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Speaker 1: Hi commissioner, How are you hire? You ready? I'm ready?
Speaker 1: Are you ready? I was fortunate growing up in Canada
Speaker 1: where I played flag football and touch football. Growing up,
Speaker 1: it was offered at my high school from the two
Speaker 1: yard line that as left. It was a very competitive sport.
Speaker 1: The guys would come watch ustin we would go watch them.
Speaker 1: And when women's tackle football started in in two thousand,
Speaker 1: I raised my hands that I want to do this.
Speaker 1: I've been playing non contact for so long, for my
Speaker 1: whole life. I want to see what it's like to
Speaker 1: put on the pads and and learn how to take
Speaker 1: a hit. And so, uh do you remember your first hit? Oh? God,
Speaker 1: I remember my first hit. I remember my coach teaching
Speaker 1: me that I need to learn how to take a hit.
Speaker 1: And I think as I progressed in my career, I
Speaker 1: learned really how to take a hit. I'm I'm five
Speaker 1: five and was one thirty at the time. So for
Speaker 1: me to take a hit from you know, a three
Speaker 1: town woman was something I needed to learn at a
Speaker 1: at a young age in my career. But I loved it. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Sam Rappaport and this is earning it the NFL's
Speaker 1: Forward Progress. It's a podcast about football and so much more.
Speaker 1: I had this idea to create a pipeline to give
Speaker 1: women with smart, talented football minds a shot at football
Speaker 1: jobs in the NFL. In just five years, we've created
Speaker 1: almost two hundred opportunities for women. We'll be talking to
Speaker 1: some of them this show, along with many other great
Speaker 1: football minds, NFL head coaches, general managers, owners, incredible female
Speaker 1: trailblazers who happened to be passionate NFL fans like Billy
Speaker 1: gene King. Every generation has their trailblazers, every generation has
Speaker 1: their first and it's really, really hard. I'm living my
Speaker 1: lifelong dream and I can't wait to take you along
Speaker 1: for this ride. As Senior Director of Diversity, Equity and
Speaker 1: Inclusion at the NFL, I've made up my mission to
Speaker 1: bring more women into the fold so we can continue
Speaker 1: to move the needle for future generations. So let's start
Speaker 1: at the beginning, which in this case happens to be
Speaker 1: on a high school football field in the suburbs of
Speaker 1: New York City. That's where I met my producer, Jane.
Speaker 1: She's a veteran journalist and a fan. I thought I
Speaker 1: knew a lot about football. I grew up as a
Speaker 1: huge fan All Brothers season tickets to the Chicago var
Speaker 1: since nineteen seventy two. I've been to a lot of
Speaker 1: football games in my life. I also happened to be
Speaker 1: married to Roger she means Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner,
Speaker 1: my boss, actually my boss's boss's boss. They've been married
Speaker 1: for twenty four years and have twin daughters who seemed
Speaker 1: to have inherited this passion for football. The way they
Speaker 1: understand the game. It's not just as a fan. They
Speaker 1: really understand the game from a football perspective, and it
Speaker 1: amazes me. The three of us sat down in the
Speaker 1: Commissioner's office, right next to the Lombardi Trophy to talk
Speaker 1: about the important role women are now playing in this
Speaker 1: sport and how we can create more opportunities for them.
Speaker 1: I grew up my parents put me in ballet and
Speaker 1: tap dance and jazz dance and if you know me
Speaker 1: right now, that's really funny because you know, really when
Speaker 1: when I became a teenager, I kind of flipped and
Speaker 1: and and really football was was my love and so
Speaker 1: my parents really fostered it. They It was never I
Speaker 1: never got asked, you know, like, oh, you're a girl,
Speaker 1: how are you going to play? Or how is this
Speaker 1: going to be a challenge? And I remember the first
Speaker 1: time I played tackle though, my mom said, AV I
Speaker 1: just need you to go with her the first time,
Speaker 1: like I need to know that she's not gonna you
Speaker 1: know that nothing bad will happen to her. And he
Speaker 1: came to my first tryout with the Montreal Blitz in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and I remember he came back saying,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic. Great, like she got rocked a few times,
Speaker 1: but it's fantastic. A lot of listeners may not know this,
Speaker 1: but they are very vibrant female professional tackle football leagues
Speaker 1: in North America. I played quarterback for two years for
Speaker 1: the Montreal Blitz in the i WFL. And he got
Speaker 1: to see you play. He did. Yeah. He Um my
Speaker 1: dad passed away about seven years ago, but um, he
Speaker 1: got He traveled to all of my away games in
Speaker 1: the United States, So he would leave work at five pm.
Speaker 1: He would drive thirteen hours straight, watch my game for
Speaker 1: three hours, drive thirteen hours back, and he never missed
Speaker 1: an away games. Um, and so he would he would
Speaker 1: film my games as well, and he did the play
Speaker 1: by play. So if you watch all my game tape,
Speaker 1: it's Rappaport with a bootleg to the left, and you
Speaker 1: know he was doing his best job. Michaels those play
Speaker 1: by play calls earlier in the episode US, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was him. And he was so into the sport and
Speaker 1: so into my involvement. And he was an orthodonist and
Speaker 1: his patients would get really annoyed with him that he
Speaker 1: would talk about my playing career so much. Hey, Sam,
Speaker 1: I've never been able to ask you this question, but
Speaker 1: you're comments here. Was it the contact that you loved
Speaker 1: about the game? Was it the strategy? What was it
Speaker 1: about the game of football that you love playing? I
Speaker 1: think there are two things. The first for me was,
Speaker 1: you know, I work in diversity, equity inclusion. Now, when
Speaker 1: you look at a football team, it takes so many
Speaker 1: different types of people and athletic abilities to win. If
Speaker 1: you look at other sports like basketball, they're all tall
Speaker 1: and skinny, right if you look at um every other
Speaker 1: sport there's a traditional makeup of a person. And when
Speaker 1: I started playing football, there were girls of all shapes
Speaker 1: and sizes, every athletic ability. You don't have to be fast,
Speaker 1: or you could be fast. You don't have to be tall,
Speaker 1: or you could be tall. And I loved how it
Speaker 1: brought people together from such different athletic backgrounds and backgrounds
Speaker 1: together on one field. That was something I loved about it.
