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Winning Big: Sarah Spain's Rules for Success + Not Having Regrets · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: This is pretty smart. Hello. I hope you're having a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: beautiful week. We are on Apple Podcasts New and Noteworthy
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: this week, and I got so many messages from all
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: of you saying congratulations, and really, I just want to
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: say thank you because you all have been rocking with
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: me for years, and if anybody out there is new
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: because of the New and Noteworthy moment, thank you for
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: joining us. I'm so excited to have you here. Now,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: before we jump into today's episode, which is you guys know,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I don't like you know, I don't like the word favorite,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but it's truly one of my favorite conversations in three years.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And before we jump into the episode, I want to
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: remind everybody that if you write a review and you
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: screenshot it and DM it to me or email me
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Danielle at beeprettysmart dot com or at Danielle Robe on Instagram,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: that I'll enter you in the weekly Raffle and I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: choose one person each week to hop on a call
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: with a zoom, and we talk about how I can
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: add to your life, if I can introduce you to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: anybody or brainstorm about your business. I try to use
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: everything I've ever learned from all these amazing guests to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: pour into you. So that's just a quick reminder. Now
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I want to know if you all watched the Olympics
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: this year, because whether you followed every detail or just
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: caught the highlights, something groundbreaking happened and it had nothing
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to do with medals or wins or losses. The twenty
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: twenty five Paris Olympics marked a historic first. The International
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the Committee announced that for the first time ever, they
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: reached gender parity with an equal number of female and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: male competitors. It's huge. I had to reread the headline
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a few times because sure, we know that there's always
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: been gender disparities when it comes to women in sports,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: but this was the Olympics. For context, Paris last hosted
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the Olympics in nineteen twenty four and only four percent
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: of the athletes were women. How did a woman's identity
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: become autonomous with sports? Studies have shown that gender disparities
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: are reinforced by stereotypes, so it seems obvious and maybe
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: a little bit archaic, but it's still happening all the time.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Take what happened at the end of the women's for
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: by one hundred freestyle relay. The Australian team was savoring
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: their gold medal victory, understandably caught up in the moment, right,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: but instead of celebrating their achievement, an Olympic commenter said
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to the television audience, everybody listening and watching, you know
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: what women are like, hanging around doing their makeup. I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: just want to let you know. He was let go
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: from his position and later apologized. But this isn't just
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: about women in sports. It's about women who love sports too,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: women who even like sports, the fans. There's been a
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: historic rise in viewership in women's sports, and our guest today,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Sarah Spain, she's had a front row seat to this
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: evolution for years. He's a sports reporter, an Emmy and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Peabody Award winning journalist, an espnW dot com columnist.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: First of all, you're not raised to believe that you
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: should care about sports, which is how I get to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: my mid twenties before someone suggests I work in sports.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: If I had been a boy growing up and I
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: played three sports, and I was obsessed with the bulls.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: People would have been talking to me about sports all
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the time. Adults would have been asked me about it.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Then there's the idea of the product not being as good,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: but women should like it anyway, even though we're telling
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: them the lack of resources investment, there's no halftime entertainment,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: the stadiums are crappy, but they should care about it,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: even though there's this other product over here that we're
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: telling everybody is better and should it is more deserving.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: We don't have civic investment.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: So are your cities paying for women's stadiums or just
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the men's sports? Are your tax dollars going to support
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the men's teams in your city or the women's too?
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: How about that? We never talk about that.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: She's right, but now we're seeing what some are calling
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: a femenomenon. Earlier this year, Vogue put out an article
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: titled the Rise and Rise of Women's Sports Bar. In
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Portland saw the opening of the sports Bra,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the first sports bar dedicated solely to women's sports. The
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: cheeky name a play on bar, obviously reflects a shift
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in perspective. The owner, Jenny mgwen said, the key is
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: tiny changes make the big difference. The sports Bra made
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: nearly a million dollars in revenue within its first eight
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: months in just this past July California. Well, it's first
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: all women's sports bar with lines wrapping around the block.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And I also think sports at its core is kind
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: of a middle finger to the idea of women having
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: a lane or being only allowed.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: In certain spaces.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: I think society does its best to sort of ingrain
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: in us an idea of what women should be, how
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: they should behave, where they belong, what spaces they.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: Should be in. And once you get into.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: The sports world and you're already defying some of those stereotypes.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: You're not trying to be lady like, you're not trying
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: to look your prettiest during a game.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: You're trying to win.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: You don't have to be nice to everybody because it's
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: not going to get you where you need to be
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: in sports.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Looking beyond sports, where else can we see the tides
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: change if we just shifted how we had been framing
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the conversation, Could that in fact be the real game changer?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Sarah came up in a nearly all male environment, so
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: she's had to ask herself this question a lot. How
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: do you successfully push against expectations in order to be
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: valued as your author authentic self.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about sports and be comfortable in
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: my skin more than anything.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: I want to be funny. I don't want to be
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: sexualized and do it that way.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: But for this business, I have fake hair, I have
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: fake eyelashes.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: I have to like waste half my time.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Thinking about whether my teeth are white enough and what
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: my outfit looks like, and do I look polished enough?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: And I know that I miss out on jobs from
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: not trying and caring enough about that stuff. And that's
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: really stupid, because I have a lot to add in,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: a lot to say, and I'm much more thoughtful and
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: introspective and researched and polished and prepared than so many
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: people who just look great.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: This podcast was founded on this very idea. What if
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: pretty could mean so many other things? You hear me
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: say it in the intro pretty bold, pretty witty, pretty strong,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: pretty smart, pretty anything pretty insert your own adjective. Because
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: what happens when you play the game but you play
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: it by your own rules? Is there a price you
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: pay or in the end do you win? Bit? Okay, Sarah,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I want to start from the beginning, like the very beginning.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Why were you named Sarah? Did your parents name you?
