The Interview: Meg Linehan and Molly Hensley-Clancy
An Essential Discussion on Their NWSL Investigative Stories and What They Mean for the League
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When it comes to journalism, I have a lot of respect for “insider reporters” who can break news about yet-to-be-announced trades, coaching hires and other news in a highly competitive environment. I do insider reporting sometimes, and there’s always a rush that comes with breaking news on a story like that.
But the truth is that almost all insider reporting is about information that’s going to come out eventually in a press release anyway. For me, the highest level of journalism is the kind that wouldn’t end up coming out in a press release, the kind involving investigations that people in power may not want to come out at all, the kind of reporting that addresses truly important topics and leads to significant change.
Recently, The Athletic’s Meg Linehan and the Washington Post’s Molly Hensley-Clancy have been doing extremely high-level investigative reporting on the NWSL. We had an in-depth discussion about it on Friday morning, which has been lightly edited for clarity below.
Grant Wahl:
Our guests now are two tremendous journalists. Meg Linehan is the U.S. women's national team and NWSL national writer for The Athletic. Molly Hensley-Clancy does sports investigations for the Washington Post. On Thursday, Linehan wrote a story detailing allegations of sexual coercion and abuse and systemic failures to respond to North Carolina coach Paul Riley, who has been fired. On August 11th. Hensley-Clancy wrote a story detailing repeated examples of verbal abuse and systemic failures to respond to Washington coach Richie Burke, who has been fired. She has continued to write stories covering turmoil inside the Washington Spirit. Thanks so much to both of you for coming on the show.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Thanks for having us.
Meg Linehan:
Yeah. Thank you.
Grant Wahl:
Lots to talk about here. First off. I just want to say congratulations for the tremendous work that you're doing, both of you, which is causing real change—and I hope lasting change in the NWSL, and we'll see where it goes from here. It's already caused significant change. I want to just have a discussion here about topics that come up as a result of this tremendous reporting you've done. And maybe just to start, I would say you both had brave sources who were willing to go on the record for your stories, with their names on it. I know you can't say a ton, but what can you say about how these stories came together?
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Yeah, I can start. This started when I heard that a player had left the Spirit because of Burke's treatment of them. And I think that as with so much of this stuff, it had kind of been an undercurrent that people sort of knew about, but hadn't spoken about. And once I heard that, I was trying to figure out, how do I confirm this and how do I figure out if this has happened to other players? And I went to Kaiya McCullough pretty quickly because I'd actually written a story with Kaiya whenI was doing some freelancing for the New York Times and she had just been really wonderful. And I had seen what she had been talking about on Twitter. And I thought if anyone's going to put their name to this, it's going to be Kaiya.
And she was really, really scared, I think, and she said this, it was the scariest thing she's ever done, but she almost right away was like, I'm going to think about doing this. And then it was kind of just a matter of finding other players who were willing to corroborate what she said. And a lot of them were still in soccer, so they weren't necessarily willing to go on the record. But I'm grateful to Kaiya and also to the players who weren't able to put their name on it. They really just could not do it, but they wanted to.
Meg Linehan:
I think for my story, I don't think that happens without me being around the league since the league started. I've known Mana Shim since the 2013 season. I mean, I wrote a story about her coming out and her incredible rookie season at the tail end of the 2013 season. And I think she was also a player where this was really early on. I was not even freelance writing, really. I was writing for The Equalizer. I'd started as a photographer and then started writing. And so this was really early into my long journey through women's soccer, but I think Mana and I understood each other as actual human beings in that moment, which I think is sometimes a thing that's kind of lost when you're trying to write stories about someone or they're looking at you and like, can I trust you?
So I think that there was kind of that mutual level of trust. And we went back a while, but obviously for my story, this is one that has been a very long journey for the two players involved, both Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly. And Sinead and I had not really talked at length, if at all. I've covered the NWSL, so we've definitely crossed paths, but for the two of them this has been a very long road and they have tried to raise their voices before in kind of official channels, right? And then earlier this year, directly to the league asking for new investigations, and then when they still weren't heard, they had to make the decision of, who do we think can tell this story? And I think that was obviously a big decision for them to make.