Speaker 1: The other thing, which is why I'm so passionate about
Speaker 1: getting girls to play, is because I was pretty average
Speaker 1: at most sports, and I felt really good at football.
Speaker 1: And so, as a young girl growing up who's developing
Speaker 1: her confidence, having something that defined me and that made
Speaker 1: me feel like I was good at something, that's what
Speaker 1: made me fall in love. And I think every kid
Speaker 1: really should find that thing that makes them tick and
Speaker 1: that they love. It strikes me. So we know you're
Speaker 1: as a competitive person. We love to compete, and I
Speaker 1: know that came out in you in sports. You could
Speaker 1: see it when you walked on the football field, even
Speaker 1: competing against yours Truly, you got really competitive. And I
Speaker 1: am too. I see that in you. But I also
Speaker 1: see that you use that in what you do every
Speaker 1: day for the NFL. The way you compete, you're competing,
Speaker 1: you're making us better, You're trying to win, You're trying
Speaker 1: to accomplish something, and you do it really with what
Speaker 1: I call a lot of values about football, which our
Speaker 1: teamwork and perseverance and going through adversity. All these things
Speaker 1: you've had to deal with to build the pipeline that
Speaker 1: you've built. That's all about football, right. You probably learned
Speaker 1: a lot of those lessons on the football field, and
Speaker 1: that's what I That's where I'm really interested. Do you
Speaker 1: use what you've learned on the football field in business,
Speaker 1: because I know I do, no question. As a quarterback,
Speaker 1: sometimes you need to have a game face on when
Speaker 1: you know things aren't going well. But the other ten
Speaker 1: people on the field, you have to show them that
Speaker 1: you got it. And I talked about this sometimes is
Speaker 1: when I'm very nervous and I'm leading something, I will
Speaker 1: appear as if I got it because that is what
Speaker 1: I had to do in the sport of football. And
Speaker 1: people buy into that and they believe that, and I'll
Speaker 1: rag on you later. So I don't mind this compliment
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna give you, But one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things about your leadership here is that you set the
Speaker 1: bar so high, and so for me, that's almost like
Speaker 1: a coach mentality. You're telling me what you expect of
Speaker 1: me and everyone else who works here. I want to
Speaker 1: get there. I want to be at that level. But
Speaker 1: that's part of what you do to get better. Right.
Speaker 1: The objective is not for you to play alone. You're
Speaker 1: playing with teammates and your objective is to win. And
Speaker 1: it's a team sport. So the lessons I learned on
Speaker 1: the football field are completely relatable to everything I do
Speaker 1: as a commissioner. It's all those values of teamwork and
Speaker 1: adversity and perseverance and diversity in the sense of everybody
Speaker 1: has a roll, everybody has a way to contribute to
Speaker 1: a bigger purpose of winning and competing is something I love.
Speaker 1: I love people who compete. Can I tell you one
Speaker 1: more thing I love about this sport. There's no other
Speaker 1: sport where every single person on the field is responsible
Speaker 1: for the success of a play. It's never just the
Speaker 1: wide receiver who caught the touchdown. It's never just the quarterback.
Speaker 1: It has to be all eleven people working in unison
Speaker 1: to make it happen. And basketball, you can steal the
Speaker 1: ball and fast, breakdown and lay up and that was
Speaker 1: all you. Right, there's nothing that's all you. And I
Speaker 1: know that's important to you as a leader as well,
Speaker 1: is you never make anything about you. I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: to make this about you, but you never want to
Speaker 1: make anything about you. So that high school football field
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the top, it's where Roger Goodell played
Speaker 1: football and where my lifelong dream became a reality. Not
Speaker 1: in an instant, mind you. This is no overnight success story,
Speaker 1: but it is a great story. This podcast is sponsored
Speaker 1: by Kendroll. Kendrell designs, builds, manages, and modernizes the mission
Speaker 1: critical technology systems that the world depends on every day.
Speaker 1: Working side by side with their customers, they imagine things differently.
Speaker 1: By forging new strategic partnerships, they unlock new possibilities, creating
Speaker 1: a world powered by healthy digital systems alive with opportunity,
Speaker 1: oxygen to innovation, and energy to change the world. Kendrell
Speaker 1: the heart of Progress. We're onto the divisional round of
Speaker 1: the NFL Playoffs with Draft Kings sports Book, an official
Speaker 1: sports betting partner of the NFL counting down to Super
Speaker 1: Bowl fifty six, New customers can get fifty six to
Speaker 1: one odds on any team that just five dollars and
Speaker 1: get two d and eighty in free bets if your
Speaker 1: team wins. Download the Draft Kings sports Book app now,
Speaker 1: use promo code d K one and get fifty six
Speaker 1: to one odds on any NFL team that's just five
Speaker 1: bucks and when two hundred and eighty in free bets.
