February 15, 2023 • 24 mins
Host Caroline Hendershot is joined by Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with the NFL Sam Rapoport. The two discuss how Sam fell in love with the sport football (0:36), playing quarterback for Canadian flag football and tackle teams (5:41), and making the transition from the field to getting a job within the NFL (9:13). They go on to discuss opening doors for women in sports (13:16), women bringing balance to the workforce (16:20), and Sam's workflow in the NFL (17:24), Lastly, they discuss statistics of young women who would be inactive if flag football was not offered (20:39).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome in to New Yorker. I'm your host, Caroline kender Shot,
and today we have an amazing guest. I know I
say that every week, but this one I truly mean it.
Sam Rappaport joins us. She is the senior director of Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion with the NFL and a former quarterback. Sam,
thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Caroline,
(00:25):
I'm pomped, of course. Okay, so let's first start off
with football and kind of your initial discovery of the
sport and how you really fell in love with it. Yeah,
in Canada, where I grew up, I was so fortunate
that girls touch football existed. And you know, I played
a lot of sports when I was young, and I
felt kind of average at all of them. And then
(00:46):
as soon as a football was put in my hand,
I was able to throw a spiral pretty quickly, and
I was like, man, I love this, and so I
asked my dad to help me find somewhere that I
could play and we looked in the newspaper at that time,
this was way pre Internet, and we found a article
about girls and women's touch football that was existed in
my hometown, Ottawa, Canada, and I joined and it was amazing.
(01:08):
I fell in love with the sport then, and I
hadn't stopped playing until probably like six seven years ago.
So did Canada have like multiple flag football teams for women,
because I feel like that's a big difference between the
States and Canada. When I moved to the US, I
was shocked that opportunities for girls and women exist in
(01:28):
Canada and Mexico, but they didn't really exist in the
United States, the place where football is queen. Right, So
when I was young at the NFL, I actually started
a program to try to get more girls involved in
flag football. But when I was young, I thought it
was normal. And then when I moved here, everyone's like,
what do you mean you played football? And I was
kind of confused with the question because I never was
asked that back home. So you know, the league now,
(01:50):
the NFL is working hard to, you know, get legitimize
girls flag and move away from powder puff, which is
a term I can't stand, uh, to legitimize it because
it's a real sport and it's a using and girls
should be able to play as much as boys should.
Was it offered like through your high school or was
it kind of more so the route of like um,
like an A A U or like a travel soccer
(02:12):
league where it was like separate from school, but it
was still like widely popular. So it was both, which
was amazing. So I played touch football for my high
school all five years. In Canada, we had five years
of high school. Um, so I played all five years
in high school. And then I also played for my
town Ottawa, and we played against other Canadian cities. Um,
(02:32):
you know, we traveled and we would go to other
other provinces to play against each other. So it was
so I got to play both. I got to play
girls touch football in the spring and then in the
fall and in the summer as well, and in the
winter we played indoor, so we really played around around
the year. But yeah, I was able to play for
my town. Wow, that's just so impressive because I feel
(02:52):
like flag football is really starting to get and pick
up a momentum in the States now for girls in
high school and younger. But before that, it was definitely
like not even a thing because I remember growing up
and that was never even an option. It was more
of the typical sports that you see like volleyball or soccer,
but to have it at both levels, that's amazing for
(03:14):
you to have had that your whole childhood. Yeah, I
didn't know anything different. And when I moved here and
I told people I played so many women and girls
like you would say, oh man, if that was offered,
I would have played. Right. Almost everyone honestly says that
to me. And and that is why. Interestingly, girls flag
football was implemented in Florida and Alaska at the high
(03:34):
school level because they surveyed girls at the school and
they said, if we would offer a new sport, what
would be the number one sport you would choose to play,
And resoundingly both states mentioned flag football, and so they
started as a response to Title nine, and now other
states have followed suit. So the demand is there. Girls
want to play. It's just a matter of people offering
the sport in a legitimate way. Because probably when you
(03:57):
were in high school, you know, powder pop I assume
was still around, and that kind of makes a mockery
of our involvement in the sport, which is why I'm
not a big fan, right. I remember we had one
powder puff game in high school and it was always
around homecoming, and it would be like the juniors played
the seniors, and the freshman played the sophomore kind of thing.
(04:17):
And I remember that one game. We were never allowed
to play in it either because my volleyball coach always
thought we were going to get hurt. But I remember
being allowed to play in it my senior year, and
I remember I think I was playing like tight end
or wide receiver, one of the two. And I went
up for a ball and I was taller than everyone
in my high school growing up, but I went up
(04:38):
for a ball and I pulled it down and I
was like, Wow, this is so fun, Like I wish
I could do this more often. And I was so
bummed because it was only once a year. But you're right,
like it it didn't feel legitimate because not only the name,
but just because it was only offered once a year, right,
and that and that doesn't give you an opportunity to
develop and get better. Right, that's just kind of a show.
(04:59):
And so um, you know, it really needs to be
legitimate in schools and give girls the opportunity to play
because football is really ingrained in the fabric of this country.
Everyone if they don't love it, they know about it,
they're involved in it. In some shape or form typically,
So you know, why not give every kid the opportunity
to play that sport and in a legitimate way. I'm
not into making a mockery this spart. Yeah, no, not
(05:21):
at all. Okay, but for you, you played quarterback for
the Canadian women's flag football team and you played for
the Montreal Blitz was which was a tackle team. Now,
how were those opportunities even presented to you? Like? How
did you climb the ladder to get to that and
joined a tackle team after all that time playing flag.
