Sports
USA Water Polo Goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson Finds Joy in Her Trailblazing Journey
PARIS — These Olympics may very well be described because the Games of ladies’s empowerment, especially the empowerment of black women. There’s the historic dominance of the U.S. women’s basketball team, the seismic impact of gymnast Simone Biles and sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson’s quest to win the gold medal she felt was denied her in 2020.
Then there’s Ashleigh Johnson, a two-time Olympic champion who is taken into account top-of-the-line goalkeepers in women’s water polo — In 2021, she saved 80 shots on the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, greater than another goalkeeper in either the lads’s or women’s tournamentsJohnson is a pillar of the dominant U.S. women’s Olympic water polo team, which is searching for its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal.
Johnson helped lead Team USA to gold on the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games. Her team opened its title defense Saturday with a dominant 15-6 victory over Greece. Johnson recorded 10 saves in three or more quarters. Team USA lost 13-11 to Spain in pool play on Monday.
Johnson, who played water polo for 4 years at Princeton, made her first Olympic team at age 21. Now, at 29, Johnson has grow to be a sage, a keeper of the flame, and has warned the Olympic team that it must write its own history.
“The legacy of this team is so strong — the U.S. women’s water polo team has won three consecutive gold medals, and this is an opportunity to win a fourth,” she said. “But this particular team, this group of women, hasn’t done anything yet. We haven’t won a gold medal, we haven’t been to the Olympics. This is our first opportunity to prove ourselves. We’re making our own way and writing our own stories.”
That’s how Johnson described her journey, from swimming lessons to winning three consecutive Florida state championships at Miami High School to playing intercollegiate water polo at an Ivy League school to becoming a dominant force in a sport where there have been no black players.
Tom Pennington/Getty Images
In 2016, Johnson became the primary African-American woman to affix the U.S. Olympic women’s water polo team. For all of the talk of progress and the misguided backlash against diversity, Johnson is proof of the effectiveness of diversity and the ability of inclusivity.
Just ask the opposition. Johnson played 4 years at Princeton and have become the all-time saves leader. Johnson’s journey was a difficult and lonely learning experience that gave her a brand new perspective on what other trailblazers endured to interrupt through previously segregated sports.
The biggest challenge was an internal one, testing her self-confidence. The first was selecting a university.
“I played the sport in high school, and deciding to go to college to play water polo wasn’t easy,” she said. “I chose Princeton, which was a very unusual path for a water polo player, but I was going to play water polo there, which I did for four years.”
After her sophomore 12 months, Johnson made the difficult decision to depart college and train to make the U.S. Women’s Olympic Water Polo Team. “That decision was tough because I never saw anyone on that team that looked like me. I never imagined that I could do that. I always wanted to balance my life with my sport, and I felt like the decision to move from New Jersey to California was a huge decision to give up that balance and take it out of my life.”
She had to beat her doubts, but eventually she found the positive energy of family and friends who encouraged her to take the leap. “I thought, ‘OK, here are all these people who believe in me, who believe I can do this. Let me take a chance and believe I can do it, believe in myself and just do it.’ So I did. I worked hard for two years and eventually made my first Olympic team.”
In some ways, Johnson’s journey defines the journey of any athlete who makes the Olympic team in any sport. She was stretched and pushed in ways she could never have imagined. Even the isolation of being a trailblazer became empowering.
“We trained twice a day, lifted weights four times a week. It was a lot more than I’ve ever done,” Johnson said. “I’m glad I took the risk, but it was weird.”
As an East Coast transplant to the West Coast, Johnson was a fish out of water. “Water polo is West Coast-based, so coming from the East Coast and taking what I knew about water polo, how I played, to the national team was a very difficult transition. And then, being the only person who looked like me, I thought, ‘OK, how do I fit in when nobody looks like me, nobody has my background, and what do I want to take from them? What do I want to give? How open, how vulnerable am I going to be on this team?’”
What if she did all this, sacrificed herself, opened herself up, and still didn’t achieve the specified result?
Johnson discovered that letting go of fear brings freedom.
“It was a tough journey,” she said. “But I used to be ultimately capable of make the team and recover from my fear of failure, which is difficult when you’ve such an enormous goal.
“That’s something that a lot of people don’t realize about the Olympic journey. The more you hold on to the fear of not achieving your goal, the more it hurts when you don’t achieve it, and the less you actually experience the journey along the way, which is the best thing you get out of it.”
Clive Rose/2024 Getty Images
Three Olympics later, Johnson has grow to be the leader and star of Team USA. Her mission now, in addition to helping the team win its fourth consecutive gold medal, is to open the door and convey more young women who appear like her into the game.
In July, she felt invigorated when 65-year-old rapper Flavor Flav signed a five-year sponsorship deal to support the lads’s and ladies’s national water polo teams.
