Speaker 1: Welcome to Playmakers everyone. I am your host, Haley Elwood.
Speaker 1: It is week seven. The Seattle Seahawks are coming it
Speaker 1: down to take on the Los Angeles Charters. But I'm
Speaker 1: so excited because Laura Oakman is on the call. We
Speaker 1: are doing this in person. I've never done this before
Speaker 1: with Playmakers. Yeah, first time. We're in the front yard
Speaker 1: out here at Hope Performance Center, as I like to
Speaker 1: call it, and we'll obviously touch on the game at
Speaker 1: the very end, but with you being here, I just
Speaker 1: wanted this to be a conversation about so much of
Speaker 1: what you embody off the field and in terms of
Speaker 1: your job as well, but in terms of building relationships
Speaker 1: prep Galvanizes. We'll get into all of it. So thank
Speaker 1: you for joining me the whole introduction. While you were
Speaker 1: looking in the camera, I was looking at you smiling
Speaker 1: because I'm like a conversation and camera together together. Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. I'm so excited. Any anytime you
Speaker 1: is meaningful time. So I'm thrilled to be here. It's
Speaker 1: awesome you were here just a couple months ago with Galvinize.
Speaker 1: We'll get into that a little bit later, but I
Speaker 1: want to start with this first because I did get.
Speaker 1: I asked for questions, I got a question. Then involves
Speaker 1: game prep for you, and I think for a lot
Speaker 1: of women in the industry it's something that they're supremely
Speaker 1: interested in. And with this game specifically, though you don't
Speaker 1: have the Chargers a lot, maybe once a season. So
Speaker 1: for you, what does a week look like? It is
Speaker 1: from the second that we leave our last game, which
Speaker 1: for my group of Kevin Coogler, Mark Sanchez, we left
Speaker 1: the Rams on Sunday and you're back in LA. So
Speaker 1: we leave and we get to our plane and everyone's like,
Speaker 1: do you have a glass of wine? Like do you relax?
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, you gotta then open it up and
Speaker 1: go you know who's who's your next team and how
Speaker 1: did they do today? And so from the second that
Speaker 1: you leave your game, you are now all about these
Speaker 1: next two teams. And what we do is every day
Speaker 1: we get clips sent to us every article that's written
Speaker 1: on both teams, which is terrific to be able to
Speaker 1: see what's being written, watch the games, and also lean
Speaker 1: into the relationships. Make sure that I'm reaching out to
Speaker 1: players and coaches who have a relationship with both teams,
Speaker 1: and one just saying yeah, I'm so excited to see you,
Speaker 1: but also starting to ask questions and starting to just
Speaker 1: do all a research. And it's always an interesting thing
Speaker 1: because we get plopped in and you've been following the Chargers,
Speaker 1: and the Chargers fans have been following the Chargers, you know,
Speaker 1: all year, So we come in and we can never
Speaker 1: all of a sudden say things where everyone's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we know this, they talked about it last week and
Speaker 1: the week before. So it's catching up on all the
Speaker 1: teams and making sure that you're continuing the conversation and
Speaker 1: looking back a little bit because the Seahawks fans don't
Speaker 1: necessarily know how the Chargers have been doing, but also
Speaker 1: making sure that Chargers fans don't feel like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing, You're just kind of repeating everything we know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's a great week of really trying to immerse
Speaker 1: yourself in both teams. And by the time Thursday and
Speaker 1: Friday come along, that's when we start doing zoom conversations
Speaker 1: with usually the visiting team these days, and we meet
Speaker 1: with the head coach and the coordinators and players, and
Speaker 1: then Friday we jump into the facility and we get
Speaker 1: to do all of that and go to practice. So
Speaker 1: it's such a fun week of just all of a
Speaker 1: sudden not having two teams in a while and suddenly
Speaker 1: feeling like, oh, I can't wait for Sunday, Like I'm
Speaker 1: so into these storylines and so excited to see everybody again.
Speaker 1: Were you a good student, because I feel like sometimes
Speaker 1: with this job there's so much preparation that for me personally,
Speaker 1: I have to go back to like study habits that
Speaker 1: I had in like high school and college. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: probably like most of us in journalism, at different times
Speaker 1: I was a very good student. At different times I wasn't.
Speaker 1: But my preparation has always been the same. And my
Speaker 1: reoccurring nightmare, I'm sure you have this too, it's constantly.