Speaker 1: If your team wins, that's promo code d K one
Speaker 1: for fifty six to one odds at Draft Kings sports Book,
Speaker 1: an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Twenty one
Speaker 1: plus SMINA. Mage and location requirements vary by jurisdiction. See
Speaker 1: DraftKings dot com slash sports Book for the full list
Speaker 1: of requirements and state specific responsible gaming resources. BOYD were
Speaker 1: prohibited gambling problem called one hundred gambler. In tennessee call
Speaker 1: or text the t N Redline eight eight nine nine
Speaker 1: seven eight nine. In Connecticut, call eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: eight nine seven seven seven seven, or visit CCPG dot
Speaker 1: org slash chat. In New York call eight seven seven
Speaker 1: eight hope and Why, or text hope and Why for
Speaker 1: six seven, three six nine. Like me, the Commissioner has
Speaker 1: been football obsessed for as long as he can remember.
Speaker 1: He used to sleep with a leather football instead of
Speaker 1: a Teddy bear. He says. The person who drove him
Speaker 1: to get better was his mom, Jeanie Goodell. They were
Speaker 1: very close and the Commissioner lived with her until the
Speaker 1: day she died of breast cancer. Asked him to talk
Speaker 1: about their relationship. Oh, geez, we are You're not hitting
Speaker 1: me hard. Um. You know, everybody talks about my family,
Speaker 1: which a huge influence on me. Um. My dad was
Speaker 1: a public figure. So people talk about your dad was
Speaker 1: United States Center and our congressman, and what did you
Speaker 1: learn from him? But you know, I always say the
Speaker 1: person I learned the most from is my mom. And
Speaker 1: I think my brothers would all say the same. She uh,
Speaker 1: Roger needed a beat. I didn't intend to do it,
Speaker 1: but I made the commissioner of the NFL cry. My
Speaker 1: mom was a real fighter and a competitive person, someone
Speaker 1: who expected people to to to not let others down.
Speaker 1: She never did, and she would always, um make everyone
Speaker 1: better about her. And so probably a lot of things
Speaker 1: you've talked about before. That's where I got it. You know.
Speaker 1: She she had that strength, UM, and that courage and
Speaker 1: nothing scared of her. She actually talked about running for
Speaker 1: Congress UM at one point in her herself, which was
Speaker 1: unheard of at that time. UM. And unfortunately she got
Speaker 1: sick and that never came to fruition. But she could
Speaker 1: have been a great congress person. UM. But she taught
Speaker 1: us so much about life and and frankly sports. She
Speaker 1: was always there, and so is my dad. By the way,
Speaker 1: my dad was similar in yours wherever he was, and
Speaker 1: he lived in Washington a large part of his career
Speaker 1: and we were in New York. He never missed a
Speaker 1: game and I'll never forget it. And I always think
Speaker 1: we have to be there. Jane and I talked about
Speaker 1: be there for our kids at the time that are important,
Speaker 1: and they know we're there when it's important UM. And
Speaker 1: they were always supported and I had that from my family,
Speaker 1: but my mom in particular. If you ever want to
Speaker 1: go out in the backyard and throw a football, she
Speaker 1: was the first one to sign up. And by the way,
Speaker 1: she was the hardest coach I've ever had because she
Speaker 1: I could hear her voice when I was playing sports.
Speaker 1: I could hear a voice on the football field from
Speaker 1: fifty yards away. And by the way, she wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: in a possitive way. She would get after me, and
Speaker 1: you know, she would always go to the coaches afterwards
Speaker 1: and say, what's he not doing right? What you know,
Speaker 1: get after him, make sure he's doing it. And so
Speaker 1: we got we got a lot from my mother's relationship.
Speaker 1: You played three positions on the football field, right quarterback,
Speaker 1: tight end, at defensive back, defensive back. Um, I probably
Speaker 1: played anything they told me to. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: a running back going into my senior year and they
Speaker 1: told me I had to switch the tight end because
Speaker 1: we had a great running back who switched over from
Speaker 1: another school and he was better running back. And I said,
Speaker 1: that's where I should go. A great story about your
Speaker 1: mom from someone who watched you play high school football
Speaker 1: that I met, was saying that your older brother, Timmy
Speaker 1: played o line and your mom would be in the
Speaker 1: stands watching and people would go up to her after
Speaker 1: and say, hey, Jeanie, you know Tim had a great game,
Speaker 1: and she'd say, what do you mean he missed five blocks?
Speaker 1: And that would be her response to them, right, And
Speaker 1: but I you know, I think that's so reflective somewhat
Speaker 1: of your leadership here where it's certainly not that you
Speaker 1: focus on the negative, but it's your expectation of us
Speaker 1: and what you expect from your folks is as close
Speaker 1: to amazing as we can get right, and you feel
Speaker 1: that all over three four or five part Well, I
Speaker 1: like to say, if you've heard me say, I believe
Speaker 1: in better and you know the NFL can always get better.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what my mom was saying, is that, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe he played well, maybe he did a lot of
Speaker 1: great things in the field, but he missed five blocks.
Speaker 1: It's what I say. You have to be your own
Speaker 1: harshest critic, and the people around you have to be there.
Speaker 1: That's not that's not being devan my view. That's trying
Speaker 1: to be constructive and trying to be helpful of saying
Speaker 1: you have more potential to reach. And that's what I
Speaker 1: think my mom wanted for us, is to reach your potential.
Speaker 1: She didn't think I had a lot of potential, by
Speaker 1: the way, for a long time, but hopefully I surprised
Speaker 1: you a little bit. The Commissioner and I both knew
Speaker 1: at a very young age we wanted to work in football.
