You
should just be happy that you have.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
A US women's national team that in soccer.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Those kind of responses, and I found myself suddenly on
this Blue Ribbon commission that was very lopsided for those
who wanted to make some changes to Title nine. And
so you have to find your voice as a minority voice,
which can be uncomfortable because there's a lot of people
staring at you, shaking their heads saying you're crazy. And
(22:43):
you know, I'm in my twenties and I'm playing on
the national team. And the amazing thing is I had
the Women's Sports Foundation who literally were with me by
my side that entire time, saying, We've got you.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
What do you need?
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Need research, you need data, you need stats, right, We're
here for you. So much so that on literally the
night before we wrote our dissenting opinion because we couldn't
get the group to come around to what we wanted,
and we wrote a dissenting report. It was three am,
and we had literally Senator birch By, who was considered
the godfather of Title nine, sitting on the floor with
(23:23):
us crafting the report and talking about why this mattered
so much.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
And the whole reason he.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Drafted Title nine was because his wife, who he says
was much smarter than him, who did much better than
him in college.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Who did better with.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
All of her testing getting a lot degree, never got
into any law schools, right, she couldn't get into any schools.
And so Title nine was obviously about an educational amendment,
and the fine print was about women's sports. So he's
sitting on the floor, and it just gave me hope
because you saw in the moment when you needed it
(24:03):
most these people rally in the Women's Sports Foundation and
Donna Lopiano and a lot of class who's sitting here,
and Billy Jean King of course is one of our
partners on the podcast, of how much it mattered to
them and they would do anything to help us get
through this moment. And it also gave me a like personally,
(24:24):
like you discover a lot about yourself when you have
to be the one voice that's dissenting all the time,
of like, Okay, I've got to speak up in a
way I've never really had to, or I've had teammates
around me that you know their strength and numbers.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
And that's what I love about.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
Being a team is you're much more willing to speak
up when you know you've got a team that has
your back. And now it was a.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Much harder situation so.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
It was hard.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
It was really hard.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Learned a lot about people and that there can be
compromised in situations like that, which was a bit disappointing.
But but I really think what we did with the
descending opinion was important and was Sarah. It's a deep
cut into the history of Title nine, but it was
an important moment where we made sure that there wasn't
(25:12):
some setbacks too. As we all know in this room,
I think the most profound piece of civil rights.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Legislation and on the sports side that we've ever seen.
I know that you like to be humble, but I
have to take a moment and commend you. And I
think it's a lesson for everybody in this room because
being the dissenting opinion, being part of the minority, being
the squeaky wheel for something that a lot of people
don't care about sucks, and people think that you're not
fun often if you're that person, and there is no
one more fun than Julie Foudy, that's right. And I
(25:40):
just want to say that in your life, you're going
to have this opportunity to speak up for stuff that matters,
and people are going to say you're a nag or
your shrill or your bitch or whatever else women get
when they fight for righteous things. And that is not
who you are, but it can be who you are
on that moment if that's what's required, and you can
still be fun and great and everyone can love you.
I don't know a single person that does not love
(26:01):
Julie Foudy. And first, while I'm an overshare already, but
I also share a lot of my very fun life
because I'm constantly being accused of being a nag and
complaining all the time. I'm complaining about shit that should
have been fixed a long time ago. Not because I
want to spend my free time doing that. I want
to spend my free time throwing costume parties, which is
usually what I do. But when I am throwing costume parties,
(26:21):
I'm complaining about shit that should have been fixed years ago.
But you can be both, and I let people grind
you down and say that you have to just be
pleasing all the time.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
No, And and what's funny is you can bring the
humor into the descent, like there was a there was
a moment when they took a really important vote.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And as everyone knows who knows me, I have a tea.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Bag for a bladder is what I call it. It's leaky,
too much, too much, just enough.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
You have children, you get to say whatever you want.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
And this has been my whole life, not even just
post kids, right, like even like doing pliametrics on the
national team. They're like, foudy, put a diaper on. We're
doing jumps. And so there was a point during one
of the hearings where we had to take a very
important vote and I was off in the bathroom going
tinkle real quick, and I would sprint. I would sprint
(27:11):
to tinkle and then i'd come back and I missed
this vote. And I was like, you took a vote
without me here, and they were like, yes, you were
in the bathroom. I was like, okay, from now on,
I would like to make a motion that we bring
a porta potty into this arena, into this room, and
I will knock once if it's yes, not twice where
(27:31):
it's no.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
And everyone started cracking up. But I missed the damn
vote because of my bladder.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
This is in like a very esteemed hall, Yeah exactly,
and it's like, you know, president of Penn State University.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
But I mean, foundy just again very quick wrapping up
how much I'm gushing about you, but you have done
a story about your alma mater, Stanford that didn't paint
it in the best light. You have gone to see
child labor in factories for a company that sponsored you.