Speaker 1: Still thirty plus years in this business, I still have
Speaker 1: a dream that wakes me up that I show up
Speaker 1: for an interview and I didn't know what was happening,
Speaker 1: or again and you're like, I don't know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. So I would say that it wouldn't matter
Speaker 1: if I'm doing TV, if I'm doing radio, which I
Speaker 1: also do, my preparation is absolutely the same week to week.
Speaker 1: You had mentioned when it comes to athletes that some
Speaker 1: of the best lessons you've ever learned have come from them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the biggest one? Two? But my earliest one was
Speaker 1: from Charles Barkley and I had reached out to him
Speaker 1: as a young reporter and a young woman figuring it out,
Speaker 1: and he answered the phone before cell phones, but he
Speaker 1: answered his phone and he said, well, well, well, Laura Oakman,
Speaker 1: what do you need? And I was like, Charles, can
Speaker 1: a girl just call and say hello? And he said,
Speaker 1: a girl can you just never do? And he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to give you grief. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: you always call when you need something. And as a
Speaker 1: young woman one that just hit me in the heart
Speaker 1: because who wants to be that person? You know when
Speaker 1: someone looks and it's like, oh yeah, here she goes
Speaker 1: and that's the nature of our business, right like I need,
Speaker 1: I need? But that jarred me very early on to go,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be that as a person, forget
Speaker 1: as a reporter as a person. But I just at
Speaker 1: that age and stage, was like, why else do I
Speaker 1: reach out? I'm not going to say good game, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say how was your weekend? Also, weirdness
Speaker 1: of a young woman reaching out and so navigating that,
Speaker 1: but I immediately went, that's not what I want to do.
Speaker 1: So it completely changed my path to making sure that
Speaker 1: I was constantly reaching out, still constantly reaching out to
Speaker 1: people when I don't need anything. And the other one
Speaker 1: was from Michael Jordan. I covered him playing baseball, and
Speaker 1: when he left to go back to basketball, I also
Speaker 1: got a job in Chicago and started covering him. And
Speaker 1: I used that to my advantage because I was a
Speaker 1: big reason why I was hired. And I kind of
Speaker 1: would do a little sneaky thing after practice when no
Speaker 1: one was around to get a couple questions answered, and
Speaker 1: my bosses were telling me to do it. And the
Speaker 1: third time I did it, he kind of as he
Speaker 1: did a Michael Jordan finger, and I walked over and
Speaker 1: he said, I know this isn't you. I know you
Speaker 1: have bosses that you're trying to impress, and I know
Speaker 1: they know what they're doing. Yeah, so what I'd like
Speaker 1: you to do is go back and tell them just
Speaker 1: because you can go to the well doesn't mean you should,
Speaker 1: and back to building relationships. So he said, I will
Speaker 1: give you one sit down interview a year. You decide
Speaker 1: when choose wisely, but that's it. And so I also
Speaker 1: had to quickly learn, Okay, my bosses don't have my
Speaker 1: best interests, they just want Michael Jordan. I have to
Speaker 1: be the one to have the relationship with Michael, which
Speaker 1: they were already or if they're not getting anything, they're
Speaker 1: not getting anything. So I mean, I could go on
Speaker 1: and on, but those were my first two and they
Speaker 1: completely shaped the way that I viewed relationships and this
Speaker 1: and not just in this business, in this life. The
Speaker 1: Charles Barkley story hits me because I think back to
Speaker 1: my time when I started at the Chargers. I was
Speaker 1: in my mid twenties, but I was part time, so
Speaker 1: I was only coming in a couple of days a week,
Speaker 1: and I got to get to know them, got to
Speaker 1: get to know him. Yeah, exactly. But I'm gonna parley
Speaker 1: the story to even the staff. When we were in
Speaker 1: our building that we were in down in San Diego
Speaker 1: is called South Park. It housed our digital content team,
Speaker 1: a couple other community relations was in there, a couple
Speaker 1: other just sort of people from different departments, so it
Speaker 1: was like a smaller The main building was on the
Speaker 1: other side, and I would constantly just be blinders on, Like, hey,
Speaker 1: if I had to go to the bathroom, just blinders on,
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom, come out, get back to my bullpen.