Speaker 1: My mom recently found something I wrote in ninth grade.
Speaker 1: The assignment was to write about my passion. I wrote quote,
Speaker 1: if I'm not praying for my favorite team to crush
Speaker 1: their biggest rivals, then I'm dreaming of playing football, making
Speaker 1: the winning catch, running thirty yards with the ball in
Speaker 1: my arms, and winning the game. So, Sam, you have
Speaker 1: this incredible passion for the game, your parents are supportive,
Speaker 1: and you're going in your early twenties to apply for
Speaker 1: an NFL internship. So listen up, kids, if you're applying
Speaker 1: for a job, this is a good tip on how
Speaker 1: to get a job. Tell me what your application was like.
Speaker 1: So I was a young woman in Canada, no connections
Speaker 1: to the NFL whatsoever. Just knew that I would I
Speaker 1: would still be trying to the state of it into
Speaker 1: this building. So I decided that I had to do
Speaker 1: something gimmicky to stand out, something that would, you know,
Speaker 1: separate me from the thousands of resumes that apply for that.
Speaker 1: So I sent a picture of myself in my tackle
Speaker 1: football gear with my resume, and with that I sent
Speaker 1: a football, And on the football, I wrote, in a
Speaker 1: sharpie what other quarterback could accurately deliver a ball three
Speaker 1: and eighty six miles, which was the distance between my
Speaker 1: college in Montreal and New York City. And you know,
Speaker 1: I sent it and I was like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't give this a high chance of working, but
Speaker 1: you know it worked. It made me stand out, and
Speaker 1: I started my first NFL internship in two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: And Roger, that's when you met Sam. Yeah, but I'm
Speaker 1: relating to her story because I'm also an intern and
Speaker 1: to your point, you know, you have to find ways
Speaker 1: to stand out. But Roger didn't mail a football to
Speaker 1: get his first job. He mailed letters, a lot of letters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wrote over fifty I think he's fifty three. Have'm
Speaker 1: actually over in that desk over there. And I got
Speaker 1: rejected by every single one of them. And some of
Speaker 1: them are my bosses today, by the way, and I've
Speaker 1: showed that letter to many of them. Your boss is
Speaker 1: being the owners owners executives. Um. You know. I was
Speaker 1: turned down to the Commissioner's office many times, but eventually
Speaker 1: someone made a mistake of returning a phone call to
Speaker 1: me and said, yeah, sure, you know, if you're ever
Speaker 1: in New York, let me know, And I said, I'm
Speaker 1: in New York. He said, okay, well can you come
Speaker 1: buy at eight? And I said sure. The problem I
Speaker 1: was in Pittsburgh and it was about six o'clock at night,
Speaker 1: so I had to drive all night to get there
Speaker 1: and showed up at the door, and I think he
Speaker 1: was a little surprised, and UM, I just kept after
Speaker 1: him and I said, there's always a fine line between
Speaker 1: being persistent and being a pain in the ass, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I was both, but I think you have
Speaker 1: to demonstrate that when you want something so badly, when
Speaker 1: you're passionate about something, and Sam, you are like passion
Speaker 1: I put number one, two, and three on your list.
Speaker 1: When you're passionate about something, you make it happen. And
Speaker 1: that's that, to me, is a difference between winners and losers. Sam.
Speaker 1: So fast forward after you do your internship, several years later,
Speaker 1: you're working for in youth football for USA Football. UM,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we were trying to remember. I don't
Speaker 1: think you and I had ever met, but we belong
Speaker 1: Roger and I belong to a church. And there was
Speaker 1: this really nice youth minister who came in, nice young
Speaker 1: guy who said, I, Hi, I'm brand new and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get middle school kids to come to church,
Speaker 1: but they all want to play sports. So if anybody
Speaker 1: here has an idea about how to get kids to
Speaker 1: come to church, please let me know. And so I
Speaker 1: felt for him, and so I walked off to him
Speaker 1: afterwards and said, hi, um, my husband works in football,
Speaker 1: and maybe you could do a flag football tournament and
Speaker 1: maybe he could come. And he said great, what does
Speaker 1: he do? And I said, well, he's the commissioner of
Speaker 1: the NFL and he said, oh, okay, I'm a soccer guy,
Speaker 1: but that sounds fun. And so I went home and
Speaker 1: I said, um, hey, Roger, I think I volunteered you
Speaker 1: to run a flag football clinic because the youth minister
Speaker 1: isn't really a football guy, So could you do that
Speaker 1: for the church and it might be nice? And he said, okay, sure.
Speaker 1: Two things. One, I have no idea how to run
Speaker 1: a flag football tournament. And to I'll only do it
Speaker 1: if girls can come to Our daughters will be there,
Speaker 1: their middle schoolers, so I want to make sure it's
Speaker 1: for boys and girls. So he's a few weeks later
Speaker 1: said um, okay, yes, we've got some flags, we've got
Speaker 1: some jerseys. How many kids are coming. I said, I
Speaker 1: think about forty five. And he said, okay, I'm bringing
Speaker 1: in a ringer because I don't know how to run this.
Speaker 1: I'm bringing in Sam, who is a former quarterback who
Speaker 1: can do it. And I said, great, Sam, Sam will
Speaker 1: be there to do it. I don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about anything but bringing snacks and making sure the flags
Speaker 1: work right, the velcro is good. And so we get
Speaker 1: down to the field and Roger goes like tearing across
Speaker 1: his high school football field, which I say, is like
Speaker 1: where all the greatness happened. That's what he tells me.