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I actually don't know why they named me that, but
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: they thought I was going to be a boy and
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: wanted me to be a boy, and so they were
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: going to name me Brett and they were all ready
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: and then I came out and they're like, oh, another girl.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I love that they thought you were going to be
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: a boy. Your dad must love that you love sports.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Well, it's funny because my parents wanted a boy. And
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: even back when I was an infant, it was, you know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: very new technology, but you could try to intend to
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: have a certain gender. And so they had my sister
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: and me and they were like, let's try for a boy,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: and it never worked out. And then my sister played
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: women's professional tackle football for two years and is super
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: super into sports.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: And then I did college sports and I work at sports.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: So we're like, we kind of gave you a little
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: of both. But the funny thing is my dad's.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Like not even really into sports, so it was nothing
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: to do with sports. If anything.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: My mom was a two sport, college athlete before title
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: nine and cares a bit more, but truly neither of
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: them really care about sports.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: That's a cool legacy that you're carrying on from her. Yeah,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: so you mentioned you were a former college athlete, and
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: your bio it says athlete hepthally.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: How do you pronounce heptathlete athlete?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Well, during the Olympics is about the only time anyone
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: has any idea of what it is, and.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Even then they still aren't sure all the events.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: But it's seven events, so pentathlon indoors and heptathlon outdoors.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: So heptathlete is long jump, high jump, hurdles, eight hundred,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: two hundred, javelin, and shot put.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Wow impressive, Sarah.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Jack of all trades, master of none is sort of
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: the point. You don't have to be the best at anything,
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: You just have to be good at everything.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Do you remember when journalism and sports journalism became less
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of a hobby and more of a career. How did
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you know this was going to be your thing?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it was very late. So I was a
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: three sport athlete in high school. I got recruited for
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: all three, I got scholarship offers. I did Division one track,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: and not a single human being suggested that I might
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: work in sports. I was obsessed with Michael Jordan and
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: the Bulls. Every birthday, every Christmas. I asked for the
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: books and the vhs at the time and all the stuff,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: and it did not occur to a single human being
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: that I could have a job in sports because there
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: were so few women. So I went to Cornell. I
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: was an English major. I moved out to LA because
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live. I still do.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: That's my dream job.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Still so putting it out in the universe and never
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: too old to dream, as Diana Trossi would say.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Old people can dream too.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: So I came out for comedy and actually took a
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: hosting boot camp class to practice throwing to break and
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: teases and introducing people to the show and interviews. And
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I hosted a fake Chicago Bears show in that class
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: because the TA said, you know what, are you an expert?