Speaker 1: And one of our guys who works here, who works
Speaker 1: in operations, we've become so close now and he would
Speaker 1: always tell me, he's like, you were so serious back then,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I didn't know, Like you're funny, like
Speaker 1: you can make joke. He was like, you're so serious.
Speaker 1: And for me, I told him, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just so concerned about doing the wrong thing
Speaker 1: that I thought the right thing to do was to
Speaker 1: blinders on, not worry about anyone else, not make the relationships.
Speaker 1: But then we had a coaching change, and that to me,
Speaker 1: not to mention the move to Los Angeles, but that
Speaker 1: to me was the wake up call of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got to get in with these like I need
Speaker 1: to start lowering my guard because the higher that's up,
Speaker 1: they're not going to respond to that either. And so
Speaker 1: just to have a staff member tell me that was
Speaker 1: like the wake up call and sword of the moment
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, iyah to shift at that point, I
Speaker 1: don't I think every woman watching this, if you're in
Speaker 1: sports or not, And I want to say, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna mail dumb and industry, which one isn't We'll understand this.
Speaker 1: Proving yourself is really hard, really hard, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's this never ending tightness of I gotta prove it.
Speaker 1: I gotta prove I know what I'm talking about. I
Speaker 1: got to prove I'm doing it the right way, gotta
Speaker 1: prove I got to prove can't do the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: You can't do the wrong thing, And so that's just
Speaker 1: its own blinder. And so by doing, you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like if you're if you're in your head,
Speaker 1: I can't make a mistake. I can't make a mistake.
Speaker 1: When you're on the field, of course you're gonna make
Speaker 1: a mistake. And it's the same thing with us. It's
Speaker 1: just we're coached to not do the wrong thing instead
Speaker 1: of what's the right thing I want to do? You know,
Speaker 1: let me open up. It's the beauty of aging. Finally,
Speaker 1: when you prove it to yourself and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you don't have to prove it to anyone, and
Speaker 1: suddenly you're not a reporter and a person. You're not
Speaker 1: you know your job and who you are. It's just
Speaker 1: you become you who does a job, and that for
Speaker 1: me was forty You got that. We always talked about this.
Speaker 1: You got it so much younger than I did, thank God.
Speaker 1: But it's hard. It's hard to be a woman when
Speaker 1: all eyes are on you. And still I've been in
Speaker 1: it thirty plus years and there's still people assigned to
Speaker 1: teams that I hear about that are like see where
Speaker 1: the women are looking in the locker room, see how
Speaker 1: she's dressing. And that's the stuff that I dealt with
Speaker 1: thirty plus years ago that you have dealt with. And
Speaker 1: also the young ones coming in are still so the
Speaker 1: proving isn't going to change. Yeah, it's always going to
Speaker 1: be there. Yeah. What's the biggest lesson that you share
Speaker 1: with not only young women who want to get into
Speaker 1: this industry, but maybe even young men too. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I make sure when I've been talking to players about
Speaker 1: more than anything right now is making sure that you're
Speaker 1: not focusing on there, and make sure you're focusing on here,
Speaker 1: because there's no such thing as it there. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just you keep waiting for it there and it's
Speaker 1: like there is next step. No, it's just you know,
Speaker 1: I can't wait till I get to this. Well, then
Speaker 1: you get there and there's another there and another there,
Speaker 1: and so it's what are you doing right now? So
Speaker 1: lately I've been talking to a lot of players who
Speaker 1: I have relationships with about don't wait till you're finished
Speaker 1: to start going. I want to go into broadcasting. I
Speaker 1: want to go into real estate. I want to go.
Speaker 1: You have the currency right now, You've got you know,
Speaker 1: seven or eight what is it now? But your road games?
Speaker 1: So are you making sure that every time you're on
Speaker 1: the road you're inviting someone that one day you want
Speaker 1: to partner with to come to a game. Are you
Speaker 1: doing your home games? Are you giving them, you know,
Speaker 1: opportunities to go to practice. Are you making sure that
Speaker 1: right now you're using this because if you don't right now,
Speaker 1: while you have currency and you have gold to give,
Speaker 1: you're just another person in line. And I know when
Speaker 1: I started, if you asked days, if you asked a
Speaker 1: play or what you wanted to do, they were like,
Speaker 1: I can't talk about it. I'm here, I'm here, I'm
Speaker 1: focused on football. Cool. You can be focused on football,
Speaker 1: but you also have to be going what do I
Speaker 1: want to do to align myself with the next chapter,
Speaker 1: and probably with the women. It's a little bit of
Speaker 1: the same in terms of I'm gonna use such a
Speaker 1: tired coaching and cliche, but it's the truest thing. It's
Speaker 1: just be where your feet are. It's just there's no there.