And I cannot express how deeply I appreciate that they put their trust in me to tell it, but I also think that a story like this, to have the background of both WPS, but so much of this story rests on the history of women's soccer and the culture that we've seen in women's soccer and what we're going through in this moment. So to have kind of that whole picture I think was definitely a huge part, but I don't think the story happens maybe in quite the same way if Mana and I don't have that kind of connection from almost a decade ago.
Grant Wahl:
For both of you, I'm wondering, there's so many systemic failures here by the NWSL, by team owners, team officials. Do you think those systemic failures, including not acting over the years, including this year, helped lead to the players being more willing to speak to you for these stories?
Meg Linehan:
For me? Absolutely. I mean, absolutely, just in terms of what we have seen. But I think it's been happening now for maybe about a year, right? And what is so remarkable is yes, there are two players on the record. Also, I think Alex Morgan deserves credit for backing up Mana Shim and her part of this. But also knowing now her role in getting the anti-harassment policy put into place, that's a whole story that I could not even barely touch in this story because it would've been so lost in everything else I'm trying to report.
But Alex Morgan is a huge part of this, but also I talked to so many other players, and It did not matter if they were still playing, out of the game, still in soccer, out of soccer, there was still so much fear around what consequences there might be. Especially regarding Paul Riley, like there is a certain level of fear around because of Paul Riley's influence. We wanted to really show that in the story of what his name, what his wealth carries in this sport. And it was very clear talking to everyone of just, please, I don't want my name on this and can you make sure that it won't lead back to me? And I think that that was a very real space to navigate.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Yeah. And I had very similar experiences where I also did a story where I talked to a lot of employees at the Spirit. A number of current employees, people who had recently left, and the fear was huge. And I think in some ways it’s a similar dynamic, although Riley's been in the league for so much longer, but I do think it's something that the NWSL has to reckon with because they can say they have these policies in place now, but we were both writing these stories when these policies were in place and it hadn't worked. They still needed to go to the media. And it's not something that NWSL players do lightly to go on the record with this kind of stuff. So, I mean, I think that they can say all they want about these policies, but the reality of the fear that we both dealt with is something that they're going to have to figure out.
Meg Linehan:
I also think the story that I wrote ends with this quote from Sinead Farrelly saying, "There's this term. It's called institutional betrayal and I learned it because of this." And there was really no other quote we were ever ending with, because I think those two sentences so perfectly sum up what happened of first that pressure of feeling silence, but when they do feel like they can raise their voice and raise it directly to a person in power, and then you get an email that says, thank you for this email, I wish you all the best.
“The NWSL as a concept, as an idea, as it exists right now, is not sustainable. And we have seen that proven time and time again, and the NWSL as an idea is different, the structure is different than the players. And so do I think the league needs to get burned down as like an actual thing? Probably not ... Essentially the players have to save the league from itself at this point, and we have to figure out a path forward … The league is not what male owners have built. The league is the players. And there is a path forward to saving this particular league, or a professional league in the United States, because it is bigger than this front office, this structure, this whatever. There is something still here worth saving because it comes down to the players … This is still too good and important to fail because fundamentally at its heart, it is the players.” — Meg Linehan
Grant Wahl:
What's also striking to me, we've seen these stories to some extent for a while. I mean, like magicJack, that's like a decade ago. All this stuff that happened with that situation, we'd seen reports in the past about Richie Burke doing the same stuff with the Washington Spirit, yet he continued to coach the Washington Spirit. People knew about, at least a few people knew about investigations into Paul Riley at the Portland Thorns years ago. And yet he was still able to get another job in the NWSL. Just last night, Molly reports that Farid Benstiti, part of the reason he left earlier this season the job with OL Reign is because he was asked to by one of the owners for his resignation because he was doing the same sort of body shaming that he did with Lindsey Horan years ago at PSG, which we all knew about. I mean, like we could kind of go on here, but...