(05:41):
It's interesting because it's not there's no linear path for us.
Right with boys, you play peewee football and then you
go to you know, junior high school, junior high high school,
college for the pros, it's so obvious. Right for us,
you kind of have to create your own path. So
I was playing for Ottawa for a long time and
then they were putting a team together for Team Anada
and the organizer asked me to quarterback the team and
(06:03):
I tried out and got it, which was incredible. This
was a long time ago, and when the Montreal Blitz
were created, I believe it was two thousand. That's when
I started college and they're the owner of the team.
Was walking by my campus, which was McGill University in Montreal,
and she saw me throwing because I played intermural for McGill,
which is why the reason I went to McGill was
(06:23):
because they had intramural girls football, and she kind of
she came out. She emailed me and she said, hey,
would you try out for my tackle team? And I
called my dad and I spoke to my friends, and
I remember being like, listen. It was on an Indian
reservation that was very far away from my campus. I
had no car, had no way to get there. My
schooling was really tough at the time, and I was like,
I don't think I'm gonna do this, and I don't
(06:44):
know anything about tackle football. And then my one of
my best friends at the time said like, get your
ass in the car. I'm gonna drive you there, and
you're going and I'll never forget that. I'm like, fine,
I'll just try it once. And I tried it, and
I loved it. I loved the contact. There's something about
this sisterhood that's created when you know, I hate using
(07:04):
the war analogy, but when you go to battle with
other people physically, it's it's amazing, Like how I feel
about my offensive line to this day. I played like
twenty one years ago, but to this day, I gotta
do anything for them because all they did was trying
to make me look good on every single play. And
so there's definitely this camaraderie that that I got from
tackle that I didn't necessarily feel all the time from
(07:24):
flag because you're really putting your body into it um
and versus flag, which is a little bit more finesse.
First of all, what a good friend to just not
even listen to you and be like, I know what's
best for you, and we're going in the car and
we're leaving, I don't care. Shout out to Nisia Nandy.
She was that friend. She put me in her car
and she took me there. And I kind of credit
her for me working at the NFL because she was
(07:45):
the person who pushed me. Yeah, that's that's truly like
a best friend moment. Okay, but how do you kind
of training So you're saying flag is more finesse, so
you're training for flag, you're training for flag, But then
how do you shift and then go to a completely
different aspect of football and train your body for tackle
after all that time of not having that contact. It
(08:07):
took some time. There. There's a lot of translated, translatable
skills between the two, right, but I really had to
spend time on footwork. My footwork was atrocish and my
atrocis and my coach loved to tell me that, Um,
I really didn't understand, you know, the three five seven
drop because we don't really do that in flag and
so I just kind of kept my footwork the same
for my first season, and when I look at tave,
(08:28):
I'm like, I can't watch it. But I eventually learned.
You know, the footwork, and you learn kind of how
to fall and how to get tackled, which I don't
know if it's a good thing or not, but my
coach told me I was really good at getting tackled, um,
and you kind of I kind of learned as I went.
And I only got to play for two seasons because
I started at the NFL right after, but I miss it.
I love it, And you know, when I think back
on my sports days, it's those two years that I
(08:50):
go back to. So when you decided, Okay, now it's
time to get a job, how did you even begin
to be like, what field do I want to go into?
How to why like even applied to the NFL Because
I feel like when you're a little more naive and younger,
you think, oh, like I can do anything, like why
don't I just go work for the NFL kind of thing,
(09:11):
like it's easy, But it's not easy. So how did
you make that jump? Yeah, so I was speaking to
my sister at the time. I had no idea what
I wanted to do. But I was such a football
nut growing up. I mean, all my teachers in high school,
all my friends knew I was just it defined who
I was. The sport defined who I was. And so
my sister said, you know, if money wasn't a factor,
what would you want to do? And I said, worked
for the Dallas Cowboys because I was a huge Cowboys
(09:33):
fan when I was a little and so she said, well,
let's make it happen, and I kind of laughed, and
I remember where we were when we had this conversation,
and I applied one year for an internship. I didn't
get it, and then I spent my third year in
university literally just trying to figure out how to stand
out because I had no contacts to the NFL. I was,
you know, a young girl from Canada, woman from Canada
(09:55):
that really didn't know anyone. And so I decided to
send a football with my resume to the league office
and I wrote, what other quarterback could accurately deliver a
ball three hundred and eighty six miles? And I sent
it with my resume and it stood out. And interestingly,
Brian McCarthy are one of our heads of PR, recently
told me that he just received a football with their
resume with a QR code for their resume on it.
(10:16):
So maybe it, uh, you know, its resonated with some people,
but you know it stood out. Um, and yeah, twenty
one years later, I'm still here. That's such a good idea.
How did you even come up with that? That's amazing.
I mean, I have a crazy brain, you know. My
wife always says, like everyone's brain is here in minds,
like somewhere here. Uh, it's it's one of my superpowers.
(10:36):
I don't it's sometimes it's great and sometimes it's not.
But I really I knew that just sending my resume
wasn't going to do it. And I think there are
other ways to do that. Now, if you're trying to
get an internship, that's a little gimmicky to me. Now, Um,
there are other ways to stand out. Um, and you know,
we talked to our women in our program a lot
about how to do that. Well, hey, it works. So
that's all. That's all that you can really jog it
(10:57):
up to. But so you started it with the NFL
obviously as an intern but then you moved up as
the youth football coordinator. But then you left for USA
Football to be the director of Football Development. So what
did those two positions kind of entail and how did
you use them to kind of catapult into your current position.
