NEW YORK –
Alexis Ohanian known as out the necessity for a secure work atmosphere within the National Women’s Soccer League whereas receiving the Champions for Equality Award on the annual Salute to Women in Sports occasion on Wednesday evening.
The former government chairman of Reddit is a founding investor of the most recent girls’s skilled soccer workforce, Angel City FC in Los Angeles. He was accompanied by his spouse Serena Williams and daughter Olympia.
“As a membership proprietor, as a husband and as a father, I’ve been disgusted by what’s been delivered to mild as a part of this ongoing investigation,” he stated. “I’m hopeful it’s going to result in vital reform.”
He praised the gamers within the NWSL who’re demanding accountability and modifications after final week’s report from an unbiased investigation highlighted systemic sexual misconduct and emotional abuse. The investigation detailed administrative reporting failures within the sport, impacting a number of groups, coaches and executives within the league.
“It’s to their energy, their bravery and their braveness that we will get a greater NWSL,” Ohanian stated to cheers on the Women’s Sports Foundation’s occasion in Manhattan.
Five of the ten head coaches within the NWSL both have been fired or stepped down final season amid allegations of misconduct. Two house owners have just lately stepped away from their groups.
Ohanian stated he watched the U.S. girls win the 2019 World Cup and mused about how Olympia may sometime play in a World Cup: “Serena stated, with out lacking a beat, ‘Not till they pay her what she’s value.”‘
Ohanian is a part of the majority-female Angel City FC possession group that features Williams, Natalie Portman, Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Julie Foudy, America Ferrera, Uzo Aduba, Candace Parker and Billie Jean King, amongst others.
Foudy, a two-time U.S. World Cup champion, stated rigorous tips are wanted to fight sexual misconduct and it could “completely” assist to have extra feminine house owners and feminine coaches within the NWSL.
“The change of mindset in Angel City and that possession group … is exceptional to see,” she stated. “You do not should spend a lot time expending vitality about why it’s best to help these girls. They get it. The Angel City chorus I all the time get is: ‘What’s attainable?”‘
Olympic gold medalists Sunisa Lee in gymnastics and Maggie Steffens in water polo have been additionally honoured as Sportswomen of the Year on the awards dinner, which commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX.
South Carolina girls’s basketball coach Dawn Staley acquired the Billie Jean King Leadership Award. Staley not solely led the U.S. girls’s basketball workforce to the gold medal on the Tokyo Olympics but additionally guided South Carolina to its second NCAA title in 5 years in April. Staley is the primary Black coach to win two NCAA Division I basketball championships.
Bobsledder Elena Meyers Taylor, essentially the most embellished Black athlete on the winter Olympics with 5 medals, was given the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award. She accepted the award along with her younger son, Nico, at her facet. Meyers Taylor gained her most up-to-date medal regardless of having COVID-19 on the Beijing Olympics.
“I’m impressed by this exceptional group of honorees, who’re breaking data, eliminating obstacles and blazing a path for a brighter future out and in of sports for women and girls,” stated King, who in 1974 created the Women’s Sports Foundation, which supplies neighborhood sports applications and coaching grants.