Speaker 1: I know you want to get to the next job
Speaker 1: and the next job and the next interview, but you've
Speaker 1: got to focus right here because this is where the
Speaker 1: fun stuff is. I think about all the complaining and
Speaker 1: whining I did in Montgomery and Chattanooga and my two
Speaker 1: first years in the business, and if you sat here
Speaker 1: and made me tell more stories about what I've learned,
Speaker 1: they're all from Montgomery and Chattanooga. So take your time
Speaker 1: and enjoy the moment. Enjoy the here because everyone's in
Speaker 1: such a hurry to get there. And as someone who
Speaker 1: I'm always asked, since you're there, I'm like, but I'm
Speaker 1: not there. I'm still growing, I still have goal, so
Speaker 1: I still have all these cool things that I'm doing
Speaker 1: and I want to do. And thank god I stopped
Speaker 1: the tunnel vision and I started looking a little bit
Speaker 1: bigger and going, who else am I besides this job?
Speaker 1: And how do I take advantage of it while I'm
Speaker 1: still doing this job. So one of the cool things
Speaker 1: that you do is obviously working for the NFL on
Speaker 1: Fox as a sideline reporter. That is a role and
Speaker 1: you and I have had many discussions about this that
Speaker 1: sometimes people think doesn't add value to a broadcast. Some
Speaker 1: broadcasts don't have them on. What did COVID teach you
Speaker 1: maybe about the importance of that role. It taught me
Speaker 1: most importantly, there's no such thing as a football reporter
Speaker 1: or sports reporter. It's really making sure that I really
Speaker 1: hit this hard with the young women. You better be
Speaker 1: a reporter. Yeah, you better know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: and not just the sport you're covering, but in general.
Speaker 1: I mean it's we were standing in empty stadiums and
Speaker 1: you know, in experience moments that we will never god
Speaker 1: willing experience again. So I don't think I ever viewed
Speaker 1: myself during you know, two years in a moat as
Speaker 1: a football reporter. And also it changed every conversation, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't It was very rare that I had a
Speaker 1: conversation with a player or a coach one on one
Speaker 1: and we talked football, because it was just you couldn't
Speaker 1: the world was going on right, So it taught me
Speaker 1: the importance of making sure that they're hiring journalists and
Speaker 1: training these young men and women to be reporters, not
Speaker 1: you know, filling the blank reporter. And also it really
Speaker 1: was a reminder of were eyes and ears down there,
Speaker 1: because suddenly for two years you could hear everything going
Speaker 1: on over there. There wasn't anyone in the stands, so
Speaker 1: for that full season of being like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's like you're literally just hearing every conversation. And it
Speaker 1: really was a great lesson of reminding myself that not
Speaker 1: to count hits, not to think of my value as
Speaker 1: when I'm on television or on the radio. That's part
Speaker 1: of it, but the bigger thing is how am I
Speaker 1: helping this team? And during really weird, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of years, that's where I felt the value. And
Speaker 1: also we were the only ones who's our jobs changed.
Speaker 1: Everybody else stayed in the truck, stayed in the booth,
Speaker 1: but we were doing our job in a whole different way.
Speaker 1: And how cool to be, you know, doing this for
Speaker 1: a really long time and have to completely reimagine how
Speaker 1: you're going to do your work. Going back to I
Speaker 1: have my routine, I do it the same way and
Speaker 1: suddenly like, no, you don't. So I think it was
Speaker 1: a reminder also to trust yourself and to also lean
Speaker 1: into the growth a little bit. How did you build
Speaker 1: relationships with that during that time with maybe some new
Speaker 1: players because for me personally, I wasn't in this building totally.
Speaker 1: And I tell the story of I never met Justin
Speaker 1: Herbert in person until the summer after his rookie season.
Speaker 1: We did a bunch of zooms and all of that,
Speaker 1: But from that point of view, what was that Like,
Speaker 1: I gave up two things for COVID. I gave up
Speaker 1: assholes and I gave small talk. I just didn't have
Speaker 1: time for either one. And that small talk helped everything.