So I left for USA Football in because the director
(11:21):
of USA Football, Scott how and that gave me a
great opportunity to run NFL Flag and to create girls
and women's programs for USA Football, which is, you know,
that's right in my wheelhouse. So I left to work
for them. And while I was there, not only running
NFL Flag, I created a tackle football program for women
called the Women's World Football Games. And that program was
(11:42):
kind of a field of dreams. One week, every woman
on the in the on the planet, uh, coming to
one field for one week to learn from the best
coaches in the United States. So we had women from Australia,
New Zealand, China, Russia, Japan, you name it. I mean
literally all over the world. There were twenty five countries
in the last year of the program that we're represent
it who just love football and just want to be
(12:02):
a part of it. So the objective of the program
was to connect women from all over the globe so
we can help develop this sport of women's tackle football
that we love so much. And I remember my last
year at USA Football, I was looking around at at
these twenty five countries, I forget how many there hundreds
and hundreds of women at the program, and then I
looked on the sidelines at a sun on a Sunday
(12:23):
watching the NFL and it was just incongruent to me,
and you know, there were so many women who love
this sport, who play the sport, who want to be
a part of it, but have no front door into
the sport. And that's really what led me into my
next position back at the NFL to create the NFL
Women's Forum was building a door for them because the
only thing that was missing was connections to people who
(12:44):
could hire them and that's how the NFL Women's Forum
was born. How do you It's it's tough, right because
how do you kind of open that door for women
without getting overlooked? But also, I feel like in this
day and age, people sometimes think, oh, it's like an
obligation that we do this, and it's not. There's not
(13:06):
real interest there when there is, like you're saying, and
you've seen it with your own eyes, So how do
you kind of balance that and combat that in your
in your current role. So in our first year of
the program in seen there is one head coach, one owner.
You know, it was there wasn't much interest in it,
but there's a lot of interest from the women. And
(13:27):
now fast forward six years later, our seventh year of
the program is starting this month in Indianapolis. I have
during the program it was zoom. Last year. I had
head coaches and gms literally fighting over the participants saying,
do not let so and so get that woman like
she's mine, she's great, bo la, And so you know,
the interest went from what is this you know, is
(13:47):
this window dressing? Is this like not for real? To Wow,
there is this huge talent pool that we're not looking
at and the best head coaches and gms in the
NFL are realizing how anti competitive of it is to
only consider half the population. And so if you're not
considering everyone, there's no way you can argue that you
have the best staff. And I credit Ron Rivera a
(14:09):
lot and Kim Pagoula a lot for really leading the
charge in year one when no one was interested in this,
that those two raised their hands and said, hell, yeah,
we're going to do this. And both their clubs, you know,
have been phenomenal in this space. What are some of
the biggest takeaways that coaches or g ms come out
of the Women's Forum with once they finished the year
(14:29):
or wrapped the year. One of the most interesting anecdotes
I heard from an NFL GM after the program, they
brought in three female scouts, so they had gender equity
on their scouting team. From an internship standpoint, they had
three women three men, and he said the most interesting
thing to him was there was this equality of testosterone,
whereas normally when it's all men, there's this feeling in
(14:51):
the room of like you need to puff your chest
and how manly can you be in blah blah, And
he said when you better reflect society in in the facility,
he said, it actually elevates the men, and it elevates
the women as well, because you know, nothing arguably really
should be like one gender in the workforce, right or
you know, any one gender. And so I really like
(15:11):
that because when you better reflect society, you have a
better culture in your office. So I'm not a big
fan of like what do women bring to the workforce?
You know, it's like it's too nuance. Women are too
different to say what do all women bring? But I
will say when you reflect society with all genders in
a workforce, I've heard from g ms and head coaches
that it just it softens the mood a little bit
(15:32):
and it just allows people to better excel. So bringing
women it actually helps men. That's such an interesting anecdote
because I feel like growing up, I grew up with
two sisters and a brother, but we were all so
competitive and I never felt like kind of on the
outside with guys or women's sports. I just always kind
(15:53):
of felt like an athlete and like a competitor. And
to hear that it actually betters the workforce, like I
never thought, oh I'm special because I'm a woman or
I'm bringing this because I'm a woman, Like, it all
just kind of felt like natural to me. So to
hear that, like it actually makes like a very big
difference in the workplace. That's so incredible, right, And that's
(16:16):
you know, you can generalize and say women bring X,
y Z to the workplace. I'm just not big on
that because it's just it's two. You can't take an
entire gender and say they are like this. So um yeah,
I just I love that analogy. And we just hear
that the players also, they're used to it in college
because in college they have female trainers, they have female
staff members, and they get to the NFL and it's
all dudes, right, and it's just it's it's a little
(16:39):
unnatural for a workforce. So you know, I hear that
women bring, you know, that that balance to the workforce
that a lot of coaches believe are successful. And if
you look at the clubs that have been successful lately,
I mean it's not a coincidence that I think three
of the last Super Bowls, three out of the last
four Super Bowls have had female coaches on the sidelines,
including this one coming up, which is great, and I
(17:01):
don't think that's a coincidence. Yeah, No, I don't think
so either. I think that it really has developed and
it's only going to continue to grow and get better
and make teams better, which is like the most exciting
aspect of it. So I want to get into your
current role being the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
with the NFL. What does your day to day look
(17:21):
like with teams interaction and kind of just what you
do typically? Sure, So I report to our Chief Diversity Officer,
Jonathan being phenomenal leader and brain in this area, and
you know, we have a team of one to three, four, five,
six um and we work together every day to try
to operationalize d e I across the NFL. So whether
(17:42):
that's you know, dealing with the clubs to help them
advance their plans and their efforts or just being you know,
helping hand for them, but also in our league office
as well, trying to progress our league office too. You
know the bar that Commissioner Goodell sets for us, which is,
you know, I've seen him, you know, adamantly tell us
what he expects from the league, and when we let
(18:03):
him down in any way like we've failed and so
that happens quite often, and so i'm i'm I love
that we have a leader that demands this and so
now it's just putting the pieces together to figure out
how to get to where we know we want to be.