Meg Linehan:
There's more, there's more on that list. There's more on that list.
Grant Wahl:
You know, that's just wild to me that this stuff is still happening. And then when these guys are pushed out, the public statement is, we wish them the best in their future endeavors. What's your sense of all this?
Meg Linehan:
Okay. So I've been working on this story for months, right? Before the Washington Spirit stuff really, really started hitting. So one of the big pieces of reporting, and I know Molly and I had talked about it kind of at that specific moment is... And this is such a small footnote in the overall scheme of things, but assistant coach Tom Torres for the Washington Spirit I think is a really good example of that. Where you read that press release that the Washington Spirit put out and it's basically just like, we wish him all the best in future endeavors, right? Thank you for your time. And then we were finally able to report a year later that according to multiple sources, there was completely inappropriate behavior at a party following the Challenge Cup. And it took Molly how long to get the information about Farid Benstiti confirmed, right?
It takes time sometimes. But I think even we saw with the original statement that Portland Thorns put out about Paul Riley? The first sentence of that is a quote from the general manager, Gavin Wilkinson, basically saying, we thank him, right? Everybody thought that was about results. And then to have Aaran Lines who was then vice president of Western New York Flash confirm to me, well, we knew there was an investigation that nothing unlawful had happened, that league policy was followed when we hired him, that his contract was approved following league policy.
“When I was looking at the Spirit internally, this term old boys club kept coming up. And when I reported on what the investigation found, which the NWSL did not disclose, I had to go and figure out what it said. But what they found was that it was this culture of the owners and the coach, Richie Burke, Larry Best, Steve Baldwin protecting each other, and that culture prevented people in the organization and players from speaking up about Burke and other things. And I think that's a microcosm it seems like of what you're seeing in the NWSL, where you have people protect—and often men, but not always—each other's careers at the expense of players’ voices.” — Molly Hensley-Clancy
That to me, I mean, there's a lot happening in all of this stuff. But the concept that there could be some sort of knowledge, that we are releasing a coach for some specific reason that is not shared publicly and which I thought was actually... I do want to give full credit to Racing Louisville FC for when [coach] Christy Holly, his contract was terminated, they did at least publicly say for cause, and they were the only team to do so.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Yeah. I mean, I think when I was looking at the Spirit internally, this term old boys club kept coming up. And when I reported on what the investigation found, which the NWSL did not disclose, I had to go and figure out what it said. But what they found was that it was this culture of the owners and the coach, Richie Burke, Larry Best, Steve Baldwin protecting each other, and that culture prevented people in the organization, players from speaking up about Burke and other things. And I think that's a microcosm it seems like of what you're seeing in the NWSL, where you have people protect—and often men, but not always—each other's careers at the expense of players’ voices.
And I mean, this is obviously not quite as serious a situation, but I remember when the Larry Nassar hearing happened in Congress, I saw a tweet and I wish I remember who said this, but someone was like, think about how much this system worked to protect this one guy. He wasn't famous, he wasn't rich, he was just a guy. And at the expense of all these women, everything, the FBI, they all work to protect this guy. And I just see that happening over and over and over in the NWSL too. Where the question is, how do we protect this guy? Whether he be any of the coaches we've reported on or other people in the league, how do we protect him? And the question is not, how do we protect players, how do we listen to players? All those things.
Grant Wahl:
It seems to me like the approach from NWSL teams and the NWSL league office and commissioner has been cover your ass over protect women?
“The fact that The Athletic believed that there should be a full-time women's soccer reporter in this country with the U.S. women's national team and the NWSL I think was a big, big step here that we didn't know was going to play into where we're at October 1st, 2021 … We need more people in the space that are doing it and being paid to do it because so much of this has not been covered because you have people trying to cover this sport while still working 40-hour, 50-hour jobs.” — Meg Linehan
Meg Linehan:
Yes. Yeah. I mean, the fact that the NWSL Players Association is the one that's about to pay for an anonymous hotline to report potential complaints instead of the league, is a pretty revealing thing to me. That the league was unwilling to do so. And yes, they have an HR email to email complaints to. But I think you have to acknowledge the fear that is going to play a role in reporingt. And that's in any reporting mechanism. And also, I think just kind of that understanding of if you are reporting something to HR, there's no guarantee. HR is not necessarily going to be your friend. HR is there to protect the company. You are trying to report behavior to your own company, right? Not to necessarily someone who's going to be independent and say to that person in power, no, you actually have to pay attention to this.