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: And everybody was into your design, everybody was trying to
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: get on HGTV, and so she said after class, ah,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: so you want to work in sports? And I was like, oh,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: there's no women in sports, and the ones that are
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: like supermodels on the sidelines. I want to be funny
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: and that's not possible. And she said, well, it just
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: seems really natural. You could look into it. So I
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: took a class at UCLA Extension in TV sports reporting.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I realized it was all the writing and extemporani speaking
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: from my improv and my English and all the other stuff.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: And then I had a background. I've been in sports
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: literally my whole life. So I decided to try it.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: And then once I did, I was like, oh, somebody
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: should have recommended this a long time ago.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Well, as I'm hearing you talk about playing sports almost
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: your whole life, I think about the statistic that I'm
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: sure you know of because it's been going around podcasts
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and the internet. I think over the last year, but
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: ninety four percent of C suite women were college athletes.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of an astounding number. Ninety four percent
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of women in C suites. Yeah, why do you think
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that is? If you had to boil it down to something.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: I think it's at Fortune five hundred companies.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Just to be more specific, it's a stat that we've
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: been talking about for a number of years from Ernst
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: and Young it is something that's so fascinating. When you're
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: in the midst of doing sports and you've been doing
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: it your whole life, you take for granted so many
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: of the things that are an everyday part of it,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: and then as soon as you're removed from it, or
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: as soon as you're around people who have never played,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: it becomes a lot more clear. And actually, through espnW
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: we do something called Campus Conversations where we go around
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: to different colleges and speak to all of their varsity
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: female athletes and help them pinpoint and understand the skills
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: that they're getting out of sports that they should be
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: putting on their resumes in place of those internships that
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: they can't do because they're competing, or jobs that they
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: can't take because they're coaching or training. And being able
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: to actually verbalize and put into wards what you're getting
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: out of it helps you truly understand it. For me,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: it's the most obvious, which is adversity and fighting through
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: loss and failure and going back and trying again. There
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: are so many people that will try something, not be
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: good at it, or not succeed and quit and that's it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: And in sports, it is a constant humbling and losing
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: and getting back up and trying again. There's also an
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: earnestness and a humility of going out in front of
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: people and saying, I am doing my very best and
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: whatever happens, I have to accept. And you're watching me
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: do that, which you don't really think about. But that's
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: a very scary thing to go out in front of
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: people and say I'm trying my very hardest and if
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I don't win, that's it.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: I did my best and I didn't win. I think
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: working with people.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I thought of that one.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: That's interesting.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, working with people you hate or like or have
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: a completely different operating system from, and needing to find
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: that goal that you all share best idea wins. This
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: is how we're getting to the thing we want. Working
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: with leadership that you love or don't love, being a
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: leader amongst the people around you. I mean, it's really endless,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: and I don't think I was aware of.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: How much it shaped me.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: The thing that stood out to me the most being
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: an athlete growing up was I was tall.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: It was already six feet by the time I was twelve.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I was kind of awkward, and it was a way
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: for me to feel very empowered by my height and
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: my body. I also have always had big boobs, and
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I was attracting older men at a young age, even
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: though I was not at all into that yet. I
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: was such a tomboy I didn't even really know what
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: was happening, but it made me very uncomfortable around older men.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: And I think if not for sports, I would have
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: not understood how to be in control and in charge
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: of my own body and that it was something for
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: me to put to work and not something for others
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: to look at.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: And that was super.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Necessary when I was younger and insecure about stuff.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: So yeah, there's just there's a.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Million things, but for me, one of them is I
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: think the confidence that you get from going out there
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: and competing and being in charge when you walk into
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: a c suite, when you walk into a boardroom, that
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: just really affects how you view yourself compared to the
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: other people there.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: And I also think.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Sports sort of of just at its core, is kind
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: of a middle finger to the idea of women having
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: a lane or being only allowed.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: In certain spaces, and so it's very easy.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: So I think society does its best to sort of
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: ingrain in us an idea of what women should be,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: how they should behave, where they belong, what spaces they
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: should be in.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: And once you get into.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: The sports world and you're already defying some of those stereotypes.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: You're not trying to be lady like, you're not trying
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: to look your prettiest during a game.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: You're trying to win.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: You don't have to be nice to everybody because it's
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: not going to get you where you need to be.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: In sports, You've got to try your hardest. You got
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: to want to beat her, not be best friends with her.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Like all these things, even if it's subconscious, you're able
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: to undo some of the things that we grow up
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: with and are taught. And when you get into spaces later,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: whether you're doing it intentionally or not, you've already said no,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: thank you to those ideas of who and what you
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: should be, and that frees you to decide what you
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: do want and how you want to behave. And so
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: for me, that became very intentional. At a certain point
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: when I entered in an all male fields, I had
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: to be aware of like, oh, hold on, here's what
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: they're telling me about why I shouldn't be and how
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I should act. I don't want that, But I didn't
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: realize that I had already been doing that for years
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: and years, just as a result of what sports have
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: helped me sort of unlearned from society.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I feel like my head's exploding. You just unlocked so
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: many things for me in one answer. Oh good, you
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: are so right.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Wow.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I grew up with big boobs and I felt really
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable by older male attention too. That's so fascinating. Well
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: who did you model your career after? If there weren't
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: women in sports, who did you look to?