So when you see teams like the Jets, and I
know there's plenty of teams across the NFL that are
doing this but expanding a flag football league that they're
(18:25):
helping kind of create and fund and expand from New
York to Long Island to New Jersey, Like, how does
that affect your current role with the NFL and how
does that help your current role? My current role? We
need a bigger pipeline of girls and women who want
to work in this sport. And when I was growing
(18:46):
up and when you were growing up, Carolina, I would
assume many of us didn't really know that this path existed.
And so why representation is so important, why we highlight
their female coaches and our female staff is at Scouts,
is because we young girls in this country to grow
up knowing that they can work here. And so when
you put a ball in their hands, and when you
do it in the way the Jets did, which isn't
(19:07):
just like Hey, we're gonna send you some flag belts
and footballs, which is great, but when you really legitimize
it by I was at your event, you know, last week,
where you created these amazing locker rooms for the girls
with their names on the same plates that the Jets
players get in their uniforms and their gear. It just
legitimizes them and it lets them understand that the NFL
is behind this. It's a real sport. And you know,
(19:28):
the more they play, the more they're likely to want
to be involved in football in many ways as they
grow up. So, you know, especially on the coaching side,
we need more girls getting into coaching, volunteering at their
junior highs or their high schools to learn more about
the sport of tackle football so we can get them
in our pipeline. And so that's how it affects my role.
But personally, the way the reason I love it is
(19:49):
because girls should be able to do whatever boys do
in sports, and they should be able to play the
sport they love, whether they want to work in it
or not, whether they want to do anything more than
just play and allow it to grow their confidence and
you know, get friends and and you know, feel feel
powerful when you're that age. To me, that's why girls
should play flag football, because if if I didn't have
it when I was growing up, I probably wouldn't have
(20:10):
played any sport competitive right. And I remember at the
event that the Jets hosted, you actually said that there
was a really interesting stat about polling high school girls
and saying if you had a flag football versus no sports,
what was that stat The stat was we pulled all
of the girls that we spoke to in Florida who
played high school flag football and in Alaska excuse me,
(20:33):
both states of the girls said that if flag football
was not offered for them, they would be inactive. And
for a young girl growing up, Karen, you could probably
put yourself back in that place. I certainly can. To
rip that away from me would have been to rip
my entire identity away from me. I never would have
landed up at the NFL. I have no idea what
I would have been doing, but it probably wouldn't be
(20:53):
super passionate about it like I am the NFL. And
it just, you know, it robs girls of the opportunity
that boys get, which is to play them popular support
in this country, so but doing it right is something
I'm very passionate about, and that's why I really you know,
that Jets event really touched me because everyone tries to
do the right thing, but really to make them feel
because they are, you know, as amazing as the Jets
(21:15):
players were that day, I kind of saw something change
in the girls on that day where they felt like, Okay,
you know there's a future for this. And you know,
they saw t musa quarterback who was also a Pro
Bowl captain, Nita Crouch who's phenomenal, and they were so
inspired by her, and I just, you know, I really
commend the Jets for not only just supplying equipment and
you know, backing them financially, but really putting their money
(21:36):
where their mouth isn't supporting them in a big way.
It's it's the difference between saying and doing it, obviously,
but like that added aspect of just belief, Like when
you really believe in a cause and believe in someone
and the girls can feel that, it takes it to
a whole different level. Like I know personally, when someone
(21:58):
believes in me, like it's a game changer between what
you think you can do and what you feel like
you can actually achieve. So it totally separates like reality
from a dream for them, which I'm so excited to
see kind of where that goes and how it continues
to expand. But it was, just like you said, you
could really see the change in the girls that day,
(22:20):
which was really sweet. I have one more question for
you before we go, Sam, what is the biggest goal
that you have for the legacy you want to leave behind,
whether it's NFL or girls football, Like, what is that
number one you want to cross off your checklist and
make sure it's kind of your legacy when I retire.
(22:43):
I want women and girls to feel normalized in football
at all levels. So I don't want girls growing up
now to have to answer the question like what do
you mean you play football? Or like that's a guy sport, right,
And for women coaches and scouts and gms and head coaches,
I'm so excited for there to be no more firsts
and for there to be second thirds, fourth fists, and
(23:04):
then really we lose count. Kind of similarly to how
it happened with female doctors. I studied that quite a bit. Right,
No one kind of says like, oh, you're a female doctor.
But in the fifties they did, and so when I retire,
I want I want it to be not a thing.
I want the NFL Women's Forum soon to be obsolete
because I don't want to need it anymore. We kind
of built a side door for women. I want that
(23:25):
side door to you know, be chopped down and they
just get in through the front door. And when I retire,
I hope it's normal and there's just uh, you know, economity.