So there's a few levels here, but I do think from the fact that in 2015, and to be fair, I do want to put the context up for some of this stuff, it's happening at a very different point in the NWSL. And the league front office has always been understaffed. And I don't think that's an excuse for everything that's happening, but in 2015 Jeff Plush is commissioner and Jeff Plush is also just kind of a dude in an office who is just controlled by the owners. Like there was no power in that commissioner role at all. And now maybe we can have a debate about how much power there is in the NWSL commissioner role and what role Lisa Baird has played. [Note: Baird resigned as commissioner later on Friday.] But in 2015, Jeff Plush honestly is also probably a direct employee of U.S. Soccer because that's also in U.S. Soccer is the managing, the manager of NWSL. NWSL is not like an independent entity at that point in time.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Was his office in Soccer House [where U.S. Soccer is located]?
Meg Linehan:
Yes. I don't think they got an office until later. So also who's advising Jeff Plush legally? Is it a U.S. Soccer legal representative at that point? I mean, there's still questions here of how, how right? And that was one of the central questions when we started reporting this, is how do you go from Portland to Western New York? And I think we got kind of the start of that answer, but we don't understand how coaches are hired in the NWSL. We don't understand what the vetting procedure is. We don't understand if … they say there's a Rooney Rule, right? Is there actually? We don't have any of this information, and all of it keeps coming back to this idea of transparency.
Grant Wahl:
I mean, one thing we do know is that every year it seems like there are more and more men being hired to coach women's soccer. Whether it's collegiate, professional, this is a real issue. And I think it's tied to the growth of the sport and there's more money in it, but there's very few women who are head coaches in the NWSL. There's very few women who are head coaches in international soccer for the top teams. And then you've got teams like the one run by Jill Ellis, that's starting in San Diego and Angel City, which eventually hired a woman to be the head coach for the team. How do you see that part of all of this? It seems you're getting more and more men coaching.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Yeah. I mean, I think I found it interesting to kind of watch. I think that there has finally been real pressure to hire women coaches. And you saw that with Angel City for sure. One thing I found interesting in that conversation is I keep hearing people saying, well, where are the qualified women? There just aren't enough qualified women in the league. There aren't enough women that can do this. And I think that on some level that's true. I also think that like a lot of these men... Richie Burke had never coached women professionally. Richie Burke came from youth soccer. Larry Best, the Spirit executive, he'd never even worked in professional sports. And even the Spirit hired Ben Olsen, who I think is incredibly well-respected, but they hired him as far as I know without any process that involved interviewing women or people of color for that role.
And he himself said, I don't know as much about women's soccer as other people. So I think he has a lot of experience in soccer. All this to say, I think men are getting a lot of chances to prove themselves. You just see this willingness to kind of take a chance on a youth coach. And sometimes it works out. But I mean, he's called 19-year-old boys the F word, it probably doesn't work out. That's what happened with Richie. But I mean, women are not getting those same chances. For a woman, there's a very tiny universe of women who are the most qualified and no one's hiring women out of youth soccer, really. Although the Spirit did just hire a woman assistant coach from that world. So I'll give him the credit for that.
Meg Linehan:
I definitely think there is kind of the challenge of the pipeline, right? And I've thought about this a bit too, and we're starting to see NWSL players especially kind of move through the coaching pyramid at this point. And some of that actually is being supported by the Jill Ellis Scholarship that U.S. Soccer put into place. So I think we're going to start seeing the results of that. Like someone like Ali Krieger going through that program. Heather O'Reilly's going through that. Like we're seeing big players too, do this as well, but there's also this concept, not just of not giving women a chance, but like someone like Becca Moros, who is an assistant coach at Gotham FC and then immediately gets poached by college, where there's a lot more safety and security.