You have done investigations into the turf that the people
that you are calling games play on. Like no moment
have you ever said they pay my bills or they're
(28:03):
too important for me to call and hold accountability for.
And it's just a really tremendous lesson for everybody in
this room.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Speaking of title nine, it's not perfect, but it is
necessary to ensure that women and girls keep getting opportunities
to play. There's nil shifts, there's a proposed score Act
endorsed by the GOP, the recent House versus NCAA settlement.
How worried are you abby about the future of women's
college sports and how much do we need to be
screaming about it before it's too late?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
It seems like and Julie and I have been talking
about this a little bit on our pod because the
great question, it's not like we're talking about the WNBA.
Kathy Engelbert, the NWSL losing players over to Europe, and
it seems like nothing ever changes until somebody gets so
(28:54):
pissed about it that they lose their head and they've
got to go on a rant, or they shame a league,
or they shame a commissioner, or or they have to
shame an entire government to get what they need done
or to prevent losing some rights.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Like we all know.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
What we've lost this last year or two. I don't
know what the answers are.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I feel worried.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
For our government, for sure, our administration. I feel worried,
but I also feel extraordinarily optimistic when I go to
some of these protests over the last many months.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's actually that.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Protest and women's sporting events are the only place where
this my body actually can take an actual breath, that
I'm with my community, that I'm watching something that is
fun and engaging, and to watch angel City FC play,
it's just like it feels a little bit like a
(30:03):
dream to be a part owner of the team and
to be able to watch these women do the thing
that I did in front of twenty thousand plus people.
When I played, there were like one thousand to two thousand,
maybe like that was a good game that was like
a good turn. Yeah, for the end of a cell
or even previous leagues, WSA and WPS. I don't have
(30:27):
an answer, but I have this Women in jerseys and
in uniforms out there on the field are inherently political,
whether we're out there screaming it from the top of
the mountain or not. Just using your body as a
(30:51):
person in minority is a political statement. When we walk
into rooms, men see us differently, They experience us differently.
When I walk into a room with my wife, who
literally calls it the sports for meetings for her, we
(31:14):
have sat across men and they look at me. Obviously
I'm more male, presenting more mask and Glennon is more femme.
But like at the end of the day, we also
have this thing that they know that I could beat
them at any sporting event there was.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
And so.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
I don't have the answers, but what I do know
is that our participation in women's sports really does matter,
and it matters in a very deep, meaningful way because
this is the thing that they cherish the most right
and I think that if we remember that every time
we go out, whether we want to be outwardly spoken
(31:54):
about it or not. We have to have the ability
to play. And if these are the things that are
at risk or potentially could be attacked, we have to
make decisions and stand up and fight for ensuring that
that these games and these women and these leagues are
solid enough that women always.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Have a place to play.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
I can't talk about the NC DOUBLEA only because it's
a confusing place.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
It is, and more so every day. Yeah, at this point,
if you run, there's something that department you're basically a GM. Yeah,
a salary cap almost for how much money you can
allow each player based on the settlements and everything.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Can we can we just put like a cap on
transfer portal, Like why do we have why can't we.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Limit it to one?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You get to transfer one?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
One you get I think you get one freebie and
then if you want to transfer again after that, because
who's to say whether your situation requires it, you have
to sit out of here. Yeah, yeah, and there is
some sort of penalty, but it's not such that it
prevents players from finding an opportunity that fits them because,
because we do know, women's sports is rife with toxic environments,
So to force an athlete to stay in a situation
that isn't good is not the answer, but.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
There should be a consequence and then a second one.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Yeah, And.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
I firmly believe, like you also have to teach a
young adult that, like it's not always going to be great. Yeah, right,
toxic environment is very different, but like there are environments
where you're just not playing right, and like it takes
a couple of years to build into the program or
get good enough or confident enough that you could do it.
