Q&A: Spirit’s Lohman finds fountain of youth on NWSL title hunt

GERMANTOWN, Md. – Joanna Lohman heads a short and shrinking list in women’s soccer: players who’ve competed in all three of the professional leagues launched over the course of this century.

That adds up to plenty of mileage across WUSA, WPS and now NWSL. But you wouldn’t know it by her playing time, performances or effervescent approach to life with her hometown club the Washington Spirit, who will battle the Western New York Flash for the 2016 NWSL championship in Houston, Texas on Sunday (5 pm ET; broadcast on FS1).

+READ: Washington’s “Spirit fam” reaches new high: “We have something special”

At age 34, Lohman is enjoying a career year in every sense of the term. Only two Spirit players logged more minutes than she did this season – and only one scored more goals, as she chipped in four tallies as a holding midfielder charged with bringing discipline and savvy to Washington’s engine room.

“I couldn’t keep her out of the lineup,” head coach Jim Gabarra told SoccerWire.com last week. “As an experienced pro, I think she understood that when given the opportunity, she’s got to make it as hard as possible on me. No matter how much I’m looking for ways to get her out of the lineup, she prevented that from happening, whether that’s her individual play or the way the team plays when she’s on the field.”

Lohman has also set a new standard for longevity off the field, having found ways to sustain her career – both financially and spiritually – in a sport where early retirements have become common due to extremely low salaries and grinding schedules. The Silver Spring, Maryland native has also become a global sports ambassador; she will travel to Botswana as a participant in SportsUnited, the U.S. State Department’s international exchange program, for the third consecutive year this offseason.

The woman known to teammates and fans as “J-Lo,” “JoLo,” “JoHawk” or simply “Jo” was recently kind enough to sit down with SoccerWire for an in-depth conversation about the Spirit, soccer and life.

SoccerWire: You’ve had an amazing season, and so has your team. How have you performed at such a high level at this point in your career? Have you had a chance to take stock of where this fits in the big picture?

Joanna Lohman: My entire career, it’s been hard for me to really look at my career holistically, because I always have to fight for my spot every single week. Every day I want to be at my best and that’s kind of what I focus on. There are rare moments, and there’s been moments the past couple of years with the Spirit – I think being back home around my family and friends, I’ve appreciated so much the journey that I’ve had through professional soccer. I think coming back home has really provided a lot of balance for me.

I’ve been so happy – there are moments where I just sit back and am like, ‘I can’t believe this is my life.’ I’m just so grateful. The mentality I come from now is more of, what can I give to the team, as opposed to what can the team give to me. That’s how I feel about this city and this team – I would literally do anything for them. It’s not that I didn’t have that mentality throughout my career, but I just wasn’t so grounded as I am now.

I honestly believe I have the best job in the world. I love what I do. Every single day. I never want it to stop. pic.twitter.com/FOxN2qAeiv

— Joanna Lohman (@JoannaLohman) August 5, 2016

It’s not as intense in terms of the mental aspect. I think that’s really helped me, because I come every day with – hopefully – a great attitude of, ‘I just want to get better and I want to contribute something to this team.’ If I don’t play all the minutes on a Saturday that I want to, it doesn’t define who I am. And the second year being here, everyone’s coming back, I feel like we all work together now. We’re working like a well-oiled machine, as opposed to forcing parts here and there.

SW: They say it’s a young person’s game, though – and so many NWSL players are having to walk away after just a season or two because of the challenges that come with playing in this league. How have you stayed motivated and financially stable?

JL: I think I’ve always had such a passion and a love for the game – like, an undying love for the game. Even in my offseason, I can’t go three or four days without playing. My body has luckily held up well, I think I do a good job of trying to take care of it, doing ice baths, massages, doing the things while not at training to maintain that strength. And I think the consistent play – it’s like Newton’s [First] Law, a body in motion tends to stay in motion. I try to stay in motion, I try not to take too much time off, because I feel like I’ll rust up, you know?

Also, being extremely resourceful. We all have college degrees, we’re all very intelligent, so it’s figuring out, how do I fill my extra time to make extra income to supplement the dream that we’re chasing, basically. And luckily for me, when you have a base – now that I’m in D.C., I can commit to things in October, November, December, because I know I’m going to live here. I have my own apartment and I can build a business outside of soccer, whether that be coaching or speaking.

I’ve been able to get my hands involved in a lot of different things, and luckily I’m good at budgeting. I’m not a big spender, so I’ve been able to save a lot of the extra money that I’ve made over the years. It’s really been my fallback – I know that I don’t have to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, because I’ve put away money, I’ve invested properly, I’ve got a good nest egg to fall back on if anything should happen. So that really eases my mind, that I’m not living paycheck to paycheck.

SW: Earlier in your career you worked in commercial real estate on the side; now you have something of a “personal brand,” from your “JoHawk” T-shirts to coaching to diplomacy and much more.

JL: Since I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate the impact I can make on the fans in this game. I think that’s a huge part of it now – not just my play on the field, but the fulfillment I get from being able to form a connection with people through this sport. Whether it be here or internationally – I’m going to Botswana in November with the State Department, working a four-day program in Gaborone.