Because another element of this is, I go back to 2013 NWSL and I see the coaching path of someone like Lisa Cole who was coaching the Breakers, kind of lost the locker room. And then was never given a chance again, even though she's got that coaching background. And she's kind of bounced around the international game, coached with the Houston Dash a bit, but she's not getting multiple looks the way that someone like Christy Holly is, or even Paul Riley is. Even after not very good NWSL records, and they're still getting hired again. When Western New York Flash hire him, they just missed the playoffs. Like they did not do well that season. So you're giving a second, third chance to a guy that has not produced results over a woman in any form.
Grant Wahl:
I feel like for our listeners who don't follow women's soccer, I should just say, Christy Holly is a man.
Meg Linehan:
Yeah.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
My editor did not. My editor edited my story to be a male coach, Christy Holly. Because it's good to specify. Yeah.
Meg Linehan:
That's a good reminder. Just as someone who lives it, of right, I know that, yes.
Grant Wahl:
I know there are a lot of factors that go into producing stories, like the ones you've written lately. And just for folks who aren't like in the weeds on media literacy, and I just want everyone to know how high degree of difficulty the stories have been that you both have done recently. It's like the highest of what we do in our profession. It's just so impressive and requires so much work in relationship-building. But all the factors that go into producing stories like this, among those factors, I don't think it's a coincidence that the majority of the stories we've seen about abuse in women's sports are being reported and written by women. Do you agree with me that it's not a coincidence and what can we take away from that?
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
I mean, it's definitely not a coincidence. I think, Meg was talking, the very first thing she talked about was trust. And I think that obviously there can be trust between male reporters and women, but it just is easier to establish that trust relationship. It's something, I mean, I've certainly been in situations where coaches have had inappropriate relationships with people I played with. I mean, I was able to really relate and have these conversations and I think understand some of this stuff. So I think that matters. I mean, I think that just the pure outlets giving women reporters the time and space and money and time and time to do this is like so huge. And when we talk about why this stuff hasn't come out earlier, some of it does have to do with not the quality of the reporters that have been covering it, it's the investment from outlets and everything like that.
And I think that one thing I wanted to mention when you talked about the investment that goes into these stories, Meg and I have talked about the lawyers and the process of lawyers looking at this stuff and vetting it, vetting every claim we make. I think readers sometimes don't fully understand how much is supported. Every sentence you read is supported often by more than you understand. And so in terms of standing up these stories, like so much has been done to make sure that every sentence stands up and that's in both of our situations. So I really appreciate The Post for giving me the time to do that as well.
Meg Linehan:
Yeah. I mean, absolutely the same. I also think in addition to the legal stuff, I am not an investigative reporter. That is not my title. I am an NWSL and U.S. [writer]. In theory, I should be writing about soccer, right? Like that's actually what my job is, is to write about soccer. And I have not done a huge amount of writing about soccer as of late. I keep going to games and being like, wow, I sure do wish I could write about this. It would be fantastic. But for me, I think it was not just the resources that got put behind the story. And again, this is a huge, long process and multiple editors and the art department. The photographer, I mean, honestly, can I just say when I got sent the photos of Sinead from that photo shoot, like I started crying. Truly.
But someone like Katie Strang, who I was able to work with on the story, I cannot tell you how many days I just called her and just said, I need either reassurance, right? Or I need help figuring out what my path is here, or, okay, I have this piece, how do I get to the next piece? So she's someone who's done it before. Also, I think she was able to emotionally support me through some of the beats, because I will tell you, Wednesday morning, I woke up and I legitimately thought I was going to throw up while I was brushing my teeth, from stress.
And then I woke up on Thursday in a very different mental place. And she was able to kind of walk me through, these are the emotions that you're going to feel as you're working on this. So that's a hugely helpful piece. And I just also hope that the players who have spoken to us, I think have been trying to take care of themselves and each other. And I think it's been really reassuring to kind of see that happening on both sides of the story, because obviously like, yes, there is pressure on us to get this right and to make sure that it's good and locked before it runs.