“I’ve met a lot of young black girls in my sport. A lot of them reach out to me through Instagram through USA Water Polo,” Johnson said. “Just sharing stories, encouraging and being a fan of people who find themselves coming into our sport, being a voice that guides them, telling them they’re on the precise path, they’re doing the precise thing, there’s a spot for you here.
“I think telling a new story is something I’m trying to do, saying we belong here, we stand out here, and then mentoring. That’s really important to me.”
When she was 21 and walking the trail of a pioneer alone, Johnson struggled hard to seek out joy in her journey. Today, she said, her joy is immense.
“I think finding joy in what you do is asking yourself why you do it,” she said. “I play because it brings me joy even when it’s hard. Like, jumping in a pool is one of the hardest things I do all day, but I think about it as my job, I get to play a game with my friends, and it’s the same game I’ve been playing since I was a kid. The game hasn’t changed, I’ve just gotten better at it, so I play the game I’m really good at with my friends every day.”
There is more joy at these Games than on the Tokyo Games, when the world was in the grips of a pandemic.
Johnson said 2021 lacked a way of lightness and joy.
“One of the biggest differences between the Tokyo Olympics and these games is that the pandemic is behind us, and that has affected a lot of athletes,” she said. “Loads of people have been grieving, lots of people have been wondering how one can take care of the financial losses, the social losses, and a lot distance.
“We didn’t have any interaction with other athletes (in Tokyo). The Olympic spirit was there, but it was muted. So going into these Games, that Olympic spirit was revived. As excited as I am to play, people are excited to go and be part of the Olympic spirit. We all felt a surge of energy.”
Winning a fourth gold medal will bring her joy, but it would also make her discipline more diverse, and the outcomes her team achieves will give her peace of mind.
Joy has grow to be multifaceted.
“The pandemic has put things in perspective for us,” Johnson said. “OK, I play water polo and I’m an athlete, but what else am I? — understanding that you’re more than just an athlete, more than what you do at your job. I need to go for a walk every day, or I like to cook, I like to read. Connecting with things that make you happy.”
The 2025 Basketball Africa League season will feature a brand new venue for the finals and playoffs and will also start at a brand new location.
The BAL 2025 Playoffs and Finals, scheduled for June 14, 2025, will happen at the recent home in Pretoria, South Africa. This will be the first time the BAL playoffs and finals haven’t been held in Kigali, Rwanda. The BAL 2025 season will also debut in a brand new location in Rabat, Morocco on April 5, 2025. During the BAL 2025 season, 12 of the best club teams from 12 African countries will play 48 matches in Rabat, Kigali and Dakar, Senegal, before traveling to Pretoria for play- offs.
“Over the first four seasons of BAL, we have seen tremendous growth in on-court competition, attendance and engagement from fans and partners in Africa and around the world,” BAL president Amadou Gallo Fall said in a press release. “Our groundbreaking fifth season will build on this momentum and continue to showcase the level of talent and passion for basketball in Africa, including through the first BAL games in Morocco and the first BAL Finals in South Africa.”
The 12 teams will be divided again into three conferences of 4 teams each. The group stage of the Kalahari Conference will happen from April 5 to 13, 2025 in Rabat. The group stage of the Sahara Conference will be held in Dakar from April 26 to May 4, 2025. The group stage of the Nile Conference will be held in Kigali from May 17 to 25, 2025. Eight teams from the three conferences will qualify for the play-offs in Pretoria, which will start on June 6 and end with the BAL 2025 finals.
“The Kalahari conference marks another expansion of BAL into a new country on our continent and we are more than satisfied,” FIBA Africa president Anibal Manave said in a press release. “The competition continues to grow each year, providing greater exposure for our sport and helping to raise the level of basketball in Africa, making the league increasingly competitive.”
National champions from Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia routinely qualify for the BAL. The remaining five teams are from FIBA Africa’s Road to the BAL qualifying tournaments.
In the 2024 BAL season, Petro de Luanda of Angola became the first team from Sub-Saharan Africa to win the championship. According to BAL, the 2024 BAL season reached fans in 214 countries and territories in 17 languages, set an attendance record of greater than 120,000 fans in the 4 host countries and generated greater than 1.2 billion views across the NBA and BAL social media channels.
NFL Hall of Fame receiver and podcast host Terrell Owens has signed with a talent agency to further strengthen his claims within the entertainment game.
According to , Owens was signed by SMAC Entertainment, headed by host and NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan and his business partner Constance Schwartz-Morini.
NFL insider Jordan Schultz has also joined SMAC Entertainment.
“We are excited to add TO and Jordan to the SMAC family. They are both at the top of their game and set the standard in their industry,” Schwartz-Morini said in a written statement. “TO and Jordan have already brought an infectious energy to our team, and we are excited to help them realize their vision for careers in media, business and branding.”