There's women everywhere. Sam, amazing, Thanks so much for all
of this. It's been an absolute pleasure to like hear
your entire path, but then to also learn so much
about what you're doing for the sport and what it's
(23:47):
going to grow into and continue to grow. So I'm
so excited. Thanks so much. Thanks for having to Caroline.
I appreciate it, of course. I think they
Welcome in to New Yorker. I'm your host, Caroline kender Shot,
and today we have an amazing guest. I know I
say that every week, but this one I truly mean it.
Sam Rappaport joins us. She is the senior director of Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion with the NFL and a former quarterback. Sam,
thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Caroline,
(00:25):
I'm pomped, of course. Okay, so let's first start off
with football and kind of your initial discovery of the
sport and how you really fell in love with it. Yeah,
in Canada, where I grew up, I was so fortunate
that girls touch football existed. And you know, I played
a lot of sports when I was young, and I
felt kind of average at all of them. And then
(00:46):
as soon as a football was put in my hand,
I was able to throw a spiral pretty quickly, and
I was like, man, I love this, and so I
asked my dad to help me find somewhere that I
could play and we looked in the newspaper at that time,
this was way pre Internet, and we found a article
about girls and women's touch football that was existed in
my hometown, Ottawa, Canada, and I joined and it was amazing.
(01:08):
I fell in love with the sport then, and I
hadn't stopped playing until probably like six seven years ago.
So did Canada have like multiple flag football teams for women,
because I feel like that's a big difference between the
States and Canada. When I moved to the US, I
was shocked that opportunities for girls and women exist in
(01:28):
Canada and Mexico, but they didn't really exist in the
United States, the place where football is queen. Right, So
when I was young at the NFL, I actually started
a program to try to get more girls involved in
flag football. But when I was young, I thought it
was normal. And then when I moved here, everyone's like,
what do you mean you played football? And I was
kind of confused with the question because I never was
asked that back home. So you know, the league now,
(01:50):
the NFL is working hard to, you know, get legitimize
girls flag and move away from powder puff, which is
a term I can't stand, uh, to legitimize it because
it's a real sport and it's a using and girls
should be able to play as much as boys should.
Was it offered like through your high school or was
it kind of more so the route of like um,
like an A A U or like a travel soccer
(02:12):
league where it was like separate from school, but it
was still like widely popular. So it was both, which
was amazing. So I played touch football for my high
school all five years. In Canada, we had five years
of high school. Um, so I played all five years
in high school. And then I also played for my
town Ottawa, and we played against other Canadian cities. Um,
(02:32):
you know, we traveled and we would go to other
other provinces to play against each other. So it was
so I got to play both. I got to play
girls touch football in the spring and then in the
fall and in the summer as well, and in the
winter we played indoor, so we really played around around
the year. But yeah, I was able to play for
my town. Wow, that's just so impressive because I feel
(02:52):
like flag football is really starting to get and pick
up a momentum in the States now for girls in
high school and younger. But before that, it was definitely
like not even a thing because I remember growing up
and that was never even an option. It was more
of the typical sports that you see like volleyball or soccer,
but to have it at both levels, that's amazing for
(03:14):
you to have had that your whole childhood. Yeah, I
didn't know anything different. And when I moved here and
I told people I played so many women and girls
like you would say, oh man, if that was offered,
I would have played. Right. Almost everyone honestly says that
to me. And and that is why. Interestingly, girls flag
football was implemented in Florida and Alaska at the high
(03:34):
school level because they surveyed girls at the school and
they said, if we would offer a new sport, what
would be the number one sport you would choose to play,
And resoundingly both states mentioned flag football, and so they
started as a response to Title nine, and now other
states have followed suit. So the demand is there. Girls
want to play. It's just a matter of people offering
the sport in a legitimate way. Because probably when you
(03:57):
were in high school, you know, powder pop I assume
was still around, and that kind of makes a mockery
of our involvement in the sport, which is why I'm
not a big fan, right. I remember we had one
powder puff game in high school and it was always
around homecoming, and it would be like the juniors played
the seniors, and the freshman played the sophomore kind of thing.
(04:17):
And I remember that one game. We were never allowed
to play in it either because my volleyball coach always
thought we were going to get hurt. But I remember
being allowed to play in it my senior year, and
I remember I think I was playing like tight end
or wide receiver, one of the two. And I went
up for a ball and I was taller than everyone
in my high school growing up, but I went up
(04:38):
for a ball and I pulled it down and I
was like, Wow, this is so fun, Like I wish
I could do this more often. And I was so
bummed because it was only once a year. But you're right,
like it it didn't feel legitimate because not only the name,
but just because it was only offered once a year, right,
and that and that doesn't give you an opportunity to
develop and get better. Right, that's just kind of a show.
(04:59):
And so um, you know, it really needs to be
legitimate in schools and give girls the opportunity to play
because football is really ingrained in the fabric of this country.
Everyone if they don't love it, they know about it,
they're involved in it. In some shape or form typically,
So you know, why not give every kid the opportunity
to play that sport and in a legitimate way. I'm
not into making a mockery this spart. Yeah, no, not
(05:21):
at all. Okay, but for you, you played quarterback for
the Canadian women's flag football team and you played for
the Montreal Blitz was which was a tackle team. Now,
how were those opportunities even presented to you? Like? How
did you climb the ladder to get to that and
joined a tackle team after all that time playing flag.
(05:41):
It's interesting because it's not there's no linear path for us.
