Hear Her Sports

Katie Tolles is the Head Women's Coach for Case Western Reserve University's rowing team and the Director of Communications for the Cleveland Rowing Foundation's Board of Directors. Katie speaks to host Elizabeth Emery about the beauty of teamwork, being on the water, coaching high school and college athletes, travel, fear, and jumping right into things.  Katie's rowing career began as a freshman...

Justine Siegal is the Co-Founder and Commissioner of the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL), which will launch its inaugural season on August 1 featuring some of the top players in the world. She made history as the first woman to coach for a Major League Baseball organization (2015) and is the founder of Baseball For All. Her A’s jersey is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and USA Today named...

Jean Fruth is an internationally recognized photographer, filmmaker and visual storyteller whose work harnesses the power of images to inspire change. She is the co-founder of two nonprofit organizations, Grassroots Baseball and SEE HER BE HER, which uses sports to empower youth, underserved communities, and women globally. Jean made her film debut in 2024 as Director and Producer of SEE HER BE HE...

Deena Blacking and Christine O’Connell talk to host Elizabeth Emery about The Cyclists’ Alliance Go Fund Me, sponsorship, the growth of women’s cycling, worries about the development pathway to the top level of the sport, media coverage, TCA’s role is in the world of women’s cycling, sponsorship, and how to be a superfan. Christine spent over 20 years working in strategy and corporate development,...

Teresa Mullen, now 75 years old, is a long time athlete with a passion for playing, coaching, officiating, and watching women’s sports. Teresa started playing softball with her cousins at a very young age in a farm field with a wooden bat and 12 inch mush ball. When she was growing up there were very few opportunities for females to participate in any sports. For example, at her small high school...

Helena Gilbert-Snyder is a former professional cyclist and founder of Monarch Racing: an elite women's road team & a junior girls' development road team. Her experiences and perspectives on sports, gender, and society are reflected in the goal of her team, which stretches far beyond cycling, towards a mission of creating powerful, kind, and confident individuals who will become leaders in their co...

Joyce Scoglietti played slow pitch softball for most of her life. She started at 2nd base in a church league when she was 8 years old and now plays with the Northcoast Vintage Players, a league for 45+.  Joyce was born in 1957, so most of her young athletic career happened before Title IX passed. There were no school sports programs available to her until the 10th grade when she joined competitive...

Wanda Ford is a basketball standout. She is the first woman in NCAA history to amass 1500 basketball rebounds and she set the NCAA career record with 1,887 rebounds. She had 102 career double-doubles. Wanda was also one of the leading scorers in the game. She set the NCAA single-season scoring record with 919 points in 1986 (now eighth all time). Her average of 30.6 points per game in 1986 was the...

Lindsay Glavan played Division I NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pa. She graduated in 2005 having scored 63 points in 139 games as a Mercyhurst Laker and led the team as assistant captain in her junior and senior years. The Lakers were conference champions each year and made their NCAA Tournament debut in March 2005. With support from others in October of 2023, Lindsay st...

With biathlete Deedra Irwin, host Elizabeth Emery talks about how hard it is to perform perfectly on a specific day, how she thinks about balance in a bunch of scenarios, and how she found financial and mental security for greater performance. Deedra has fascinating insight into being a returning Olympian and everything that goes into making an Olympic team.  Deedra grew up running competitively i...

Marta Colosio is an Italian postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on neuromuscular function and performance fatigability in young and older adults, as well as in individuals with metabolic disease. She studies how exercise, training interventions, and nutritional supplementation influence muscle health, and how sex differences shape these responses. We ta...

Lidia Cusack is an emerging professional cyclist who has made her mark in both road racing and cyclocross. She began racing at a young age on her local club team in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and quickly moved into the national and international scene. After graduating high school, Lidia took the bold step to move to Europe to pursue her cycling dreams.  Her dedication paid off with impressive results...

Betty Kellenberger and her five sisters grew up in a farming family. She attended Central Michigan University and then taught for 40+ years in Carson City, Michigan. Her summer breaks were filled with traveling, often by bicycle. She pedaled across every state in the US and every province in Canada. Betty has also ridden in China, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. She’s been on a coup...