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: At first? It was Kenny Maine.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: So for people who are not familiar with sports, Kenny
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Maine stood out as this very satirical, dry humor reporter.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: He hosted Sports Center and then he did features called
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: The Main Event and they were almost like straight out
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: of Saturday Night Live, that comedy sports combo that I
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: really wanted to do.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: And then once I.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Got into the business, I would say the two biggest
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: kind of folks that had such an impact on me
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: were Jamel Hill because she was an ESPN colleague. She
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: saw me speak at a conference for ESPN and said,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: why are you not on TV? Like you're amazing at this,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: and I said, I just haven't done enough. They're not
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: willing to take a chance on me. She said, the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: next time I'm out of town or on a break,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: you're hosting my show.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: She had a national show on ESPN, and I was like, okay.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Sure, And like two months later, her producers call me
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: and say, Jamal's on vacation. You're going to come in
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: and fill in for two days live hour national show
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: right off the bat. And I literally did it once.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: And the next day I had a call from Oberman
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: and Sports Center and all these places. They just needed
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: to see me do it. And I call her my
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: fairy career godmother because she saw something in me, and
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: she also wasn't worried about anybody ever taking her spot.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: She was like, lift as you rise, the more women
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I can get in, the more women I can help,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: and like give those opportunities to or the better. So
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: I try to do that all time. And then Dan Labatard,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: who's a radio show host who's programmer I was on
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: a million times, and not only was he a great
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: friend and a great ear and is a really accomplished
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: journalist and host, but he has a way of breaking
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: down the fourth wall in sports media and being honest
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: about how we can't know everything all the time, which
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: is sort of what the fan expects. And so when
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: he'd make a mistake, he would own it, or he
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: would jokingly in the middle of an interview, ask the
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: whole group of people on the show, does anyone know
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: who coaches the Memphis Grizzlies? Literally, can anyone in here
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: right now name the coach of the Memphis And it
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: would just sort of disarm people, because, especially as a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: woman in the business, if you make a mistake, not
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: only do people think you don't belong, but now you've
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: crossed out the whole gender, like you're the reason that
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: no woman should ever work in sports because you misspoke once.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: And so for him to show me how you can
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: do that, it helped me learn that if I make
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: a mistake, don't get defensive, don't freak out, just be like, oh, yeah,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: that's what I meant, or oops, I mess that up, whatever,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: and keep it moving, because you can't be expected to
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: know everything all the time.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I love hearing your story about Jamel Hill. She was
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: on Pretty Smart and was one of my favorite interviews,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and I asked her this question. I actually would love
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to ask you this, because it makes sense that she
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: gravitated towards you. I think you both intertwine politics, socio
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: politics with sports in a way that not many people do.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Is it because that's the lens through which you see
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the world, or is it because you've had to because
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: you're a woman and so you can't disconnect those two things.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: I think both. I think I see the world that
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: way because I'm a woman.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: So I've had those moments of seeing inequities or on fairness,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and I don't want that for anybody else. I also
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: think both my parents are lawyers, and there's this ingrained
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: sense of like digging a little deeper. We didn't fight
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: a lot, they didn't fight a lot, but there was
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: always this idea of like, well, why, what's the truth
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: behind that? It's the logic behind that, was the argument
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: behind that, and like being an intellectual about life and
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: like being very curious and understanding why and how and
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: where and so there's a couple moments that I look
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: back on now that I.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Kind of laugh at.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: In high school, everybody had two freshman sophomore year, take Jim,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: but I was in three sports and band and chorus,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: so because of Jim, I couldn't have a lunch. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I was like, but I'm on three varsity sports, Like,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I don't think I need to be in gym class
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: and then not be able to eat lunch when I
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: have these other things. So I looked up the Illinois
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: state law and I found the reasons for gym class requirements,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: and I petitioned to get to take early bird gym
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: as pass fail so I could only had to take
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: X number to like a fish to get a pass
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: so that I could get back that lunch. And then
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: in college, the Cornell football game coaches petition so that
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the track female athletes would have to change out of
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: whatever we practiced in into official T shirts and shorts
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: to go to the weight room because they said that
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: we were distracting the football players because we were wearing spandex. Meanwhile,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I'm jumping into pits of say and stuff. There's a
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: reason I'm dressed the way I am for my sport.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: I is not my responsibility for your players to focus
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: on their weightlifting.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: So I wrote a giant petition.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Up put it on the wall at the athletic department
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: at Cornell and said sign this if you think it's
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: BS that we should have to change our attire.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: They immediately took it back. They were like, never mind,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: you're right.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: So I'm like noticing these moments of like activism that
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: didn't feel like it at the time. It just felt
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: like that's BS. I'm not doing that. Let me tell
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: you why. You have to explain to me why, and
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: then you know. And so I think there's that, and
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: then you know. I grew up extremely privileged, and my
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: parents worked very hard to make us not be a holes.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: We grew up in a really nice neighborhood of Chicago.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: There was like, you know, the kids would like be
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: driving hummers to class, and I lived by like mister
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: T's kids and all the Bears and you know, Marshall
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Fields kids and whatever, and that could have turned me,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I think, the other direction. But what it did was
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: ultimately make me incredibly aware of how I'd been set
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: up in my life to go to a good high
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: school and have parents who could afford to send me
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: to Cornell when I got in, and have these advantages,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: and so when I look around, it's really important to
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: me to not take those for granted and to instead
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: try to think of like, who isn't in the room
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: that I'm in and.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: What would they be asking for? Demanding? How are things inequitable?
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: How are things unfair?