Speaker 1: So it was the zoom interviews making sure that they
Speaker 1: were still meaningful, to make sure that my conversation like
Speaker 1: this didn't change because we were in a box and
Speaker 1: leaning harder into my relationships that I had so to
Speaker 1: be able to reach out to people and sometimes ask
Speaker 1: for things for the game more often than not. But
Speaker 1: also I mean every game I had, I was texting
Speaker 1: anybody that I had a relationship with each team and
Speaker 1: going I'm in a boat here's where I'm allowed to
Speaker 1: be come visit, you know, like say hi. And that's
Speaker 1: probably where I found a lot of joy and realizing
Speaker 1: you know who your friends are, you know, to have
Speaker 1: coaches and players come up pregame and you know, texting
Speaker 1: to go where are you in the moat? So I
Speaker 1: think it was it was making sure that I was
Speaker 1: heating Charles Barkley's advice and reaching out a lot just
Speaker 1: to check in on people, and also just not doing
Speaker 1: the small talk, making sure that every conversation was meaningful,
Speaker 1: which I know is always appreciated, but that year, you know,
Speaker 1: that year was extremely appreciated, and I treated how are
Speaker 1: you like a question. So sometimes I would just someone
Speaker 1: would come to the mode or call and I would
Speaker 1: just start with how are you? And they'd go hanging
Speaker 1: in there, how are you? And I'd be like, hold on,
Speaker 1: how are you? And that was it? Right, That's the
Speaker 1: only and then you kind of close the book. No
Speaker 1: more questions are going to be asked because that just
Speaker 1: kind of went. So I think I think what got
Speaker 1: me through it with the relationships is making sure I
Speaker 1: leaned in on them and I grew them and I
Speaker 1: made sure that they were probably more meaningful and impactful
Speaker 1: than probably ever. So let's get to galvanize because, like
Speaker 1: I said, you were here just a couple months ago.
Speaker 1: And for those who might not be familiar with it,
Speaker 1: what's your quick elevator pitch of what galvanize? I need
Speaker 1: to be better at that because it's, like, you know,
Speaker 1: like three hours later. Galvanize was started because I didn't
Speaker 1: have a woman in sports to lean on when I
Speaker 1: was navigating it all these years. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: woman mentor. I didn't have women friends who were peers,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to create something for all these
Speaker 1: incredible women to help them navigate this this gray there's
Speaker 1: no black and white, as you know, in this business.
Speaker 1: It's gray. And so now you know, it's been over
Speaker 1: a decade and it's every agent stage. Our last cycle,
Speaker 1: we had as young as seventeen, and we had as
Speaker 1: old as fifty, old as fifty two, and just incredible
Speaker 1: women in all over sports. We have women not just
Speaker 1: broadcasters on camera, off camera, agents, HRR, marketing, PR everybody
Speaker 1: and just trying to get a sisterhood in an industry
Speaker 1: that I really didn't feel one. So when you come
Speaker 1: here to NFL team facilities. I know you've worked with
Speaker 1: hockey before who else colleges at the same time. One
Speaker 1: of the things that you do is you pair these
Speaker 1: women up with like the rookie class totally, and the
Speaker 1: Chargers have done it multiple times with you six years around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember we were in San Diego and
Speaker 1: I saw you and your group walking out, and that's
Speaker 1: how I connected with you because I was like, is
Speaker 1: there Oak been doing here? Oh? This is really cool?
Speaker 1: What was the like being back in person for these
Speaker 1: so meaningful? It was so amazing because as much as
Speaker 1: I kept saying to the women and to the players
Speaker 1: when we would bring them in, nothing's going to change
Speaker 1: you guys. You know, we're gonna the same thing we're
Speaker 1: doing in person, we're going to do in a zoom box.
Speaker 1: And then you get in person and go, oh it's different,
Speaker 1: you know. And as you know, we get very emotional,
Speaker 1: and we get extremely vulnerable, and we do a lot
Speaker 1: of exercises with the women and the men up in
Speaker 1: empathy and trust and vulnerability, and we get a lot
Speaker 1: of men who cry, a lot of players who do
Speaker 1: who break down, and so to be able to see
Speaker 1: those moments again and to watch a player reveal something
Speaker 1: he hadn't revealed to his teammates, and watch guys hug
Speaker 1: each other and listen to a room being really quiet.