Speaker 1: We're down there on this field. He goes tearing across
Speaker 1: a football field to embrace this person, say am, and
Speaker 1: I said, my mind has been blown. Sam is a
Speaker 1: girl with a long blonde ponytail, and my daughter's eyes
Speaker 1: were as big as saucers. By the way out of
Speaker 1: the forty five, I think we had like thirty nine
Speaker 1: boys and six girls, and you came over. You took
Speaker 1: then they split them up into giants and Jets with
Speaker 1: the little flag jerseys. You took Jets. He took giants.
Speaker 1: He was quarterbacking the other team, and Roger, you can
Speaker 1: find then is this accurate or not. She kicked your
Speaker 1: ass all over that. No, now you're off the base.
Speaker 1: But no, but that we were competing, we were permanent quarterbacks. Right.
Speaker 1: Sam is an incredible athlete. We can't agree on that.
Speaker 1: Sam can really playing it. Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 1: So I like to teaser. Then I'm better, but I
Speaker 1: know I'm not. But it's okay. I would just like
Speaker 1: the teaser. You could imagine though, those six girls to
Speaker 1: your point not to start twin girls, when they saw
Speaker 1: Sam running this event and throwing the football like at
Speaker 1: talk about opening your eyes to the world, and I
Speaker 1: want to say the boys eyes were his big saucers too,
Speaker 1: Like it's just as important of the messages I think
Speaker 1: for young men to see as well. Right, I was
Speaker 1: going to go to that point. You're ahead of me,
Speaker 1: but I agree with that because I do think they
Speaker 1: saw something saying, wow, she can throw a football like that. Um,
Speaker 1: I do agree it opened her eyes. I heard one
Speaker 1: of them say she's kicking that old man's ass. I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: It's our biggest dedate nineteen years and running who on
Speaker 1: the flag football game. I'm a journalist, I know the facts,
Speaker 1: recollections in any case, the reason I'm telling this story
Speaker 1: is because as the game ended and Sam's team one,
Speaker 1: I walked up to her and said, I think we
Speaker 1: should be friends. That was amazing. And Roger came up
Speaker 1: and said, Sam, what's going on, how's youth football? How's
Speaker 1: your job? We miss you at the league. What are
Speaker 1: you thinking? And Sam rapp a part said, was brave
Speaker 1: enough to say to the commissioner, Well, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked. I have a dream. I have
Speaker 1: a dream because I know all these smart, talented women
Speaker 1: who have great football minds, and there is no way
Speaker 1: for them to get into the National Football League. There's
Speaker 1: no entrance. I would love to build a pipeline. Is
Speaker 1: that accurate? It's accurate? And I told him I'd call
Speaker 1: him on Monday and the rest is history. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, shot my shot and went up to Commissioner
Speaker 1: Adell at the time and said, you know, I see,
Speaker 1: I see a way that we can be better, and
Speaker 1: you always challenge us to be better, so let me
Speaker 1: present this idea to you. And what he doesn't know
Speaker 1: is it was already fully baked. I had the entire
Speaker 1: strategic plan ready to go because I know this guy, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not. He doesn't want to hear. I have this
Speaker 1: crazy idea, and I really had a full strategic plan
Speaker 1: bake because I saw something that I felt could make
Speaker 1: us better, and that was the gates needed to be
Speaker 1: open for these thousands of women that are either playing
Speaker 1: football or enjoying football in this country to get in
Speaker 1: the game because previously they were disenfranchised. Not anyone's fault,
Speaker 1: they weren't applying. No one was thinking that women belong
Speaker 1: in these positions. But everything changed when we were able
Speaker 1: to open the gates and create a pipeline for women
Speaker 1: to be involved in the sport that they love just
Speaker 1: as much as guys do. So I've said it out loud,
Speaker 1: this seemingly crazy but not so crazy idea of hiring
Speaker 1: women as coaches and scouts and other football positions in
Speaker 1: the NFL, the most male sport on the planet. I'm
Speaker 1: not afraid of challenges, and we're not going to shy
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Speaker 1: the heart of progress. It's never been easy to land
Speaker 1: a job as a coach in the NFL. But if
Speaker 1: a young man wanted to coach and he had the
Speaker 1: talent to do so, he had a path. Many of
Speaker 1: them played in college and moved on to work with
Speaker 1: their friends. Whenever an opening came up, someone would say,
Speaker 1: I know a guy, let's interview him. If a young
Speaker 1: woman wanted to coach in the NFL, it was much
Speaker 1: more difficult, nearly impossible. She might have played women's tackle
Speaker 1: football after work and coached high school kids to keep
Speaker 1: her passion alive, but she didn't have the same contacts
Speaker 1: and didn't have anything close to a direct path. So
Speaker 1: we created a pipeline to get her in front of
Speaker 1: the right people. So Roger says, call me Monday. You say,
Speaker 1: I'm calling you Monday. My first question was going to
Speaker 1: be did you have a plan of where you were like,
Speaker 1: Holy cow, this my my dream actually might happen for
Speaker 1: some people, it's an overnight thing. You auditioned for a
Speaker 1: Broadway musical and suddenly you're a big star. This process,
Speaker 1: obviously was not going to be an overnight success, and
Speaker 1: it was gonna take time and a lot of thinking
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be a lot of challenges. When you
Speaker 1: guys first met on it, how did it go? And Roger,
Speaker 1: that's a big leap for you, right to make a
Speaker 1: significant change to the game. Well, it really wasn't that
Speaker 1: big leap, because, um, I believe that in Sam's passion
Speaker 1: and her courage and and her plan, frankly, and that
Speaker 1: there were was a lot of talent out there that
Speaker 1: had the same passion for the game that we had