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: And so it's really just become this through line to
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: me of caring. And also in sports, it can be
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: so ephemeral that if I'm not thinking about the ways
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: it intersects with meaningful life things, it doesn't feel like
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: a good use of my life to spend it just
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: talking about like who had the most home runs. I
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: want it to be about something bigger than that.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you and Jamel are the same in that.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, you co created a video that won
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: a Peabody Award. It was called more Than Mean mea
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: n and you and fellow female sports journalist Julie Decarro
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: sat and listened as men sat across from you and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: read real life tweets that were sent to you. But
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: it's pretty powerful. Actually, our producer started crying when she
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: watched the video. She said, she was pretty emotional. What
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: was the experience like for you sitting there?
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: It was interesting because we'd gotten no direction and we
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: weren't there at the same time, and yet Julie and
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: I reacted the same way, which was like almost like stoicism,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: like just very unemotional about it, like yep mm hmm,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: because we had been hearing those things for literally years,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Like they did not fase me, they do not face me.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: And sometimes I have to remind myself if something escalates
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: to a certain point to not just mute it because
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: I might be in danger. I've had to call the
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: police before, so has Julie for literal threats that said
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I know where your office is, or this is your
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: address and I'm gonna be there, like that kind of thing.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And I think if you get so used to being harassed,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: you kind of you get hardened to it.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: And what that video taught us was not only were
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: we both.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: So hardened to it that we could sit there stoically
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: while the men were the emotional ones, but also as
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: we started to receive the reaction to it, and we
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: started getting calls from NPR and Access, Hollywood and all
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: these celebrities posting it, everyone reacting, the reason it was
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: moving people was because it was the men who were emotional.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: People don't really care about hearing women talk about how
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: poorly they're treated and how unfair things are, but you
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: see some men getting emotionally upset and moved by it,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and you process it differently, and for better or for worse.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: I think that's a big reason why that blew up
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: the way.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: That it did.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: It was a few years ago. Like now discussing it
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: with me, have you had any thoughts or reflections about
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: that experience or any new epiphanies.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: People often ask me if it's changed, and unfortunately no,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I would say the thing that stands out to me
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: the most is right after that, Twitter did try to
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: change some of its policies. It was happening around the
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: same time as some pretty high profile people spoke out
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: about their treatment due to their either ethnicity or otherwise,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: and so they kind of started to try to be
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: more proactive. But that was before Elon Musk bought it,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: and now it's even more of a tirifier than ever before.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I think the thing that I most reflect on is
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: how do you process why people are behaving in that
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: way in a way that feels a little bit second level,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: like your initial response is your feelings are hurt or
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: this person's awful, And instead, to me, thinking about it
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: during that process made me more empathetic than anything else.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: So when someone sends me those things. Yeah, if I'm
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: having a bad day and.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Someone's like, you look really fat in that dress, I'm like, okay, thanks,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I guess to do and hurts my feelings for a second,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: But more often than not, instead my response is it
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: seems like you're going through a tough time, like, I
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: hope things get better for you, because why would you
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: spend your time sending people awful messages? Why would you
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: waste your time? And you go to their timelines and
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: usually that's all they're doing. It's just like sending people
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: awful things. They can't be happy, they can't be satisfied
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: in life if that's what they're doing, and I am,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: and so instead of internalizing it, I tend to, for fun,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: make fun of their spelling and grammar, although that's it
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: because I don't like getting even mean or by sending
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: mean things in response to you not adding anything to
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: the world by being mean to them as well, And
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: then oftentimes I will just write back, hey, I don't
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: think it's normal to spend your time doing this, So
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I think you're probably you know something's going on, and
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I hope it gets better for you. That feels better
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: to me than being mad or letting them have any
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: space in my head for free.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: When I'm out in the world, I like asking people
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the most challenging part of their job or their workday,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: because I think we all move around like not actually
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: knowing what the other person does. I kind of know
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: as a broadcaster, like what the challenges are in your work.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: What I don't know is the sacrifices that you've had
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: to make that a male sports reporter wouldn't have to make,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: or experiences they would never have to have. If I
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: can say it like this, like what price have you
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: had to pay that a male reporter wouldn't.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, for one, lots of sexual harassment, like just
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: straight up, I'm going to kiss you. Here's the kind
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: of sex that we would have. How do you manicure
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: down below? Definitely losing out on jobs because I didn't
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: reciprocate advances, awful comments about my body, uncomfortable, not like
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: actual sexual touching, but like unnecessary touching that you wouldn't
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: be doing with a male colleague at a party or
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: an event.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: I mean that's ubiquitous. Unfortunately.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I try very hard not to have
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: my opinion of men as a whole change as a
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: result of my job. But I have to be honest