Speaker 1: You know, on zoom it's muted, so you don't know
Speaker 1: if it's just because everyone's muted or if everyone totally
Speaker 1: and so, you know, I mean the Chargers, Rookie's crushed
Speaker 1: this year to have that silence again and that it
Speaker 1: was really meaningful, impactful silence was really special. And when
Speaker 1: I was leaving, like walking out of here, I was
Speaker 1: walking out and there were a line of guys coming
Speaker 1: up to give me hugs, and you know, and I
Speaker 1: don't get this. I'm not the one on one. I'm
Speaker 1: pairing them up. So for me to be able to
Speaker 1: have those moments and to be able to hug the
Speaker 1: guys and to tell them how wonderful they were and
Speaker 1: to feel like I got to know them was really
Speaker 1: special in person. I missed that for me because I
Speaker 1: get to be in that room. It reminds me of
Speaker 1: like the Hamilton room where it happened kind of song,
Speaker 1: because it's just so it is like it's a moment
Speaker 1: and it's really special and you get to see them
Speaker 1: pair up. In years past, you've had the women interview
Speaker 1: the players, and this year you did something different. You
Speaker 1: had them speak to the player, get to know the player,
Speaker 1: and then you had them share the players who not
Speaker 1: what they do, which I know is your mantra and
Speaker 1: something really important to you. But then at the very
Speaker 1: end you asked if any players wanted to switch. Jamari Salyer,
Speaker 1: who has now stepped in it left tackle for the Chargers,
Speaker 1: was like hand up, ready to go. What did that
Speaker 1: tell you about him? Um? It told me that I'm
Speaker 1: talking to him today. He was the first player that
Speaker 1: I said also just to say how proud I am
Speaker 1: with him, because I feel like a mom to the
Speaker 1: women and to the players when I leave. But boy,
Speaker 1: did it tell me about his empathy. It told me
Speaker 1: about his leadership. It told me about to have a
Speaker 1: young man whose head was like all of them, their
Speaker 1: head is so full by the time we walk in
Speaker 1: and we're the first group after, you know, after months
Speaker 1: of them getting to know each other to kind of
Speaker 1: stop everything and go take a breath and how are you?
Speaker 1: Back to the how are you? And it showed me
Speaker 1: that even with him probably overwhelmed with this new chapter
Speaker 1: in this new life, how engaged and interested he was
Speaker 1: in in other people's stories, and that was a big
Speaker 1: reason why I did the switch. It was one of
Speaker 1: the good things with COVID because we couldn't do the
Speaker 1: interviews virtually. You knew you've seen this for as long
Speaker 1: as we've been doing it here. The interviews were never
Speaker 1: the magic. The magic was the exercise of the chatting,
Speaker 1: and then they would get there in front of a
Speaker 1: camera and the guys would sort of just you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to now say this. So why
Speaker 1: I wanted it to change was because it put the
Speaker 1: pressure on the women because now you got to find
Speaker 1: out all the information and just stand there next to
Speaker 1: your partners, standing up and tell a room of teammates
Speaker 1: something they haven't heard about their teammate. And I liked
Speaker 1: it for both. I liked it for the men because
Speaker 1: they could finally feel like they were sharing something in
Speaker 1: that field the pressure. And boy did I love it
Speaker 1: for our women's storytellers because it is so thirty plus
Speaker 1: years in, I still feel the pressure and the responsibility
Speaker 1: and my shoulders, like you do to get it right
Speaker 1: when you tell someone's story, and I want them to
Speaker 1: feel that in the room, to have to stand up
Speaker 1: with a guy standing there looking at you, here's my heart,
Speaker 1: here's my vulnerability, share it like that's heavy. So I
Speaker 1: loved watching the women crush it, you know, for the
Speaker 1: whole every Bootcamp partnership, and also watching the guys tear
Speaker 1: up and watching their hearts swell having somebody share their
Speaker 1: story was magical. I'm always amazed at the level of
Speaker 1: trust that happens so quickly, because some of the stories
Speaker 1: that you hear are deep and tough, and like you said,
Speaker 1: there are teammates in that room that probably have never
Speaker 1: heard that before, and I think it is just incredible
Speaker 1: to have and I think it you know, sometimes I
Speaker 1: think these younger generations get a bad rap. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying every single person who's maybe gen Z subscribes
Speaker 1: to that notion, but to me, it's it sort of
Speaker 1: restores your faith in humanity a little bit when you
Speaker 1: see that happen. It's almost Also, when I stopped proving
Speaker 1: myself proving myself, I never asked good questions, insightful personal
Speaker 1: questions because I thought that was a girl kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and so I was so hell bent on making sure
Speaker 1: I was asking football questions or whatever sport because it
Speaker 1: prove it. And then once I got comfortable, and my
Speaker 1: sweet spot is the meaningful, purposeful, you know, like who
Speaker 1: not your due? And it helps so much now because
Speaker 1: I can't tell you the last three years how much
Speaker 1: I've gotten to know Aaron Donald. And Aaron went from
Speaker 1: years of having a shield up and I just thought
Speaker 1: he was aloof and intimidating, and so I sort of
Speaker 1: stayed away and then started connecting with Aaron. And the
Speaker 1: last few years, every game I have, he'll go deeper
Speaker 1: and it's always I get to share it on camera
Speaker 1: about him and therapy and him right now. You know,
Speaker 1: I just saw him a couple of weeks ago and
Speaker 1: he's reading a book on masculinity and about how real
Speaker 1: alpha men cry and share their emotion and show vulnerability.
