Former U.S. women's national team defender Kelley O'Hara won it all during her career. Almost.
She won two World Cups, three league titles, an NCAA All-American and two Olympic medals. However, there was one checkbox she did not get to tick: playing in her hometown of Atlanta.
"It just feels like a miss," O'Hara said on the "Full Time" podcast this week. "I was like, 'Oh, maybe it'll come in a time that it'll be right at the end of my career, and I can retire there.' That would have been the dream."
That dream opportunity came just a few years too late.
After an illustrious career, O'Hara hung up her cleats in 2024, retiring with NJ/NY Gotham FC and settling in Jersey City, N.J, to start her broadcast career. The next year, the National Women's Soccer League announced that Atlanta and Arthur Blank had won an expansion bid to join as the 17th team in 2028. Blank also owns Atlanta United in Major League Soccer and the Atlanta Falcons in the National Football League.
Few can boast a trophy cabinet quite like O'Hara's. The 37-year-old former full back won the World Cup in 2015 and 2019, a gold (2012) and bronze medal (2021) with the U.S. at the Olympics, two championships (2021, 2023) in the NWSL and a championship in Women's Professional Soccer in 2010.
When pressed to choose a favorite among those medals, a beaming O'Hara says, "Probably the 2019 World Cup." Her 2021 NWSL championship with the Washington Spirit, in her personal rankings at No. 2, stands out because she "wanted that just as bad as a World Cup."
In France in 2019, she started in six of the USWNT 's seven matches and had the assist for Christen Press ' opening goal in the 2-1 win over England in the semifinals. The celebrations in the aftermath of that triumph only further endeared O'Hara and her teammates to the U.S. public.
"When we won in 2019, I was like, 'Oh, we're going big, girls. Like, nobody's sleeping for the next 96 hours. Let's go!' And that's what we did. Honestly, I didn't have a voice when it was finished," O'Hara said.
The story behind O'Hara's career triumphs comes back to her home state. She was first inspired to become an athlete because of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Although the USWNT won gold that summer, it was a different contingent of Team USA that changed O'Hara's life: the 1996 U.S. women's gymnastics team.
"I wanted to be an Olympian before I even knew I wanted to be a soccer player. I wanted to represent Team USA because I saw these gymnasts," O'Hara said. "I do specifically remember watching these women on television. I think it was the first time I saw female athletes competing, and to see them compete for their country, and the whole world stop and watch, I was mesmerized and so inspired by them."
O'Hara, who grew up in the suburb of Fayetteville, to the south of Atlanta, says she has yet to have contact with NWSL Atlanta but that she would "love to be involved."
During her playing career, there were times when a move to Atlanta started to materialize. Ahead of the 2012 WPS season, O'Hara signed with the Atlanta Beat, only for the league to fold a few days later.
After Atlanta United joined MLS in 2017, O'Hara says she had conversations with the team's front office about the potential to join a women's team when it was ready, but that it would be a number of years.
For now, O'Hara's focus remains on her work in the media. In 2020, she was one of the first players to step into podcasting when Just Women's Sports hired her to anchor its flagship show before developing "The Players Pod" and "Sports Are Fun with Kelley O'Hara" on the same network.
O'Hara got her first taste of broadcasting at the 2022 NWSL championship in Washington, D.C., when, alongside Stanford teammate Ali Riley , JWS held a livestreamed preshow from the fan zone outside the stadium.
"That was my first time doing live broadcasts. And I was like, 'Wow, they're just letting us rip. That's a choice.' But we had a blast, and I really enjoyed it," O'Hara said.
Not long after that, a producer from CBS called and said that when O'Hara was finished playing, the network would love to work with her in the studio on its women's soccer coverage.
O'Hara has become part of a core group of CBS women's soccer panelists, covering the NWSL and the UEFA Women's Champions League alongside other former players Darian Jenkins , Janelly Farías and Jen Beattie .
"I feel like they've put together a really great team around Champions League, and they encourage us to be ourselves and have fun because the whole point is that it's sports," she said. "It's not rocket science; it's not brain surgery. It's supposed to be fun."
"These conversations I'm having, the takes I'm giving on live television … I'm just going to say it like it is, and I'm not trying to be anything that I'm not. So, the easy part has been being myself."
If the easy part of being a broadcaster is being herself, what's the hardest part?
"Getting hair and makeup every day," she quipped. "It's like my least favorite part."
From Fayetteville to the top of the world, now Jersey City and maybe, one day, back again.
From the booth, the boardroom, the studio, the sidelines or the fan zone, O'Hara will stay honest and close to her roots.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic .
US Women's national team, Gotham FC, Washington Spirit, NWSL, Sports Business
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