Right with boys, you play peewee football and then you
go to you know, junior high school, junior high high school,
college for the pros, it's so obvious. Right for us,
you kind of have to create your own path. So
I was playing for Ottawa for a long time and
then they were putting a team together for Team Anada
and the organizer asked me to quarterback the team and
(06:03):
I tried out and got it, which was incredible. This
was a long time ago, and when the Montreal Blitz
were created, I believe it was two thousand. That's when
I started college and they're the owner of the team.
Was walking by my campus, which was McGill University in Montreal,
and she saw me throwing because I played intermural for McGill,
which is why the reason I went to McGill was
(06:23):
because they had intramural girls football, and she kind of
she came out. She emailed me and she said, hey,
would you try out for my tackle team? And I
called my dad and I spoke to my friends, and
I remember being like, listen. It was on an Indian
reservation that was very far away from my campus. I
had no car, had no way to get there. My
schooling was really tough at the time, and I was like,
I don't think I'm gonna do this, and I don't
(06:44):
know anything about tackle football. And then my one of
my best friends at the time said like, get your
ass in the car. I'm gonna drive you there, and
you're going and I'll never forget that. I'm like, fine,
I'll just try it once. And I tried it, and
I loved it. I loved the contact. There's something about
this sisterhood that's created when you know, I hate using
(07:04):
the war analogy, but when you go to battle with
other people physically, it's it's amazing, Like how I feel
about my offensive line to this day. I played like
twenty one years ago, but to this day, I gotta
do anything for them because all they did was trying
to make me look good on every single play. And
so there's definitely this camaraderie that that I got from
tackle that I didn't necessarily feel all the time from
(07:24):
flag because you're really putting your body into it um
and versus flag, which is a little bit more finesse.
First of all, what a good friend to just not
even listen to you and be like, I know what's
best for you, and we're going in the car and
we're leaving, I don't care. Shout out to Nisia Nandy.
She was that friend. She put me in her car
and she took me there. And I kind of credit
her for me working at the NFL because she was
(07:45):
the person who pushed me. Yeah, that's that's truly like
a best friend moment. Okay, but how do you kind
of training So you're saying flag is more finesse, so
you're training for flag, you're training for flag, But then
how do you shift and then go to a completely
different aspect of football and train your body for tackle
after all that time of not having that contact. It
(08:07):
took some time. There. There's a lot of translated, translatable
skills between the two, right, but I really had to
spend time on footwork. My footwork was atrocish and my
atrocis and my coach loved to tell me that, Um,
I really didn't understand, you know, the three five seven
drop because we don't really do that in flag and
so I just kind of kept my footwork the same
for my first season, and when I look at tave,
(08:28):
I'm like, I can't watch it. But I eventually learned.
You know, the footwork, and you learn kind of how
to fall and how to get tackled, which I don't
know if it's a good thing or not, but my
coach told me I was really good at getting tackled, um,
and you kind of I kind of learned as I went.
And I only got to play for two seasons because
I started at the NFL right after, but I miss it.
I love it, And you know, when I think back
on my sports days, it's those two years that I
(08:50):
go back to. So when you decided, Okay, now it's
time to get a job, how did you even begin
to be like, what field do I want to go into?
How to why like even applied to the NFL Because
I feel like when you're a little more naive and younger,
you think, oh, like I can do anything, like why
don't I just go work for the NFL kind of thing,
(09:11):
like it's easy, But it's not easy. So how did
you make that jump? Yeah, so I was speaking to
my sister at the time. I had no idea what
I wanted to do. But I was such a football
nut growing up. I mean, all my teachers in high school,
all my friends knew I was just it defined who
I was. The sport defined who I was. And so
my sister said, you know, if money wasn't a factor,
what would you want to do? And I said, worked
for the Dallas Cowboys because I was a huge Cowboys
(09:33):
fan when I was a little and so she said, well,
let's make it happen, and I kind of laughed, and
I remember where we were when we had this conversation,
and I applied one year for an internship. I didn't
get it, and then I spent my third year in
university literally just trying to figure out how to stand
out because I had no contacts to the NFL. I was,
you know, a young girl from Canada, woman from Canada
(09:55):
that really didn't know anyone. And so I decided to
send a football with my resume to the league office
and I wrote, what other quarterback could accurately deliver a
ball three hundred and eighty six miles? And I sent
it with my resume and it stood out. And interestingly,
Brian McCarthy are one of our heads of PR, recently
told me that he just received a football with their
resume with a QR code for their resume on it.
(10:16):
So maybe it, uh, you know, its resonated with some people,
but you know it stood out. Um, and yeah, twenty
one years later, I'm still here. That's such a good idea.
How did you even come up with that? That's amazing.
I mean, I have a crazy brain, you know. My
wife always says, like everyone's brain is here in minds,
like somewhere here. Uh, it's it's one of my superpowers.
(10:36):
I don't it's sometimes it's great and sometimes it's not.
But I really I knew that just sending my resume
wasn't going to do it. And I think there are
other ways to do that. Now, if you're trying to
get an internship, that's a little gimmicky to me. Now, Um,
there are other ways to stand out. Um, and you know,
we talked to our women in our program a lot
about how to do that. Well, hey, it works. So
that's all. That's all that you can really jog it
(10:57):
up to. But so you started it with the NFL
obviously as an intern but then you moved up as
the youth football coordinator. But then you left for USA
Football to be the director of Football Development. So what
did those two positions kind of entail and how did
you use them to kind of catapult into your current position.