But for all the stress that I'm feeling, I can't even imagine what the players that I'm talking to are feeling that day before the story runs. Because I mean, for someone like Sinead Farrelly, this has been a decade of her life. That day has been a very long time coming. So yeah. And resources are huge, but there's also just kind of this whole world of emotions too that go along with it.
Grant Wahl:
How are Sinead and Mana doing based on all this?
Meg Linehan:
We talked definitely a bit yesterday. I think, good. I think generally our shared mood was overwhelmed in a really good way. I think that they were very, very overwhelmed in a very positive way by how much they felt people had their backs. I think, especially when the wave of player commentary came in and obviously, I spoke to Alex Morgan for the story, but Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Meghan Klingenberg, I mean, the list of players that really weighed in, I think was just a very reassuring thing because I think there is that kind of dual thing of, I want this out in the world, but also I have no idea what Thursday's going to be like.
Grant Wahl:
I want to reemphasize to listeners a bit of what Molly was saying, that every word in a story goes through a process. Every allegation. So much work goes into an investigative story in particular. And I don't know how often the public thinks about that, especially at a time when there's so much nonsense and untrue things on social media that doesn't go through a process. So on a much more minor scale, I was trying to explain this a little bit a few weeks ago on the Weston McKennie situation, when all of these fans on social media were coming after U.S. soccer media people covering the team saying, you're terrible at your job, how come you haven't report anything on what McKinney did? All the while for a 24- to 48-hour period, we're making calls and trying to go through a process to get, to be able to report something which eventually that process resulted in people reporting it, reporters going through that and dealing with lawyers and in all of that.
And at a time when there's so much that isn't factual that gets out there on social media, this process is more important than ever. So I would just say that. I guess another question I would have is where do we go from here? I would think more stories are going to come out now. And it seems like whether it's players like Nadia Nadim deciding to put something out about her history with the NWSL and Sky Blue yesterday, I think players are feeling more emboldened now it seems like to come out publicly and say, this is stuff that's happening. Where do you see this going?
Meg Linehan:
I think that's the million dollar question, right? Because again, people have been quiet for so long because there is this fear of if I speak up, am I going to be fired or traded or is my career over, are my teammates careers over, is the league over? And the one thought that I just kept having with myself for months and months was the NWSL as a concept, as an idea, as it exists right now, is not sustainable. And we have seen that proven time and time again, and the NWSL as an idea is different, the structure is different than the players. And so do I think the league needs to get burned down as like an actual thing? Probably not. Do I think the sport itself, the players ... Essentially the players have to save the league from itself at this point and we have to figure out a path forward.
So I think there have to be consequences. There has to be this reckoning. Like the reckoning word is something the Players Association director, Meghann Burke, used in a story with me, with Richie Burke [no relation] in a very confusing fashion of names. But this idea of a beginning of a reckoning this season. And so much of this I think is the league is not what male owners have built. The league is the players. And there is a path forward to saving this particular league or a professional league in the United States, because it is bigger than this front office, this structure, this whatever. There is something still here worth saving because it comes down to the players. And that's I think the one guiding thought I've had through this time period of, this is still too good and important to fail because fundamentally at its heart, it is the players.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
And I think that that's exactly why they're speaking up. They're doing it out of a love for the league, not as it exists right now, but as what it could be. And I think that Kaiya has said that. I think a lot of players feel that, that whole outpouring yesterday was directed at the league, but it was also like, we have to fix this and I think Becky Sauerbrunn said, we need to be better than this, we need to fix this. And so they're coming at it from the same place, it's just a question of whether the league listens, honestly.
Grant Wahl:
So we're winding down here with Meg Linehan and Molly Hensley-Clancy. We're recording this for listeners, just so you know, at 10:40 am Eastern on Friday, and look, news is still happening and probably will continue to happen in the coming days. And so we've just been notified of a report that all the NWSL games will not be played this weekend. And we're in real time here, y'all so like, thoughts?