Vanessa Bonebrake was born in France and started swimming on a team when she was six years old. When she was ten, her family moved to Costa Rica, where she joined one of the country’s top swim teams and competed at the national level until she was 18.  After taking a short break to focus on school, she rediscovered her love for swimming while earning a master’s degree. That’s when her lifelong con...

Hendrika de Vries is a retired family therapist, a teacher, and a writer, chronicling her life experiences with oppression and resistance in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, migration, competitive swimming, and misogyny in 1950s Australia. A fierce feminist and activist, de Vries infuses her writing with historical depth and personal perspective on challenges facing women and anyone deemed other. She is t...

Grace Brown OAM is Australia’s most successful female road cyclist. She recently retired from the sport as Olympic and World Champion in the Individual time trial. In 2024, she reached the pinnacle of her career, winning Olympic gold in Paris, becoming World Champion in the Individual Time Trial, and claiming victory in the prestigious Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Brown is now part of the SBS commentary...

Dr. Emalee Nelson Stone and host Elizabeth Emery discuss the Wayland Baptist Flying Queens' 131-game winning streak during the 1950s and how that impacted women’s basketball today.  Dr. Emalee Nelson Stone is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection o...

Georgia Hall won the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 2018, just five years after triumphing in the R&A Women’s Amateur Championship. Georgia’s victory wasn’t just special because it was her first major, but also because her dad Wayne caddied for her that week. A superb final round of five-under-par featured numerous highlights, and Georgia was the first British winner of the event s...

Alexa Brabec grew up in Steamboat Springs, CO where she trained with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club. In 2020, she qualified for the US National Team for the first time. After graduating high school, Alexa moved to Lillehammer, Norway to train with the Norwegian Team as a part of a partnership between the US and Norwegian Teams. She competed in the first women's Nordic Combined World Cup...

In the episode host Elizabeth Emery speaks with Staci Mannella about ski racing legally blind with a guide, training for effective communication, why working with a counselor as an athlete is great idea, and why and how sport has been so important in her life, plus where it is leading her now.  Staci Mannella is a third year Ball State University PhD. student in counseling psychology with a focus...

In 2017, Megan Jastrab was an early guest on Hear Her Sports. She was 15 years old then and just, barely just, imagining her future cycling career. She is now a pro racer with Team Picnic PostNL. She’s also an Olympic medalist and three time Junior World Champion. !!! In this episode, host Elizabeth catches up with Megan and hears about her recent experiences at La Vuelta Femenina, one of the thre...

This week host Elizabeth Emery is talking to Karen Heintz , a starting point guard, with the Houston Angels of the Women’s Basketball League (WBL), which was founded in 1978. In that inaugural year of the league, the Angels won the Championship over the Iowa Cornets.  Before playing with the Angels, Karen walked onto Texas A&M in 1974, then transferred to Baylor as a sophomore. She is still in the...

Francesca Clapcich was born in Trieste, Italy and now lives in Park City, Utah with her wife (former Olympic and round-the-world sailor, Sally Barkow) and daughter, Harriet.  In our conversation, Francesca explains sailing, what it’s like to be out on the ocean with dolphins and other wildlife. Then tells tales of the physical and mental preparations for the 2028 Vendee Globe, kid sports in Italy,...

Danette Leighton is a 30-year sports industry and corporate executive with experience serving both men’s and women’s professional and collegiate sports leagues and teams. Since March of 2022, Leighton has led the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) as CEO, joining the 51-year-old organization, founded by Billie Jean King in 1974. Leighton was most recently chief marketing officer at the Pac-12 Confere...

Narcisse Jordan is a passionate artist, dedicated athlete, and advocate for women in sports. She currently plays for the USA Rugby League team and is a member of the new Women’s Elite Rugby professional team Chicago Tempest. Beyond her athletic achievements, she is a devoted mother who inspires others to pursue their passions on and off the field.  As the founder of Mom You Play, a platform design...