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: and saying that I had a much more naive idea
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: of things before getting enough recognition that my mentions and
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: messages are full of strangers and people I don't know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: and getting the kind of disgusting stuff that I get
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: has affected how I feel about men, and I don't
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: want it to, but it does make me think in
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: my mind, what are they thinking in a way that
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I never did before. Like I have posted photos wearing
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: a T shirt with a bunch of little girls at
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: an event, and I'll get disgusting remark about my body
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: even looking and I'm like, it just made me recognize
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: that there's nothing I can do to change what somebody
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: else thinks when they look at me, and that lack
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: of control is deeply upsetting. And that might sound super naive,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: but I don't like that. I don't like that I
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: don't get to decide what I'm projecting out. Ever you're
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: always going to get from me. And I don't know
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: if it's the boobs, because I'm not that much of
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: a looker. I think it's just big boobs like make
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: men weird. But I don't like that feeling. I don't
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: like like when I started in the business, the amount
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: of awful treatment I got because people assumed I didn't know.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: What I was talking about.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I wasn't smart, I wasn't hard working, I wasn't there
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: for the right reasons, just because I was a woman
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: and I looked the way I do. I got rejected
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: out of clubhouses, I got passed on from an editor
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: that said, you can't go do this. At first, I
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: got rejected to go report on something at the Bulls
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: because the PR person said, we've heard how she dresses,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: and I didn't dress in any specific way. I just
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: have this body that I live that people react to
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: a certain way, and it was preventing me from doing
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: the job that I wanted to do.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: And what sucked is that it got in the way
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: of me getting where I wanted to be.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And then when I got there, all the same people
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: were like, Oh, I saw you on Sports Center, that
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: was amazing, or I saw your whatever, I saw you
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: on an Emmy, and I'm like, that's who I always was.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: You didn't think I was because you assumed that I
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: was some dumb bimbo, because that's what you see women
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: as so like all of that, all of that like
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: not believing in me before you even know anything about me,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: based soul in the fact that I'm a woman. And
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: then I think the other main thing is like Jamel
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: and I bond about this, like will we go.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: To something like the Emmys.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: We'll wear the dress and the shoes and the whatever,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: and then we go to the after party and chill
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: changed into a T shirt.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I'll put on flip flops.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I almost like didn't get into Lebron's after party because
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: they have a no flip flop rule at this like
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Hollywood Club, And I was like, come on, my feet
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: are so like we don't want to be dolled up.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: It's nice and fun sometimes, but I'm an athlete.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about sports and be comfortable in
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: my skin more than anything.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: I want to be funny.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be sexualized and viewed that way.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: But for this business, I have fake hair, I have
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: fake eyelashes. I have to like waste half my time
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: thinking about whether my teeth are white enough, and what
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: my outfit looks like and do I look polished enough?
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: And I know that I miss out on jobs from
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: not trying and caring enough about that stuff. And that's
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: really stupid, because I have a lot to add in,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: a lot to say, and I'm much more thoughtful and
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: introspective and researched and polished and prepared than so many
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: people who just look great.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And that's not how it works for men, and that
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: sucks and rant over No, I like how you put it.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's a rant. I think women often
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: feel those things and don't, at least I sometimes don't
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: have the words for it. This sounds so silly, but
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the other day I saw a Harvard student in an
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: a cappella group and she was so effusive and talented
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and incredible on stage, and I reposted it because I
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: was just so moved by this young woman, and I
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: started welling up, and I thought, Okay, it's not the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Whitney Houston song, Like why am I crying?
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: It might be the Whitney Houston song. I cry at
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: most Minnie Houston songs.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It might have been the Whitney Houston song. But it
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: was like a positive, upbeat song. Anyways, I was thinking
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: about who I was when I was nineteen or twenty
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: years old, and how much sexual harassment and bullshit I
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: have dealt with in the last thirteen years since then,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna keep it moving. Type of person. I
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: don't look back. I just look forward. And that moment
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: brought me back for a second, and I was like, Oh,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: there has been so much and every woman feels that
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: way in their industry, regardless of what it is.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Why do you believe those singer made you think that?
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Did she seem just particularly free in her body or
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: joyful or unlike she was not being watched?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: What was it?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Thanks for asking. Yeah, she was totally joyful and unburdened.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: It was like the world had not hit her yet. Yeah,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Like there was no man block when.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I see people who see so embodied that what they're
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: doing is for them only, and if people see it,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: that's fine, but that's not I cannot do that, and
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I have never been able to. I try so hard,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: but I am so burdened by especially at my age.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: I'm in my early forties, living through the era of
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: like the US magazine and in Touch magazines where like
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: the skinniest person was on the cover of like She's fat,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: and how that affected my view of myself so that
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I'm constantly aware of, like can someone see my stomach?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Or what do I look like from this angle?
