In Conversation with Lesley Visser SiriusXM

Jessica Mendoza is one of those people who make you want to, as Vin Scully says, "pull up a chair." Throw out a topic, and she's there. Olympic softball? Mendoza won a Gold medal in 2004 in Athens, then watched while the sport was jerked in and out of the Games for more than a decade. Softball won't be included in Paris in 2024, but Mendoza will be tenacious about it being added to the Games in LA in 2028. From her roots as a 4-year-old dragging a bat around the backyard, Mendoza's been a captivating pioneer. A beneficiary of Title IX, she squeezed every opportunity out of the landmark legislation - a scholarship to Stanford (plus a Masters), the US National Team, network television (including calling Jake Arrieta's no-hitter on Sunday Night Baseball), and most recently, the Women's College World Series, aka the Oklahoma Invitational. All this, plus why, as a child of the Dodgers, Brett Butler was her idol. More, please!

As an attorney, Val Ackerman can usually see both sides. But not on this topic. With bona fides that include an early Title IX basketball scholarship to Virginia, a law degree from UCLA, being tapped by David Stern in 1996 to help design the WNBA, sitting with Pres. George Bush at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 as the first female President of USA Basketball, and thoughts born of her current position as the Commissioner of the Big East, Val Ackerman is certain of one thing. The men and women should play the Final Four in the same city at the same time. She tells us why, along with theories about NIL and how the Big East offers value beyond money. Val Ackerman is fearless - she grew up minutes from where Washington crossed the Delaware. And one of them is in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

There was a time that the USWNT won a World Cup and no one really knew about it. Iconic former midfielder Julie Foudy said she came home from the US win in China in 1991 and her professor at Stanford wanted to know why she’d missed class! Eight years later, the sport exploded when Foudy and Co. won the 1999 World Cup in Los Angeles. She tells Lesley the joy of now being part-owner of the glittering Angel City FC, about what Title IX meant to young athletes, and why the benchmark decree still needs to be protected. Never shy with her opinion, Foudy disagrees with Hope Solo’s charge of a “toxic culture” in the USWNT, and has some circumspect thoughts about the intersection of Title IX and transgender athletes.

Dominique Dawes once felt so controlled by her coach, Kelli Hill, that she said Hill terrified her into silence by threatening to send Dominique to "the Karolyi Ranch," the highly-regarded but fiercely intimidating program run by icons Martha and Bela Karolyi. It's a culture Dawes wants to change. As a 45-year-old mother of four, Dawes is speaking out about the "fear, shame and silence" of world-class gymnastics. Dawes, who competed in the Games in '92, '96 and 2000, said she may never "coach an Olympian" in her Dominique Dawes Gymnastics Academy, but she "wants to see joy and laughter back to our beautiful sport." She shares her thoughts on Simone Biles, Larry Nassar and getting her degree at the University of Maryland. As Helena said in Midsummer Night's Dream, "Though she be little, she is fierce."

She might be the greatest women’s basketball player of all time. Yes. If you’ve ever wondered how dominant Cheryl Miller was, consider this - she still holds six records at USC, the school that gave us giants like Cynthia Cooper and Lisa Leslie - and Miller left 36 years ago. Before a knee injury stopped her at only 22-years-old, she was the scoring/passing/rebounding/stealing/shot-blocking/joyous player that every coach or fan ever dreamed about. Her Hall of Fame brother Reggie was once asked, after a playoff game, who was the best defensive player he ever faced, and he answered, “besides my sister?” As old friends, Lesley and Cheryl talk about everything from coaching (she hated it) to the WNBA (she loves it) to the fate of Brittany Griner (some very strong words.)

Sports diplomacy is nothing new - back in 776 BC in ancient Greece, there was an "Olympic Truce" to ensure there'd be no battles or conflicts during the games. In the 2800 years since, we've seen all kinds of scenarios where sports and societies mix, often for a greater good. Sarah Talalay, a former sports business journalist in the United States, has been working as a Cultural Affairs Officer in US Embassies around the world. Her position often involves sports diplomacy, which she calls "one of the best ways to demonstrate soft power." Now in her fourth posting overseas, after Chennai, India; Vilnius, Lithuania; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and currently Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sarah has overseen such diverse programs as NBA and NFL watch parties in Vilnius with Lithuanian NBA Hall-of-Famer Sarunas Marciulionis, a baseball clinic with Barry Larkin, and bringing J.R. Reid to Malaysia. She talks candidly about everything young female athletes face in predominantly-Muslim Uzbekistan, about its increasingly progressive government, and the best food she's enjoyed in all her stops. The goal? - for all of us to be strangers no more.