Speaker 1: just frankly overlooked. I don't think people saw women in
Speaker 1: that position, and we had to change that perception. I
Speaker 1: always talk about it when people come into the NFL,
Speaker 1: how do you create value? And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: values that people of different genders, different colors, different you know,
Speaker 1: diversity is what makes us stronger, and that's really a
Speaker 1: core belief of the NFL and mind personally, and I
Speaker 1: think we were just on tapping talent that was going
Speaker 1: to make the NFL better. It's analogous to why coaches
Speaker 1: like to go to internationally defined players, right. It's like
Speaker 1: all the best football talent is not in the United States, right,
Speaker 1: it's everywhere. And if you consider everywhere, you're going to
Speaker 1: have the best players. Coaches like Ron Rivera, Sean McDermott,
Speaker 1: Bruce Arians, they look at this and they say, we
Speaker 1: have not considered half the population when we're hiring talent,
Speaker 1: and if we consider everyone, that the criminal rise to
Speaker 1: the top. It's about winning, it's about getting the best
Speaker 1: people in the job. And if you're forgetting half of
Speaker 1: the population, any half of any population, there's no question
Speaker 1: that you're not getting the best talent. I think we're
Speaker 1: the NFL hadn't is really looked at the fact that
Speaker 1: there are people that we just overlooked that they weren't
Speaker 1: part of the game. They weren't either playing it or
Speaker 1: people looked at as a male dominant sport. And when
Speaker 1: people really said listen, there's really passionate, talented people that
Speaker 1: can make our game better and help us win. All
Speaker 1: we had to do is given them a chance to
Speaker 1: actually go through the meritocracy and earn it. And I
Speaker 1: think that's what Sam's created. If we build it, they
Speaker 1: will come. We created what we call the Women's Forum.
Speaker 1: Each year, my colleague Vanessa Hutchinson and I invite forty
Speaker 1: women with college football experience to spend time listening to
Speaker 1: and talking to NFL head coaches, general managers and owners. So, Sam,
Speaker 1: how do you get buy in? Was there a moment
Speaker 1: where a head coach raised his hand and said I'll
Speaker 1: show up. So the first year we got Kim Pagoula
Speaker 1: owner of the Buffalo Bills, and Ron rivera head coach
Speaker 1: of the Carolina Panthers at the time now the Washington
Speaker 1: football team, and both of them took a shot on this,
Speaker 1: and I give them a lot of credit for that
Speaker 1: because they didn't know who I was. I cold emailed
Speaker 1: them and asked them if they would participate, and they
Speaker 1: both said yes. They both flew down to Florida we
Speaker 1: hosted at Pro Bowl at the time, and they said,
Speaker 1: I want to be a part of this. And they
Speaker 1: really helped lend credibility to this effort because since then
Speaker 1: both of them have said we're involved every year for
Speaker 1: this count on us every year and like Roger said,
Speaker 1: these are two incredibly busy people who are very busy
Speaker 1: at that time of year too, but say we will
Speaker 1: always lend you know, our time to this effort. And
Speaker 1: they've been involved in the program for five years. Vanessa,
Speaker 1: who's a senior manager in the football operations department, has
Speaker 1: been my secret weapon. You had said at one point,
Speaker 1: I believe had a phone call when we were going
Speaker 1: back and forth planning, like wouldn't it be great if
Speaker 1: we could get you know, Bill Belichick to be in
Speaker 1: a breakout session, and I said, I think we can
Speaker 1: maybe do it. And we were very strategic about it though.
Speaker 1: The way we went about it. We got to Vrabel
Speaker 1: on board. First, we had emailed coach of Rabel and
Speaker 1: of course, like five minutes later he responds and says,
Speaker 1: I'm totally in. We said, what we want to do
Speaker 1: is pitch to Coach Belichick, Uh, you and him doing
Speaker 1: a breakout session with no more than you know, seven women,
Speaker 1: you know, no media, super intimate, just talking ball, and
Speaker 1: he said, I'm in. Keep me posted on what Coach
Speaker 1: Belichick says. And so we draft. This email to Bears
Speaker 1: explained to him the importance of this program, the history
Speaker 1: of it, and ultimately, here's what we want from Coach Belichick.
Speaker 1: Is he willing to do it? And not even twenty
Speaker 1: minutes later he said, coaches all in. So that was
Speaker 1: really you know how it happened. And I called you
Speaker 1: and you know there are there's a lot of screaming
Speaker 1: and all that, but you know, I think one having
Speaker 1: him there, just watching him in a breakout session, super relaxed,
Speaker 1: super laid back, literally just doing what he loves, which
Speaker 1: is talking ball and developing coaches. Uh, that was tremendous
Speaker 1: to see. And then the other thing to point out
Speaker 1: is coach Belichick comes from an era of the old
Speaker 1: Boys Club, not saying he is in that club, and
Speaker 1: he's shown and us hiring that he's not. But to
Speaker 1: have a coach like that that comes from that kind
Speaker 1: of generation, um, you know, to kind of show other
Speaker 1: head coaches and other people that come from that generation
Speaker 1: as well that he's embracing a program like this, I
Speaker 1: think was tremendously important. And anyone who was, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe teetering on embracing diversity, equity, inclusion. He's an example
Speaker 1: for that to them as well. And I think that's
Speaker 1: why it means so much to have him be a
Speaker 1: part of him, to have him, you know, say you
Speaker 1: know that it's important to him in his organization. And
Speaker 1: he didn't blink an eye when he was in that zoom, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we didn't let anyone in that zoom. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give a little peek behind the curtain of
Speaker 1: what it was like. He was like, all right, let's go.