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Or and I just I'm so envious of people who
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: just get to, like, in whatever shape and size, be
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: free and look so like unencumbered by all that. And
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: it's a lot more people in the next generation, it
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: feels like, which makes me happy for them.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like women in our generation maybe did
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: something right to pass down different hopefully. Yeah. I think
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: we had just had it to be honest, and we're like,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: we're not doing this anymore.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: You said something that I had never heard of. You've
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: described yourself as mental health privileged, which I've heard you
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: credit for your stamina in this tough industry. What does
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: mental health privileged mean?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I have to credit we can do hard things with
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle and her sister Amanda. I
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: listened to every episode and I'm obsessed with them. But
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I love Abby and I always have from sports and
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: I loved Untamed and it was helping me read that
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: helped me kind of start to think more about being intentional,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: about seeing what society is like put inside me that
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I don't agree with that I've internalized and not fixed.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: And so I.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Started listening to their podcast because of that, and then
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: occasionally there'd be an episode that I would start and
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: be like, Oh, I'm not gonna care about this one,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: or this guest is talking about something I'm not into,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: and without fail, by the end, I would learn so
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: much about how other people operate, and I kind of
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: call it operating systems now that like, it's okay if
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: someone has a different operating system than you, how do
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: you figure out.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: To work together? Or what can you learn from the
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: way they do things?
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: And I think, for a really long time, I'm because
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I'm a high achieving person and because I'm that sort
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: of jack of all trades, like I'm pretty good at
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of things, so things come kind of easily
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: and naturally. I gave myself a lot of credit, like, Oh,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: that's because I keep making the right choices and I
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: keep doing the right things, and I keep having a
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: good attitude and I keep being grateful. And I didn't
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: really recognize how much of that was a frickin blessing
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: that I had nothing to do with. I just got
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: the benefit of not having anxiety, not having depression, having
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: the world's greatest parents, like the fact that if I
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: went to therapy and they'd ask about my parents, I
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: would have nothing to complain about. I think might be
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: like the rarest thing in the universe. Right, Everyone's got
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: something that their parents did to them, and I'm like, no,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: they're the best. So I think listening to that podcast
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: and hearing how so many people have battled through things
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: either done to them or traumas, or we're just handed
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: a brain that works differently, it not only made me
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: more empathetic and want to be a kinder, nicer person
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: in the room around people who I'm different operating systems,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: but also to recognize that what they bring into a
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: room might be very very valuable and expressed differently than
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: what I do, and that I need to figure out
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: how to get it out of them if they're not
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: going to show up with as much ease and confidence
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: as I do, because that's very valuable too, and those
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: people have something to add and they need to be
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: heard from somehow. If the people like me or the
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: ones always raising their hand like I got another thing
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: to say and oh, let me add something else, and
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: understanding that that was a privilege and not patting myself
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: on the back for it has made me so much
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: more understanding of other people, and it's also made me
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: a million times happier.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: And I tell people this a lot.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: The story that you get to tell about what's going
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: on around you doesn't just affect like the other person,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: but you two. If someone cuts me off and they're
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: speeding and driving like a maniac.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: I can either be like, what an a hole? Oh
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: my god? Oh?
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Or I could be like, man, I hope they get
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: where they're going. I've probably been there before, you know,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: must be serious. Then I'm not mad at them. My
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: day continues on. If someone's really rude in a store, man,
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: I really hope whatever happened to them before they got
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: to the store is okay. Maybe somebody died, maybe someone's sick,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: maybe they got fired, maybe they can't pay their bills.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry that that manifested to that store clerk that way,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: but I hope.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Things get better.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep it moving, and you can tell yourself
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: stories about people all day that will make not only
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: you happier and kinder and more empathetic to them, but
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: just like you're gonna move forward with different energy than
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: if you let everyone piss you off because you think
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: they're being a jerk for no reason, it's probably a
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: good reason, even if it's twenty five years ago that
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: they turned out like that. And I'm just grateful that
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I'm not saddled with that. And also for this industry,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: I'm a relatively decent looking, straight white woman with no disabilities,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: no mental health issues, none of the other stuff, So
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: I can take it. You throw whatever you want at me.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Every once in a while, have my feelings hurt, but
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: most of the time I'm gonna keep it straight and
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: power right through it. So I feel the responsibility is
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: on me to help speak up for and carry the
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: load for people who do have those other things that
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: they're saddled with, because they're trying to show up to
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: those same fights and it's a lot harder for them.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: So like, if I just take my privilege and enjoy
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: it and I don't use it, that's not cool in
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: my opinion.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you have a new daily podcast called Good Game.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: It's a one stop shop for all things women's sports.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: I totally understand why you are hosting it. First of all,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the daily show is not easy and also I'm so
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: curious how it got named. What does Good Game mean
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: to you?