The adventures of the HAWK. #BeBold Get ur own: https://t.co/psEZytpcVy pic.twitter.com/ZWAIbWQu4W

— Joanna Lohman (@JoannaLohman) April 11, 2016

It’s amazing, the reaction people have to me just because I play in professional soccer, the world’s game. It’s such an amazing icebreaker, you can go anywhere and have a conversation with people. I think that’s why I want to play for as long as I possibly can, because there’s so much value to it to me. And I think I’ve built a good reputation at this point that it’s opening so many doors in other ways, work that I find to be extremely fulfilling. I don’t ever really want to let it go.

When you travel you just have so much perspective on how great it is to be an American, especially as a female athlete in America. There’s no better place in the world to be a female athlete. In America it’s sexy to look fit. In other countries, it’s not. So I get stared at SO much. People don’t know if I’m a woman or a man, they wonder why I’m doing push-ups. Even overseas in Spain [at RCD Espanyol] – my teammates were like, ‘why are you doing pushups? Why do you want to look that way?’

It’s never stopped me, but it’s made me so appreciative of coming back home and doing chin-ups at a playground and seeing another woman next to me doing the same thing. I also think that sport has the ability to break down so many barriers, whether it’s cultural, religious, gender, socio-economic.

SW: You are welcome to not answer this, but does the current election cycle make things more immediate for you in that regard?

JL: Yeah, for sure. The landscape now in America seems to be more…splintered. It seems like there’s a lot of animosity and it’s sad to see, from a country that I take so much pride in being from. And seeing the political landscape, it’s a little bit scary.

The laws in North Carolina that we’re seeing, HB2, it’s made me want to stand up and be counted for the gay community and it makes me want to travel even more, to show that all of America is not gun violence and racial violence, that we’re not represented by one man or one woman, that hopefully we’re a well-cultured and intelligent bunch of people that want this world to progress, and want equality for each and every person. I think that’s a big part of it.

SW: It seems like women’s soccer has grown up a bit this year, with social issues like “Equal Play Equal Pay” and Megan Rapinoe’s stance coming to the fore.

JL: We experienced two games in a row, playing against Megan Rapinoe – her kneeling, or linking arms, with the game in Seattle on 9/11. We’re very much supportive of freedom of speech and it’s great to see individuals who are so passionate about very important causes in this country – they’re not taking the sport for granted, they’re using it to promote higher causes that are beyond the game. I think it will help this country to come back together and unite, because like I said, we’re very splintered at this moment.

SW: NWSL has been celebrated for surviving to a fourth year (unlike its predecessors) and growing, albeit slowly. Yet with salaries and working conditions still so basic and the U.S. Women’s National Team CBA set to expire, it seems plenty of uncertainty lies ahead this offseason.

JL: It’s such a sensitive balancing act, at least in my opinion – you’re so grateful to have a league in the first place. But then you also want it to move forward. So how do you push the limits? How do you push for better circumstances, better resources, better environments, better salaries, but at the same time realize that you can’t sink that ship – because it sunk already, twice. And it was very blatant and apparent why it sunk: We spent too much money. We were bleeding.

And I think we’re still at a point here in the U.S. where it’s country before club, and that’s awkward, because that’s different from the rest of the world, typically. So you have players in the league that have very different circumstances from the national-team players. We still don’t have a union, so we don’t have a centralized voice. And I don’t know at what point we’ll be able to find that. So it’s hard to know and to centralize to fight for certain rights when you have a lot of young women who are just grateful for their position and you have a lot of young women on the [U.S.] national team who have very high standards with that team.

And then you have people retiring quite early because of salaries, and family situations, and other jobs. So it’s difficult to have that unified voice – I think MLS had it at a certain point where they were able to push for that. We’re still not there yet … Everyone’s just hustling, trying to survive.

SW: As you mentioned, life is very different for USWNTers and non-national-teamers. This league was founded to be a proving ground for national-team talent, but it doesn’t always seem to work that way.

JL: I think again it’s still country before club. Until that transitions a bit more, you’re going to see that. But I do think there’s players getting opportunities from this league. I hope someone like [Kealia] Ohai, who scored 11 goals [for the Houston Dash] will get a look. I think [Portland’s] Allie Long got a look because of the league. Hopefully that’s the place that we’re moving towards.

I don’t personally get frustrated or think I should get a look – I’m past the point of being called up – but I will be a proponent for players in this league that should be getting looks from their club performances. Because you’re playing against great players – you’re playing against some of the best in the world, you’re playing against national-team players … if you can outplay them each and every week, I think you should get a call-up.

SW: What’s the identity of this Spirit team? What’s the secret to your success this season?

JL: We define ourselves as blue-collar, hard-working. I wouldn’t say we have a typical star – the highest scorer is five goals this season, I think. So we’ve had contributions from all over the pitch. I think we’re a really great team – we had so many returning players from last season, we’ve proven that it’s not just one person who defines us or who is going to be the star. We all contribute and we all hopefully can put down those egos and realize what piece we play in this intricate puzzle and we’re happy to bring that. And that carries over to team chemistry, us being a very happy team together.

I’ve learned to play my role. I think Jim and [assistant coach] Denise [Reddy] and I have a great relationship now where they say, ‘this is what you do well, Jo, and this is what you bring to the team. So just keep doing that.’ I don’t want to play outside of that role. I scored four goals this season, that’s been fantastic, but I’m not necessarily that game-changer. I’m a player that fits into the scheme and does what she’s asked to do and gives the ball to the players that are going to score the big goals. … All of us just [ask], ‘where do I fit in and how do I bring that every single week?’