And if you're constantly just like, oh, oh, let's take that,
(33:24):
let's go over there, because that's a shiny object that's
you know, dangling a little more money or the possibility
to start over there, then you're never building community, right,
And I look back at my Stanford people, like it
is robust, the thread of people that are still close
and friends and tight, and I just want people to
(33:45):
have that community.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
And I feel if you're changing.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Every year, completely agree.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
Yeah, And there's no loyalty to the team either, right,
like from a fan standpoint, because you don't know how
long they're going.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
To be there. Well, And that's one of the big
things that drive so much interest in women's basketball at
the collegiate level that men's loses in the one and done.
And so if it becomes the same where every single
year all the women are changing teams are leaving, it's
going to be harder to keep. This leads me perfectly
my next question. But I do want to quickly to
your point, Abby, say the anecdote that I always share
when you talk about the power of women in sport. Foudy,
(34:17):
you were there when we were with Angel City at
the Sydney Opera House ahead of the World Cup. I
interviewed the captain of the Afghani women's national soccer team
and she and her team had been airlifted and flown
to Australia to escape the Taliban when it took over
their country, and they were told that they were going
first for the educated women and the women who were athletes,
(34:38):
because they knew that they were the most embodied, the
most sure of themselves, and the most quote unquote dangerous
to the advice. No that the girls, the women a Yeah,
that they were the most dangerous to the ideas of
the Taliban, were women who played sport because of what
it means to be embodied. Yeah, And so to know
that you have that kind of power, and to look
(34:59):
at the organizing power of the ninety nine ers and
the organizing power of the people who fought for equity
and pay women's soccer, of the WNBA flipping the Senate.
These examples of women athletes and teams that come together
because they already know what it means to fight for
a singular cause. Best idea wins. We're all going in
the same direction. That's not how life works. You're going
to find out later, once you're not on a team anymore,
how much it sucks when people aren't best idea wins.
(35:21):
Let's work together. But that's why women are so important.
You brought me to my next question. Though. We are
celebrating so much incredible growth in women's sports, record investment,
better coverage, more media, all that other stuff. But it's
a lot of change happening very fast, and I look
across the space and I think about a lot of
the investors are now men's sports owners because of the
billions required to be a part of the game. Leadership
(35:42):
maybe without as much vision then, because it's not people
embedded in the game, it's people who have the money
to play it. Toxic environments that are still happening across
the space meddling from if any of you saw this,
But there was an op ed in the Wall Street
Journal that said that Caitlin Clark getting fouled repeatedly was
a hate crime and Congress should look into it. To
me as a little toe dip of can we get
politics involved in shutting down women's sports and affecting the WNBA,
(36:06):
which is predominantly queer and people of color. To me,
that felt like a shot across the bow to try
to get Congress involved in a space that's very progressive.
What worries you the most? Because we're so excited and
it's all positive, but I feel like there's some things
we need to be keeping an eye on.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
What worries me the most is that. And I think you.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Need the male allyship for sure, and there and so
I don't mind male owners and institutional investors jumping into
women's sports at all. I mean, look at Mark Walter,
Kimber Walter, right, we're just talking to the King or
about this the other.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Day with the Dodgers.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Perhaps if Billy Jean King doesn't become a Dodgers owner
and develops the relationship that she has with Mark and
kimber Walter, who are of course the owners of the Dodgers.
Then the PWHL, which is the Women's Ice Hockey League,
doesn't get founded by Mark and kimber Walter, and they
are the single owners of six teams. I mean, they
(37:11):
have brought that league to life. What I do worry
about is what you talked about is when you get
into situations and we've seen it happen inside these buildings
where the institutional investor comes in because they see the
rate of return in the valuation skyrocketing on women's sports.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
We're living it with Angel City. Haven't seen that, and.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
Instead of having a seat at the table as co collaborators, right,
what you see is the women getting pushed to the side,
and maybe they're given a token roll as a woman here,
but that the main business decisions.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Are happening with the men in the room.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
And that's what I do worry about, because obviously we
believe that when we can co collaborate together men and
women like that collaboration means innovation and it means really intelligent, smart.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Thinking outside the box.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Because as we know, men and women's approach women's sports
very differently, and women approach business very differently. I think
we're builders of community, We're builders of unity, We're builders
of messaging and emotional, visceral things that matter to the
women's sports fan, which is very different than the the
male sports fan. So I do worry about that, but
(38:32):
I see it actually as an incredible space with so
much potential for innovation, to rethink how we build stadiums,
how we build out infrastructure with training facilities. We are
at this moment for women's sports where we're building facilities now.