Meg Linehan:
This has been kind of, I think, in the works for a bit. I know obviously we haven't even mentioned the fact that there are CBA negotiations happening right now. There's an absurd amount of things playing into this moment at this moment in time. And I know that players across the league I think were reacting very, very strongly to kind of everything. Yesterday was kind of like the door was already open, but I think yesterday kind of kicked down the door of we need to have this look at ourselves, right?
So it doesn't surprise me. I do think the word strike was at least discussed by folks leading up to this moment. And honestly, no one's going to be watching the games for the games this weekend. And the first game scheduled for this weekend was the North Carolina Courage hosting the Washington Spirit. Which was not an intentional choice on our part, I promise. And every single team scheduled to play Friday night, North Carolina, Washington Spirit, Racing Louisville FC, Gotham FC, has had to release an employee this season. Four for four.
Grant Wahl:
One additional point I was going to make from a media perspective is that, am I right that both of you work in positions that are essentially newly created? That didn't exist before you started doing what you do?
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
For me, I mean, I think that there was a sports investigations reporter [at the Washington Post], Will Hobson, who’s wonderful. I do think that the ability to focus on women's sports more, and it's not explicit, but that's certainly what I've been doing, is definitely something that's new. And The Post has had good coverage of women's sports. I think we have a ton of women reporters covering men's teams as well, which is really important. But yeah, that particular investigative reporter who's looking at women in sports as a main focus, that's definitely new.
Meg Linehan:
I mean, when I took the role at The Athletic, I was the only full-time women's soccer reporter in the country. And now I think, I would like to say that we're up to three. I will count Sandra Herrera at CBS Sports, even though sometimes she gets put on Europa League or whatever it is that they get her to cover. But the fact that we were able to hire Steph Yang at The Athletic as well. And God bless Steph who has been picking up the slack as I work on this story and has been doing so much scene-setting around it in terms of kind of landscape stuff, but also big, important reporting on conditions for referees too. Like there's still all of these other stories that need to get told.
But the fact that The Athletic believed that there should be a full-time women's soccer reporter in this country with the U.S. women's national team and the NWSL I think was a big, big step here that we didn't know was going to play into where we're at October 1st, 2021. But yeah, it really is. We need more people in the space that are doing it and being paid to do it because so much of this has not been covered because you have people trying to cover this sport while still working 40-hour, 50-hour jobs.
Grant Wahl:
Yeah. I just think it's important to note that we talk about systemic problems in the NWSL, but these are systemic issues as well in media that good decisions, smart decisions are being rewarded with the journalism that you two are doing. So I think it's worth pointing that out as well. Meg Linehan is the U.S. women's national team and NWSL national writer for The Athletic. Molly Hensley-Clancy does sports investigations for the Washington Post. Thanks for what you're doing. Thanks so much for taking some time to come on the show.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Thanks for having me.
Meg Linehan:
Yeah, thanks for having me. I think it's also really good that Molly and I got to do this together.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Yeah, finally.
Meg Linehan:
I'm very, very appreciative of that.
Molly Hensley-Clancy:
Out of Twitter DM's and into really speaking to each other.
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Thanks for this, Grant. I read the article in the Athletic, and it was shattering. The pod just backed it up. As if the women in the NWSL didn’t have enough shit to slog through. Can’t say I’m all that surprised, though. Our society needs a lot of work - from the bottom up. Guys, please teach your sons not to act this way. That would be a start. It’s completely unacceptable. What’s really unfortunate is Meg and Molly haven’t even scratched the surface. It’s time to root out these predators in ALL areas of America.
Big thanks to Molly and Meg. Incredible work. One thing that surprised me was how much alcohol there was in Paul Riley's environments and how he used it as a part of his grooming tactics. Is it typical in professional sports for a coach to drink with their players? Women's professional sports? Soccer, in particular? I was surprised that there was as much player drinking on the road as there was in the story, but I was stunned that the coach was with them. Is that the kind of thing that Jill Ellis is doing or is that something particular to Riley that he used to prey on his team?