Speaker 1: And for me to be able to stand up there
Speaker 1: in front of rookies and to be able to say,
Speaker 1: let me share some things at Aaron Donald or you know,
Speaker 1: i'd say justin Herbert, but justin Sillin thea He hasn't
Speaker 1: gone there, right like, he's still in there. And we
Speaker 1: had him for Gallupnize, but brand or Locker, you've talked
Speaker 1: about before. It took me years to get that out
Speaker 1: of Brian. So I think, um, it helps as a
Speaker 1: woman because it's taken me so long to figure out
Speaker 1: how to do that and to do that well, and
Speaker 1: then to be at a stage of getting to get
Speaker 1: all these young men, these young gen zers, they crave
Speaker 1: the vulnerability. They these guys crave more than any other
Speaker 1: group I've ever been around in all these decades. They
Speaker 1: crave the who are you? They're not scared of that.
Speaker 1: So it's it's I will forever ever be grateful for
Speaker 1: these conversations. And again, you know I always say this
Speaker 1: to you, but like that's so different than when I'm
Speaker 1: on an airplane. That's no different when I you know,
Speaker 1: when I meet somebody at a party. Um, I just
Speaker 1: was at an event the other night of my husband
Speaker 1: and I didn't know anybody, but I just kept looking
Speaker 1: at this like incredible woman. She was just so beautiful
Speaker 1: but like radiated inside out. And before we left, I
Speaker 1: was like just walked up and was like just like
Speaker 1: room of you know, like great people like you are
Speaker 1: beautiful and she was my age and so it just said,
Speaker 1: I know you hear it all the time, but I
Speaker 1: hope you hear it from women saying how wonderful. And
Speaker 1: she kind of turned me and Mike and was like,
Speaker 1: what do you do? And I was like, no, we're
Speaker 1: not doing that. Like Jeff came here to say like,
Speaker 1: how magnificent you are, and we're out. And so I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that the same things that I'm
Speaker 1: doing every day are the same things we do with
Speaker 1: the players in there, because it's no different. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: super grateful for this conversation. We're gonna end on one
Speaker 1: football question, just overall thoughts on this game. What I'm
Speaker 1: really excited about is we have two teams that are
Speaker 1: really still trying to figure it out, and I think
Speaker 1: both have good records and would say that we still
Speaker 1: have not yet found our identity. And so the Chargers
Speaker 1: coming off a win which felt like a very fortunate win,
Speaker 1: and the Seahawks coming off of their first win where
Speaker 1: they said that's what we're capable of defensively, So both
Speaker 1: sides really feeling, both teams doing the whole let's see
Speaker 1: what we can build off of this. So I know
Speaker 1: I can't wait to be on those sidelines. As the
Speaker 1: momentum always shifts, you know, and seeing that who's really
Speaker 1: going forward and who's and who kind of goes wait
Speaker 1: a second, maybe we aren't who we were hoping we are.
Speaker 1: So I think this should be a really fun one.
Speaker 1: We're looking forward to it. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me out here. Appreciate it any time with you
Speaker 1: and in this environment and the side and the vehicle day.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having