So I left for USA Football in because the director
(11:21):
of USA Football, Scott how and that gave me a
great opportunity to run NFL Flag and to create girls
and women's programs for USA Football, which is, you know,
that's right in my wheelhouse. So I left to work
for them. And while I was there, not only running
NFL Flag, I created a tackle football program for women
called the Women's World Football Games. And that program was
(11:42):
kind of a field of dreams. One week, every woman
on the in the on the planet, uh, coming to
one field for one week to learn from the best
coaches in the United States. So we had women from Australia,
New Zealand, China, Russia, Japan, you name it. I mean
literally all over the world. There were twenty five countries
in the last year of the program that we're represent
it who just love football and just want to be
(12:02):
a part of it. So the objective of the program
was to connect women from all over the globe so
we can help develop this sport of women's tackle football
that we love so much. And I remember my last
year at USA Football, I was looking around at at
these twenty five countries, I forget how many there hundreds
and hundreds of women at the program, and then I
looked on the sidelines at a sun on a Sunday
(12:23):
watching the NFL and it was just incongruent to me,
and you know, there were so many women who love
this sport, who play the sport, who want to be
a part of it, but have no front door into
the sport. And that's really what led me into my
next position back at the NFL to create the NFL
Women's Forum was building a door for them because the
only thing that was missing was connections to people who
(12:44):
could hire them and that's how the NFL Women's Forum
was born. How do you It's it's tough, right because
how do you kind of open that door for women
without getting overlooked? But also, I feel like in this
day and age, people sometimes think, oh, it's like an
obligation that we do this, and it's not. There's not
(13:06):
real interest there when there is, like you're saying, and
you've seen it with your own eyes, So how do
you kind of balance that and combat that in your
in your current role. So in our first year of
the program in seen there is one head coach, one owner.
You know, it was there wasn't much interest in it,
but there's a lot of interest from the women. And
(13:27):
now fast forward six years later, our seventh year of
the program is starting this month in Indianapolis. I have
during the program it was zoom. Last year. I had
head coaches and gms literally fighting over the participants saying,
do not let so and so get that woman like
she's mine, she's great, bo la, And so you know,
the interest went from what is this you know, is
(13:47):
this window dressing? Is this like not for real? To Wow,
there is this huge talent pool that we're not looking
at and the best head coaches and gms in the
NFL are realizing how anti competitive of it is to
only consider half the population. And so if you're not
considering everyone, there's no way you can argue that you
have the best staff. And I credit Ron Rivera a
(14:09):
lot and Kim Pagoula a lot for really leading the
charge in year one when no one was interested in this,
that those two raised their hands and said, hell, yeah,
we're going to do this. And both their clubs, you know,
have been phenomenal in this space. What are some of
the biggest takeaways that coaches or g ms come out
of the Women's Forum with once they finished the year
(14:29):
or wrapped the year. One of the most interesting anecdotes
I heard from an NFL GM after the program, they
brought in three female scouts, so they had gender equity
on their scouting team. From an internship standpoint, they had
three women three men, and he said the most interesting
thing to him was there was this equality of testosterone,
whereas normally when it's all men, there's this feeling in
(14:51):
the room of like you need to puff your chest
and how manly can you be in blah blah, And
he said when you better reflect society in in the facility,
he said, it actually elevates the men, and it elevates
the women as well, because you know, nothing arguably really
should be like one gender in the workforce, right or
you know, any one gender. And so I really like
(15:11):
that because when you better reflect society, you have a
better culture in your office. So I'm not a big
fan of like what do women bring to the workforce?
You know, it's like it's too nuance. Women are too
different to say what do all women bring? But I
will say when you reflect society with all genders in
a workforce, I've heard from g ms and head coaches
that it just it softens the mood a little bit
(15:32):
and it just allows people to better excel. So bringing
women it actually helps men. That's such an interesting anecdote
because I feel like growing up, I grew up with
two sisters and a brother, but we were all so
competitive and I never felt like kind of on the
outside with guys or women's sports. I just always kind
(15:53):
of felt like an athlete and like a competitor. And
to hear that it actually betters the workforce, like I
never thought, oh I'm special because I'm a woman or
I'm bringing this because I'm a woman, Like, it all
just kind of felt like natural to me. So to
hear that, like it actually makes like a very big
difference in the workplace. That's so incredible, right, And that's
(16:16):
you know, you can generalize and say women bring X,
y Z to the workplace. I'm just not big on
that because it's just it's two. You can't take an
entire gender and say they are like this. So um yeah,
I just I love that analogy. And we just hear
that the players also, they're used to it in college
because in college they have female trainers, they have female
staff members, and they get to the NFL and it's
all dudes, right, and it's just it's it's a little
(16:39):
unnatural for a workforce. So you know, I hear that
women bring, you know, that that balance to the workforce
that a lot of coaches believe are successful. And if
you look at the clubs that have been successful lately,
I mean it's not a coincidence that I think three
of the last Super Bowls, three out of the last
four Super Bowls have had female coaches on the sidelines,
including this one coming up, which is great, and I
(17:01):
don't think that's a coincidence. Yeah, No, I don't think
so either. I think that it really has developed and
it's only going to continue to grow and get better
and make teams better, which is like the most exciting
aspect of it. So I want to get into your
current role being the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
with the NFL. What does your day to day look
(17:21):
like with teams interaction and kind of just what you
do typically? Sure, So I report to our Chief Diversity Officer,
Jonathan being phenomenal leader and brain in this area, and
you know, we have a team of one to three, four, five,
six um and we work together every day to try
to operationalize d e I across the NFL. So whether
(17:42):
that's you know, dealing with the clubs to help them
advance their plans and their efforts or just being you know,
helping hand for them, but also in our league office
as well, trying to progress our league office too. You
know the bar that Commissioner Goodell sets for us, which is,
you know, I've seen him, you know, adamantly tell us
what he expects from the league, and when we let
(18:03):
him down in any way like we've failed and so
that happens quite often, and so i'm i'm I love
that we have a leader that demands this and so
now it's just putting the pieces together to figure out
how to get to where we know we want to be.