Speaker 1: Who wants to learn football? Right? There was no mention
Speaker 1: of oh, your female coaches, kind of like what you
Speaker 1: were saying. There's no mention about you know, your gender.
Speaker 1: It was like, who wants to talk ball? And I
Speaker 1: remember alex Hannah raised her hand, She's like, I want
Speaker 1: to talk ball, and she pulled up a power point
Speaker 1: and broke down a cover three defense for him and
Speaker 1: asked him specific questions about what the cornerback should do
Speaker 1: in a certain situation. And then they just started talking
Speaker 1: ball for an hour, right, And then other people started
Speaker 1: asking him strategic questions and just the opportunity to speak
Speaker 1: to a genius in the game like that, you know,
Speaker 1: and then him giving out his email address them after
Speaker 1: it was just the icing on the cake. But it
Speaker 1: really struck me how he didn't care who was in
Speaker 1: the room. He wanted to develop young coaches and that's
Speaker 1: why he got involved, right. I mean, I remember just
Speaker 1: being amazed he was referring to everyone who was calling
Speaker 1: them coach coach to the women in the room, you know,
Speaker 1: whether they were at the high school level, where there
Speaker 1: at the college level, he was addressing them in that sense.
Speaker 1: And like you said, we had participant sharing screens and
Speaker 1: asking questions to him, and you know, he lit up
Speaker 1: when Alex uploaded her screen on zoom to show in
Speaker 1: the play and he was like, this is great. And
Speaker 1: then him and Coach Rabel just took it from there.
Speaker 1: And you know, they had their prior relationships, but they
Speaker 1: were working off of each other and it created just
Speaker 1: such a great environment in that breakout session for them
Speaker 1: all to be a part of. As I mentioned at
Speaker 1: the top of the pod, almost two hundred opportunities for
Speaker 1: women have come out of this forum in just five years.
Speaker 1: Several women were so impressive that they got their jobs
Speaker 1: on the spot. One question that I get asked all
Speaker 1: the time as I'm working on you know, some of
Speaker 1: this content podcast and and TV series is people are
Speaker 1: so curious about, well, what's the reaction from an NFL
Speaker 1: player and he's told that a woman is going to
Speaker 1: be coaching him. I can imagine people assume they might
Speaker 1: not like that. But what have you found when these
Speaker 1: women get into those positions and what have you heard?
Speaker 1: You guys are on the front lines of this from
Speaker 1: the coaches themselves, from the players themselves. My response to
Speaker 1: that typically is ask any player and they will tell
Speaker 1: you that they want their coaching staff to reflect their family,
Speaker 1: the fans, their normal life outside of football. Right. And
Speaker 1: as Roger said, and coach Arian's has said this many times,
Speaker 1: a coach is a teacher and if you can teach,
Speaker 1: you can teach. And there's no gender to teaching, right.
Speaker 1: So if you talk to the guys, they love it. Right.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have daughters. It's inspirational for their daughters.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have sons. It's inspirational for their
Speaker 1: sons to see women in these positions teaching men football.
Speaker 1: And it's remarkable to see. I've never heard of players
Speaker 1: say anything other than we need more female coaches. One
Speaker 1: of the other big questions is you put these women
Speaker 1: the majority of them are young. We have a couple examples,
Speaker 1: like Low Locusts, who was on the Super Bowl winning Buccaneers.
Speaker 1: In you put them in these positions as trailblazers and
Speaker 1: being first, that is a heck of a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: How do you prepare them for that and how do
Speaker 1: you help them through that process as the season goes on.
Speaker 1: So there's no perfect blueprint, you know, and there's mistakes
Speaker 1: along the way. But I think what I'm so appreciative
Speaker 1: of is how honest they are, whether it's you know
Speaker 1: us always, you know, people like Low Jennifer King, Sally
Speaker 1: with all all of them. If we have someone we
Speaker 1: want to connect them with who's on that pathway to
Speaker 1: wanting to be like them, they'll take that phone call
Speaker 1: and they will be completely transparent with them, and they'll
Speaker 1: be completely honest with them about what this road is,
Speaker 1: what it entails, what's been tough um and that I
Speaker 1: think just their transparent transparency in itself and willingness to
Speaker 1: share that actual experience and not be afraid to make
Speaker 1: mistakes but try and just you know, be leaders in
Speaker 1: that for the other woman around. That's what I appreciate
Speaker 1: the most for them. And Vanessa. I know. It seems
Speaker 1: to me my conversations were these coaches none of them
Speaker 1: want to be first. That's not why they're doing it.
Speaker 1: They're doing it because they love the game. They think
Speaker 1: they can make the game better, they think they can
Speaker 1: help teams win, and it's become their passion. It's like, Sam, so,
Speaker 1: how do you distinguish that? And and the good news
Speaker 1: is there not first anymore, and the doors open and
Speaker 1: the opportunities there. So how do you get to finding
Speaker 1: their true motivation of how they're going to succeed in
Speaker 1: the most competitive sport in the world, one of the
Speaker 1: most successful businesses and leagues in the world. They're going
Speaker 1: to have to compete against the best. And when they
Speaker 1: walk in that room, they don't care whether they're a
Speaker 1: woman or a man, or as I always say, players
Speaker 1: can smell a coach he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: In about five minutes. It takes that long and they'll know.