A five-time first-team All-Pro and six-time Pro Bowler, Owens played for the San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals. In 2018, he was finally inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A member of the 2000 NFL All-Decade Team, Owens finished his profession with 1,078 catches for 15,934 yards, 14.8 yards per catch and 153 touchdowns, rating third all-time in receiving yards and touchdowns.
Since retiring from skilled soccer in 2012, Owens has already made several moves. He has appeared in several movies and tv shows, including “,” and in addition had his own reality show, “, on VH1.
He currently co-hosts the podcast with former NFL player and sports analyst Shannon Sharpe.
SMAC Entertainment is home to stars similar to rapper and actor Common, Wiz Khalifa, Strahan, Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders and current NFL players similar to Stefon Diggs and DK Metcalf.
Sports
Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker brings an NBA championship desire with his Olympic experience
The gold medal went to the USA Basketball team. Mission completed on the 2024 Paris Games. U.S. men’s basketball coach Steve Kerr just answered his final query during his final news conference on Aug. 10 after his team defeated France within the gold medal game.
However, before leaving the stage of the press conference in Paris, Kerr stopped to deliver an unsolicited message to media around the globe.
“Devin Booker is an amazing basketball player. Nobody asked about him. He was our unsung MVP. I just desired to say that,” Kerr said.
The “underrated MVP” compliment meant so much to the Phoenix Suns guard.
“It meant everything. No one really asked him,” Booker recently told Andscape. “That was probably something that was weighing on his mind throughout the entire process. A 12 months ago I said what I desired to do for this team and what we desired to do for the country.
“It was a lot larger than all of us. Survival was something we’d discuss for the remainder of our lives.
The USA Basketball team was centered around NBA star icons LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant. There has also been some discussion amongst media and fans in regards to the lack of playing time for Jayson Tatum and, to a lesser extent, Tyrese Haliburton. Lost within the shuffle was the all-around, unselfish play of sharpshooter Booker wearing the armband.
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Booker was fourth in scoring for the U.S., averaging 11.7 points, 3.3 assists and a couple of.2 three-pointers made early in all six Olympics, and likewise had the perfect plus/minus (plus-130) for an American. Kerr was impressed with Booker’s deal with a difficult defense, regardless that he is thought for his offense, ball movement and the way he has adjusted to not being one in every of the highest options on offense.
“I just understood what was at stake,” Booker said. “I’m proud to be from this country. I’m happy with playing basketball. Even though it wasn’t invented in America, we dominated for a very long time. Obviously the world is incredibly talented and the sport is growing, however it was just one other message to allow them to know who we’re.
Booker said he also learned in regards to the preparations from his all-star team, watching the preparations on and off the court. The 28-year-old added that he gained lifelong friendships.
“It’s cool to see that everyone has their own issues,” Booker said. “In my 10 years in the NBA, I’ve learned that you have to choose what you can use for yourself. But the level of detail, the attention to detail, the intensity – it’s all consistent across the board.”
As for Durant, Booker said the bond between the 2 Sun stars “is close and grows stronger every day.” They live about five minutes from one another within the Phoenix area and commonly spend time at home and on the road. Most recently, Booker had to steer the Suns without Durant, who was sidelined with an injury.
The amazing Durant averaged 27.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and three.4 assists, which were tops for the Suns. However, the 14-time NBA All-Star has been sidelined since November 8 with a left calf strain. Suns players Bradley Beal (calf) and Jusuf Nurkic (ankle) were also sidelined. The Suns are 1-5 without Durant, which incorporates 4 straight losses.
Booker and Suns sans Durant’s next rivals shall be the New York Knicks on Wednesday evening (ESPN, 10 p.m. ET). Over the last six games, Booker is averaging 24.1 points, shooting 43.2% from the sphere and making 16 of 43 three-pointers. Suns guard Tyus Jones said there was numerous pressure on Booker offensively due to the injury.
“We’re asking a lot of Book,” Jones said after Monday’s 109-99 loss to the visiting Orlando Magic. “It’s numerous pressure for him. We are very focused on it. They are physical with him, holding him and grabbing him, throwing two or three bodies at him all night long. So he’s got so much on his plate and we just need to proceed to seek out ways to get him open within the moments we will and proceed to assist him when other players are taking shots and making plays.
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Booker currently has two Olympic gold medals, 4 NBA All-Star appearances and one NBA Finals appearance. The only thing missing from the Suns’ second-leading all-time scorer is an NBA championship. Since the Suns joined the NBA as an expansion team in 1968, they’ve yet to win a title.
After experiencing the joys of winning a gold medal, Booker as an NBA champion wants the gold Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy much more.
“Most of the guys that were there did it,” Booker said of his Olympic teammates who were NBA champions. “They were champions. This is standard for them. Anything lower than that, they need nothing to do with it. It’s contagious…
“That’s all I want. That’s all I want.”
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