ROS Presents: Counterattack

Telling their stories opens the door for Sinead Farelly and Mana Shim — and the NWSL itself — to undergo radical transformations.

The creation of Angel City FC, a new NWSL team owned and operated by women, promises the kind of culture players have long envisioned for the league. But Sinead Farelly is deeply concerned that the league and its players will never reach their potential with coaches like Paul Riley still in positions of power. So, she decides it’s time to finally tell her story.

Sinead Farrelly leaves college early to go pro. But when she arrives, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Abysmal pay, poor conditions, and league instability create a culture in which players have little protection or power. But her coach, Paul Riley, is a soccer legend. He pushes her to play her best—but he also pushes beyond her personal boundaries. At first, she laughs off his inappropriate comments, but eventually his advances cross the line. This episode brings listeners inside the culture of women’s and girls soccer. Host Briana Scurry explores the undercurrent of sexism that has historically pervaded its power structures, media coverage, and often, coach-player relationships.

World Cup champion goalkeeper Briana Scurry follows the journey of Sinead Farrelly from young soccer phenom to league whistleblower to comeback kid in Counterattack, launching May 11. Sinead’s experiences in professional soccer and her brave decision to speak out ignited the revolution taking place in professional women’s soccer today. Through determination and collective action, she and her fellow players are continuing a long tradition of sisterhood in women’s soccer. They are changing the game and forging a new path forward—for themselves, for their league, and for the next generation of little girls with big soccer dreams.

In the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup final, the USWNT suffered a devastating loss to Japan after the 2-2 match went to penalty kicks. In 2015, the two teams faced each other again in the final and this time, Carli Lloyd and the USWNT had something to prove. Lloyd went on to become the first woman in FIFA World Cup history to record a hat trick in a final in their 5-2 win over Japan. Lloyd sat down with David Greene for a special live taping of In the Moment to relive her historic hat trick.

When a violent hazing occurs, the natural impulse is to search for ways to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This effort to stop hazing has been going on in the U.S. for decades. But how effective has it been? And is it even possible to change something so ingrained in our culture?

What role do coaches and other school leaders have in a hazing incident? And how much oversight can parents expect when their kids participate in school sports? We look at Rodney’s coach, his background, and ask what, if anything, could have been done differently.

What does hazing look like in high school sports today? Our series begins in Mobile, Alabama, where Rodney Kim, Jr. was a freshman with dreams of making the varsity football team. But a brutal locker room initiation changed everything.

Larry Fitzgerald is considered one of the best wide receivers of all time, and is expected to be a first ballot NFL Hall of Famer. He’s also executive chair for the Arizona Super Bowl LVII Host Committee. In his 17 seasons with the Arizona Cardinals, he made it to the Super Bowl just once. In 2009, the Cardinals were the underdogs against the Pittsburgh Steelers. They were behind Pittsburgh most of the game until the last few minutes of the fourth quarter. That’s when Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner connected with Fitzgerald, who avoided two safeties to make a 64-yard touchdown. With 2:37 left in the game, Fitzgerald thought the Cardinals were on their way to victory. Then came the play that still haunts Fitzgerald: Ben Roethlisberger hits Santonio Holmes for the final touchdown ending the game with a Steelers win. You can still hear the pain in Fitzgerald’s voice more than ten years later. “Uhhh man, it's just like pure heartbreak,” Fitzgerald told In the Moment’s David Greene. “It's a feeling of despair [and] hurt that’s really hard to even express.” Fitzgerald last played in 2020. He says he’s now focused on supporting his community as executive chair of the Arizona Super Bowl Host committee. He’s also a minority owner of the Phoenix Suns and in 2005 launched The Larry Fitzgerald Foundation in honor of his mother, who passed away as a result of breast cancer in 2003. The ROS audio team also has an exciting announcement about what’s coming up next. Stay tuned..

Joan Niesen, the host of Crushed, is back with a bonus episode exploring baseball’s latest steroid controversy. Find the entire seven-part series in season one of this feed. Today, on the rare occasion that a pro baseball player tests positive for anabolic steroids, it’s widely assumed that he’s a cheater and few people ever pause to consider that there might be more to the story. But, is there? What if testing has gotten too good, and MLB policy has gotten too rigid? And what if innocent players are seeing their careers derailed as a result?

During his murder trial, Pistorius claimed he’d mistaken Reeva for an intruder, when he shot her in his home. He listed instances where he’d been the victim of crime. But for many South Africans, there was a coded message in Pistorius’ words –– the fear of black people invading white people’s homes. They even have a term for this fear: Swart Gevaar.

In this episode, we remember the life of Reeva Steenkamp. She was an activist, a mentor, an aspiring lawyer, and a model whose career was about to take off. Her future was looking bright, when she met Pistorius in the Fall of 2012. Then three months later, he shot her dead in his home.

Pistorius was so dominant, he set his sights on a new goal: running against able-bodied athletes at the Olympic Games. Now he faced more questions, more scrutiny. Scientists wondered if the races would be fair, and Pistorius struggled to qualify. But he was buoyed by the support of his home country, South Africa, where he was considered a hero.