Speaker 1: And that's what they respect. And ultimately it's about the
Speaker 1: respect that you know how to coach and make them better.
Speaker 1: One of the things we ask when we're talking to
Speaker 1: these women, who are you know, in preparation for the
Speaker 1: forum is you know what your why? Why do you
Speaker 1: wake up and want to work these endless hours in
Speaker 1: this industry and sacrifice so many for things to be
Speaker 1: in it? And you know a lot of those answers
Speaker 1: are a lot of reason why some of the women
Speaker 1: are in the forum itself. Um, you know, we stray
Speaker 1: away from the answers that say I want to be
Speaker 1: the first, this, that, or the next. We really embrace
Speaker 1: the answers that say, I just want to help a
Speaker 1: team be better and wherever I'm needed for that, that's
Speaker 1: what I want to do. Here's where I think I
Speaker 1: have my strengths, Here's what I think I have my weaknesses.
Speaker 1: But what I really want to do is be a
Speaker 1: part of a team and be a part of helping
Speaker 1: them have success. And so I think that's in a
Speaker 1: way that that shows you know, ultimately what leadership means
Speaker 1: to them, and it gives us a really good look
Speaker 1: at the type of candidates we're looking for and how
Speaker 1: they'll fit within the league. How do you advise them
Speaker 1: on what to do with pushback that would come from
Speaker 1: outside a team organization, from social media, from fans um.
Speaker 1: Talking to the women coaches who are currently working in
Speaker 1: the league, they all will tell you, oh, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: brutal if you go on social media, or sometimes things
Speaker 1: fans will say to you it is nasty or even
Speaker 1: than your wildest imagination. And they all have strategies kind
Speaker 1: of for where they put it. So when you're looking
Speaker 1: at young women coming in, how how do you advise
Speaker 1: them on what to do with what with what can
Speaker 1: become really bad noise. My biggest piece of advice is
Speaker 1: always to keep your head down in grind mentality, whether
Speaker 1: and you have to figure out what that means for you,
Speaker 1: whether that means you're not on social media or you're
Speaker 1: not paying attention to that. You know, that's one way
Speaker 1: to do it. But obviously you can't ignore all the noise.
Speaker 1: But one thing I've always been taught and I've always
Speaker 1: tried to use in my career in itself, is that
Speaker 1: you need to worry about the people who matter, the
Speaker 1: person that hired you, the person you're reporting to, the
Speaker 1: people who rely on you, and as long as they
Speaker 1: think you're doing a great job and you're doing well,
Speaker 1: that's what matters. And the person on Twitter who is,
Speaker 1: you know, ranting does not. And so it really has
Speaker 1: to be a deep, you know, belief in yourself. And
Speaker 1: as cliche as that may sound, that's what keeps a
Speaker 1: lot of people's heads above ground in this industry is
Speaker 1: just knowing who you are and knowing what you're good
Speaker 1: at and letting that pave your way for you. And
Speaker 1: we talk about Roger sometimes like that, we're like, do
Speaker 1: you think Rogers on Twitter saying like, I you two right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're in ring, you have to take the blows right,
Speaker 1: and we all know that there are responsibilities that you
Speaker 1: have in being the first. So what we tell them is,
Speaker 1: imagine you're Roger, right, and you're sitting there and these
Speaker 1: people are criticizing him. He is not sitting there on
Speaker 1: social media telling these people like will you suck or
Speaker 1: you whatever? Right, He's doing his job. And that's really
Speaker 1: what we tell the women is don't worry about people
Speaker 1: who are not in the ring with you, and don't
Speaker 1: take criticism from someone who you wouldn't go to for
Speaker 1: advice and so blinded out, have your blinders on social
Speaker 1: media because we're going to hear that. No matter how
Speaker 1: long we continue to do this, which hopefully is forever,
Speaker 1: people will criticize because they have bad things to say.
Speaker 1: But if they're not in the ring with you, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. You know. My trick always with that is
Speaker 1: one is I don't pay much attention to it. But second,
Speaker 1: and probably more important, I use his motivation. You know,
Speaker 1: I just want to prove those people wrong. And what
Speaker 1: I see from most of our great coaches, everyone's doubted,
Speaker 1: everyone's challenged everyone. You know, they make the wrong call
Speaker 1: in the game, and everyone says you're a loser. You
Speaker 1: have to use that as your motivation to get better
Speaker 1: and to prove people wrong. And to me, those are
Speaker 1: the people who have real grit ultimately, or the competitive
Speaker 1: ones that are going to be able to go through
Speaker 1: those difficult times, which every coach does, every commissioner does,
Speaker 1: every person in public life and in personal life. You're
Speaker 1: going to have those moments of adversity and challenge. You
Speaker 1: have to be able to compete and grind through it.
Speaker 1: To use the term you use, that's grit. In my view,
Speaker 1: that's the people I want to around me. It's not
Speaker 1: a business for a thin skin, absolutely not. I think
Speaker 1: you know that too. This season unearned it. I said
Speaker 1: to Darcy and said, look, I like to hire two
Speaker 1: coaches who happen to be female. She said, heck yeah,
Speaker 1: go for it. And you gotta be kidding me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I like sports my whole life from five and because
Speaker 1: I'm a girl, I can't white. It's not like I'm
Speaker 1: doing this to bust up the good old Voice book.
Speaker 1: Just listen to your story, I mean quarterback and your
Speaker 1: thoughts and your wants and your goals. I'm like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: this is a live one. You Sam's a live one.
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