Look at Kansas City, of course, with Angie and Chris Long,
(38:54):
who are two amazing owners of the NWSL, right, you're
seeing it with the Denver sumbit.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
They're building the.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
Second facility and training facility that they're.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Going to own. And when women start owning their.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
Facilities in their stadiums and what happens that infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Can build it differently, build it different I think about
Angel City. Is anyone here been to an Angel City game? Okay?
So I'm telling you it will change your feeling about
how all sporting experiences can be. And one of the
small things that y'all thought of that I can't believe
no one else did before is When the game ends,
there's a level of the stadium that opens up, and
(39:29):
the bar is still open, and it becomes a place
for everyone that just watched the game to come mingle together,
oh to party. And when I started my show Good Game,
I literally named it that because I thought women's sporting
events were the good place, and that's a TV show,
so search engine optimization wasn't going to help people find
my show, so I did name it Good Game instead.
But I thought I was thinking of Angel City Games
and how at the end of the game, pretty much
(39:50):
everyone in the stands is someone I would want to
hang out with and talk to more, and the diversity
of representation and the people who were there to watch
were people I wanted to be friends with. So I
was so glad that that space was open after so
I wasn't just sitting alongside people in a line, but
actually with them. And I think those kind of ideas
will come out of the women's sports space if we're
creative and innovative, realizing that we don't have to just
be men's sports with women playing them, Which brings me
(40:14):
to your show, Welcome to the Party, which is not
yet recorded. In that bar after an Angel City game,
but a good kind opportunity for a live show.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
I think, good call there.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
What did you see missing in the space? Why did you?
I mean, you already have one of the most successful
podcasts in the world, and you already have achieved so much.
Why did you want to do a show about women's sports?
Speaker 4 (40:33):
Two reasons, well more than two, but too like personal
and then more business. It's like, honestly, the reason why
we started We Can Do Hard Things is because Glennon
looked across the podcast landscape in twenty twenty and saw
a bunch of.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Mediocre white dudes.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
That have like taken over the manisphere and thought they're
doing it. Maybe, yeah, we can try.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
This, and also probably ew yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Mean yes for sure. And so that's one reason in
terms of why we started podcasting in general. And then
this kind of this transformation that I've been going through
for the last many years.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I miss sports.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
And I've been actively kind of staying outside of it.
Before I felt like I was ready to come back,
and I and I was kind of kicking the idea
around with Glennon. We took the weekly New Hard Things
podcast independent and are now running it ourselves because again,
(41:43):
once you all get into the world of business, you
will realize that there's a lot of people between you
and any community that you're trying to serve, and oftentimes
along that path there are middle men or people that
are taking percentage points, percentage points percentage points away and
(42:04):
or changing the content as it goes out to appeal
and appease to sponsors or bigger business that you're in
bed with, right and so this idea in this move
to go independent was to have complete autonomy and control
over what ads we run, if we run ads, how
(42:25):
we do the content, etc.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
And not being attached to.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
A bigger corporation that in you know, in the world
of the corporate landscape, feels a little bit daunting right now.
So in the process of building out the independent production company,
I started kicking out around the idea with our ad
agency that we work with, what would it be like
(42:50):
if I started a podcast and how much money do
you think we could make and how would this work?
And so that's honestly when I started thinking about it,
and I knew Julie was trying to figure out a
place for her Laughter Permitted podcast to land, and unbeknownst
to me, I just decided. One day on the drive
to an Angel City game, I said to Glennon, I
(43:13):
think we're going to start a women's sports podcast. She's like,
that's amazing. And fast forward thirty minutes I see Julie
who's talking to Billy Jean King. They were also talking
about starting getting together and figuring out a podcast world
that maybe Billy could tap into, and I was like, well, maybe.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
We should do this.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
So Universe inspired very.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Much did And of course it was at an Angel
City game.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yes, yeah, it very much did. It very much did.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
And you know, it's it's not for the weary, Like
podcasting in general, it's a heavy lift. It's not just
like I'm going to show up and talk about like sports.
It's like there's a ton of pre production. There's there's
thinking about long term calendaring. Here we are with the calendaring.