So when you see teams like the Jets, and I
know there's plenty of teams across the NFL that are
doing this but expanding a flag football league that they're
(18:25):
helping kind of create and fund and expand from New
York to Long Island to New Jersey, Like, how does
that affect your current role with the NFL and how
does that help your current role? My current role? We
need a bigger pipeline of girls and women who want
to work in this sport. And when I was growing
(18:46):
up and when you were growing up, Carolina, I would
assume many of us didn't really know that this path existed.
And so why representation is so important, why we highlight
their female coaches and our female staff is at Scouts,
is because we young girls in this country to grow
up knowing that they can work here. And so when
you put a ball in their hands, and when you
do it in the way the Jets did, which isn't
(19:07):
just like Hey, we're gonna send you some flag belts
and footballs, which is great, but when you really legitimize
it by I was at your event, you know, last week,
where you created these amazing locker rooms for the girls
with their names on the same plates that the Jets
players get in their uniforms and their gear. It just
legitimizes them and it lets them understand that the NFL
is behind this. It's a real sport. And you know,
(19:28):
the more they play, the more they're likely to want
to be involved in football in many ways as they
grow up. So, you know, especially on the coaching side,
we need more girls getting into coaching, volunteering at their
junior highs or their high schools to learn more about
the sport of tackle football so we can get them
in our pipeline. And so that's how it affects my role.
But personally, the way the reason I love it is
(19:49):
because girls should be able to do whatever boys do
in sports, and they should be able to play the
sport they love, whether they want to work in it
or not, whether they want to do anything more than
just play and allow it to grow their confidence and
you know, get friends and and you know, feel feel
powerful when you're that age. To me, that's why girls
should play flag football, because if if I didn't have
it when I was growing up, I probably wouldn't have
(20:10):
played any sport competitive right. And I remember at the
event that the Jets hosted, you actually said that there
was a really interesting stat about polling high school girls
and saying if you had a flag football versus no sports,
what was that stat The stat was we pulled all
of the girls that we spoke to in Florida who
played high school flag football and in Alaska excuse me,
(20:33):
both states of the girls said that if flag football
was not offered for them, they would be inactive. And
for a young girl growing up, Karen, you could probably
put yourself back in that place. I certainly can. To
rip that away from me would have been to rip
my entire identity away from me. I never would have
landed up at the NFL. I have no idea what
I would have been doing, but it probably wouldn't be
(20:53):
super passionate about it like I am the NFL. And
it just, you know, it robs girls of the opportunity
that boys get, which is to play them popular support
in this country, so but doing it right is something
I'm very passionate about, and that's why I really you know,
that Jets event really touched me because everyone tries to
do the right thing, but really to make them feel
because they are, you know, as amazing as the Jets
(21:15):
players were that day, I kind of saw something change
in the girls on that day where they felt like, Okay,
you know there's a future for this. And you know,
they saw t musa quarterback who was also a Pro
Bowl captain, Nita Crouch who's phenomenal, and they were so
inspired by her, and I just, you know, I really
commend the Jets for not only just supplying equipment and
you know, backing them financially, but really putting their money
(21:36):
where their mouth isn't supporting them in a big way.
It's it's the difference between saying and doing it, obviously,
but like that added aspect of just belief, Like when
you really believe in a cause and believe in someone
and the girls can feel that, it takes it to
a whole different level. Like I know personally, when someone
(21:58):
believes in me, like it's a game changer between what
you think you can do and what you feel like
you can actually achieve. So it totally separates like reality
from a dream for them, which I'm so excited to
see kind of where that goes and how it continues
to expand. But it was, just like you said, you
could really see the change in the girls that day,
(22:20):
which was really sweet. I have one more question for
you before we go, Sam, what is the biggest goal
that you have for the legacy you want to leave behind,
whether it's NFL or girls football, Like, what is that
number one you want to cross off your checklist and
make sure it's kind of your legacy when I retire.
(22:43):
I want women and girls to feel normalized in football
at all levels. So I don't want girls growing up
now to have to answer the question like what do
you mean you play football? Or like that's a guy sport, right,
And for women coaches and scouts and gms and head coaches,
I'm so excited for there to be no more firsts
and for there to be second thirds, fourth fists, and
(23:04):
then really we lose count. Kind of similarly to how
it happened with female doctors. I studied that quite a bit. Right,
No one kind of says like, oh, you're a female doctor.
But in the fifties they did, and so when I retire,
I want I want it to be not a thing.
I want the NFL Women's Forum soon to be obsolete
because I don't want to need it anymore. We kind
of built a side door for women. I want that
(23:25):
side door to you know, be chopped down and they
just get in through the front door. And when I retire,
I hope it's normal and there's just uh, you know, economity.
There's women everywhere. Sam, amazing, Thanks so much for all
of this. It's been an absolute pleasure to like hear
your entire path, but then to also learn so much
about what you're doing for the sport and what it's
(23:47):
going to grow into and continue to grow. So I'm
so excited. Thanks so much. Thanks for having to Caroline.
I appreciate it, of course. I think they
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