If you take anything away from this, figure out the
(44:03):
calendar and you'll be good.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Well now, and then just get Billy Jean King to
do a podcast with you.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
That helps that Now you can be a whole lesbian
because you had the half of talking ideas to death
with your other podcast, and the other half is of
course sports that's right.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Oh yes, now I'm a full lesbian moment.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
We got to take a quick break more with Julian
Abbey right after this. We're running out of time. But Foudy,
do you have a quick thought on why you thought
that this was? What do you want to add to
the space that is there?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
I think when you have someone like Billy Jean King,
who has literally been the thread that runs through all
of women's sports for four or five decades, right, and
and then you go into a playing career beyond that,
like this woman has fought for every sport at every
for everything, and when she was considering and she's been
(45:07):
asked a lot by a lot of people to get
into the podcast world and said, I'm really interested in
this because also she was the one that taught our
team and said to me thirty years ago, what are
you as players doing about this? You, Foudy, what are
you doing? You get the players together and you fight,
you have a voice, and basically like spread her fairy
(45:28):
dust on us as she does and said do more.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
You can do more and unleashed.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
What I think became then equal pay for the US
women's national team. In twenty twenty three, it started thirty
years ago with Billy Jen King saying that to us,
and so to have the opportunity to archive her stories
and her voice and what she's done in this woman's
sports to days is one and then two. It's like
what Billy taught me.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I then passed on to Abby, and Abby passed.
Speaker 5 (45:55):
On to Alamgam and Kristin Press and the next group
that had to fight for equal pay. And so the
idea of three athletes who have done it at our level,
of course, but who have cared so much about all
the things that have gone into building women's sports, and
(46:15):
like it's just fun. Like when I'm around Billy, I'm laughing.
When I'm around Abby, I'm laughing, like it's fun. And
so when she's the three of us are together, we're laughing.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
It's a party.
Speaker 5 (46:24):
When that name got thrown at us, we were like,
that's the podcast name because that's what it feels like.
And so anytime you get to work with teammates and
diar friends and mentors and icon like Billy Jan King,
you say yes as fast as you can and as
loud as you can.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Well, and it's just a couple months old, but there
have been a couple of things like live events and
other things that I think are going to be so
fun to see as you continue to build out the
Welcome to the Party space, and I do like all
the positivity, good game, welcome to the party, good vibes,
all of our shod stuff. Okay, we're out of time,
so I'm glad y'all have your popcorn because we have
one final question for both of you. We play a
little game. It's similar to bench start cut. It's a
(47:03):
little nicer because you don't have to cut anything. It's good, gooder, goodest.
Oh this is good Okay, so so bad. It's gooder,
starting with good and then gooder and goodest. Michael Singers
The Untethered Soul, Glennon Doyle's Untamed and Abby Wombos.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
Wolf Pack, wolf Pack is good, Michael Singer's good Abby Wombos, Gooder,
Glennan Doyle's Goodest.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Okay, you said you've read On Tethered Soul more than
any book ever.
Speaker 4 (47:38):
It's true, but I can't put another author in front
of me and my wife.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yes, there you go, very smart, very smart, foudy, good, good, gooder, gooddest.
Christine Lily's Caps Record Oh.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Shit, I know you're gonna do this to me. It's teammates,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Abby Wombo goals record, Come on, goalie wins record.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Hope, So those wins record good?
Speaker 5 (48:02):
Okay, Well they have the two Christie caps and Abby's and.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
I mean it's got to be Lil wins because it's
still a standing record.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Yeah, I would say, here's.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
A standing for the US. Yeah, Christine Sinclair, Yes, and.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
We love sing Canadian Canadians careful we might be all
living there sit.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (48:32):
Yeah, I'm gonna go Abby Gooder and Lil's.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Goodest because it's little Lil. How many caps did you say?
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Three?
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Four thirty four?
Speaker 5 (48:44):
See Lily who played for over two decades, like twenty
five years with the national team. She played over the
course of span three decades, has played more international games
for the United States than any male or female soccer
player ever. Like the longevity of that woman, and that'll
be beat and one of the best players to ever
(49:06):
play the game. On top of it, not just the longevity,
like the consistency to her greatness.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Who we started with the w story, we'll finish with one.
We all did an impossible workout at one of the
Summits and then we all hopped on the bus to
drive back to the hotel and Christine Lily ran back.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
Yeah, She's like, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Quick five mile on the way back to the hotel.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
She's different, she's different.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Different, y'all are different. Y'all are the best. Thank you
so much for sitting down giving us all your insights.
Thank you, thank you for being great listeners.
Speaker 5 (49:40):
Wait hey, and I don't know if you keep us
on the pod. I know you're out of time, but like,
can we just give a used round of pause to
Sarah Spain because this woman, let me tell you, she
does a podcast every single day and is the voice
of the women's sports space. And what she does in
this space like it's my go to listen for just news, information, laughter,
(50:09):
Like to be able to do what she has done
consistently for so long, whether it was at ESPN still
with espnW, what she's doing.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Now with iHeart and all of that.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
I mean, they're pushing it out to how many radio
stations did you say where she gives updates and.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Every day I do women's sports updates now three times
a day for all five hundred iHeartRadio stations. So if
you're getting traffic news and whether you're getting women's sports
along with it instead of just listening and hearing men's every.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Day, isn't that so good? Like that's what changes the culture.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (50:36):
And I also just want to say women in general
want each other to win. Yes, And some people might
think Welcome to the Party is in competition with good
game that seriously, because I think that we have to
be very smart and strategic around how we get more content,
(51:00):
more talent, more retired athletes are current athletes in the
world of women's sports, and not just like being playing,
the talking about it also is a thing because the
world has to know who is playing and what is playing.
So we cannot be more proud that Sarah has had
the career that Sarah's had, but that she's gone and
(51:23):
is creating such incredible content. And I honestly I listen
to your stuff to know what I'm going to talk
about on my podcast sometimes.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Thank you good to quote the very wise Abby Wambach.
If there's no seat at the table, screw pulling up
a chair and build a new table. Thanks again to
Abby and Julie for taking the time to hang out.
We got to take another break stick here. If you
love women's sports, welcome back slices. We love that you're listening,
(51:55):
but we wanted to get in the game every day too,
so here's our good game play of the day. Go
check out Welcome to the Party, Abby and Julie's podcast
with the legendary Billy Jean King. And while you're there,
listen to We Can Do Hard Things, a show that
has changed my perspective and educated me on so many things. Seriously,
that podcast has changed my life. And check out the
(52:16):
book Abby and her co host's wife Glennon Doyle and
sister in law Amanda Doyle recently released the books, also
called that We Can Do Hard Things. Yours truly is
one of the guests quoted in the book. And when
I tell you the scream I scrimped when they invited
me on the show, and the squeal I squelt when
they asked if they could put my words in the book.
Y'all I love those three. I bet you will too.
(52:39):
We always love to hear from you, so hit us
up on email Good Game at Wondermedia network dot com
or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two
four fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe, Rate and
review scroll on down. Give us five stars. Tell us
you love us. It's easy watch. Realizing you're actually a
girl's girl review ten out of ten Most important life
(53:01):
Realizations rating. If you're anything like me, and you grew
up loving sports, playing sports, and wanting to be outside
all day, that meant you got the nickname tomboy, and
wanting to talk about your favorite teams and sports often
meant turning to the men and boys in your life.
They were the ones raised to believe that sports were
not just their domain, but a required area of studying
(53:23):
for them to make it through life. So you started
saying dumb stuff like I'm a guys girl and most
of my friends are guys to prove that you belonged
and that you weren't one of those girls who couldn't hang,
one of those girls who didn't get ball. It wasn't
really true, though. You had a lot of girlfriends, and
the more women that you met who played and loved
sports just like you, the more you realized you didn't
(53:45):
have to be a guys girl to prove you belonged
in sports, and in my case, finding my people other
women and non binary folks who were waking up early
to Tailgate, devouring game previews, setting fantasy lineups and dvring games,
and screaming no spoilers. When life got in the way,
the more I got to stop trying to prove myself
and just got to be myself feminine, masculine and everything
(54:09):
in between. Abby, Julie and so many other badass women
I've met over the years have now made me a
proud girls girl. Now it's your turn, rate and review.
Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Abby and Julie.
Good Game Women's Sports Foundation You the Score Act. Good
(54:30):
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 Grace Lynch, Taylor Williamson, and Lucy Jones.
Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan,
and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez,
(54:53):
and Gianna Palmer. Production assistants from Avery LOFTUS and I'm
your host, Sarah Spain
Host
Sarah Spain
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