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: So the name I initially wanted was The Good Place.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: It's obviously a show that exists that I love, and
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: I actually know Mike Sure who created it, So you know,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I could have reached out and asked for the ability
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: to use it, but it wouldn't have been great for searching.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: You would have constantly come up with the TV show
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: instead of Hours. But the reason I wanted to name
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: it the Good Place is because that's genuinely how I
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: feel about going to women's sporting events and major like
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: All Star Weekend and things like that.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: It's the Good Place.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: It's all the stuff that you love about sports, minus
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: the toxic masculinity and the fights. Really, Angel City Soccer game,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: not only are you this beautiful soccer stadium and everyone's
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: like competitive and they want their team to win, but
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: they're also like nice and supportive and kind. But afterwards
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: they turn one of the tiers into a bar for
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: after game, and everyone at the game goes and like
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: drinks and hangs out together. So all the people in
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: the stadium that you're like, I think I want to
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: hang out with these people. You do and you can.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: And they're white, black, young, old, queer, straight kids, whatever.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: It's everybody, and it's just a vibe. You can't really
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: describe it. You have to go to see what it's like.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: And then like the WNBA All Star Weekend was here
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: in Chicago, and I was going to these parties and
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: they're in the same spaces that I go to for
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: other events, and they're ostensibly the same. There's a big sponsor,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: there's an open bar, there's free food being passed, everyone's
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: dressed up fancy. But to go to one of those,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: compared to going to a super Bowl party or an
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: NBA All Star party, the vibe is completely different.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And that's find it's so much more welcoming.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I'm always like there's probably a couple of
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: a holes that's stuck in here that are like someone's
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: agent and they're like mah. But for the most part,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I probably would want to hang out with like all
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: the people in here, and so I want to enable
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: the good place. And then we were kind of riffing
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: off of that when we moved away, and I thought
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: about at the end of a game, when you say
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: good game, good game, good game, and how that vibe
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: also feels like it's imbued in women's sports, like I
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: don't I kind of it's not as simplistic as like
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: I hope everyone has fun, but there are way fewer
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: players I root against or teams I hate. It's like
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: I kind of love everyone in the space and want
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: them all to thrive.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: And then also it leaves.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Room for if you're an athlete, you know there's always
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: at the end of the game, good game, good game,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: FU good game. There's like one person on the other
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: team that you don't want to wish a good game too,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: because you've been scraping the whole time and you hate them.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: So it leaves room for.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Us to call out the occasional person who does this
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: wrong in that section too.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I love that I am. I started covering women's sports
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: i'd say like five years ago with AT and T
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: and Direct TV, and I would get to these arenas
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: or these parties and every everyone was so nice. And
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I came from the world of entertainment and I thought
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: they were being I was like, there's no way these
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: people are this nice, Like I'm the new girl. Everyone's
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: being cool, And I realized that most of these people,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: whether they were players or reporters or influencers or fans,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: had played women's sports, played team sports. And when you
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: had played a team sport, you didn't look at me
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: as the new girl, as your competition the way people
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: in entertainment did. They looked at me as like, oh,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you're part of the team, Come sit down. It was
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I thought to myself at that moment, I hope I
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: have kids one day and they are for sure going
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to be in sports.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: Yes, what a difference, Yes, that's totally it.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: And also, like female athletes have to do everything in
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: addition to being great athletes, because you are not being
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: enabled and impoldened your whole life by a posse of
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: people that are like trying to make millions off you,
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: and you aren't guaranteed a professional contract and all the
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: other things. So you have to be the greatest in
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: your sport at what you do and go to school,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: get your degree, help sell tickets, be a good marketer,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: be friendly to sign autographs. Like they just are these wonderful,
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: well rounded people, and so you could be standing next
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: to and I find that even with like I now,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: I am friends with a lot of people who are
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: like presidents of WNBA teams, and sometimes I'll be sitting
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: having drinks with them and I'll be like, I keep
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: forgetting how powerful you are, because when I meet presidents
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: of men's teams, they feel so stiff and I'm in
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: charge and I, oh, somebody get me something and do that.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: And with the women, it's just like these badass, hard
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: working got where they want to lift everyone along with them.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: I can sit and have a beer with me vibe.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: It's just it's really joyful, and I'm glad so many
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: people are discovering it because people have been missing out.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Well. Some people are attributing the growth to rising stars
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: like Kitlin Clark or Coco Goff. I read a Nielsen
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: report that suggests it's due to like growing investments by
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: brands and sponsors and media. What do you think it is?
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: It's those for sure.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: For a long time, people would not put much investment
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: in and the value of both the product and the
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: experience of going was so less than the Men's that
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: you were telling your fans sort of subconsciously, this isn't
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: really worth much. And people don't know why they turned
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: something off or switched to something or buy a ticket.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: All the time, we like to when we're doing marketing
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: or campaigns, pretend like they're thinking about every moment, but
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: sometimes they're just watching something and they lose interest, or
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: they go to something and then they don't go again.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: A lot of that is what was that experience, like,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: how did it compare to other options you have? And
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: for a long time, there was so little investment in
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: women's that it just wasn't the same.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: It wasn't the product was bad like the athletes.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: It was that everything else around it signaled to the
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: user that it wasn't worth much. So that's huge to me.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: The biggest thing. The biggest thing has been societal shifts
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: toward people's ability to be themselves authentically and honestly. And
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: there used to be tremendous homophobia and misogyny around women's sports.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: It was presentation. It was either we.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Were sexualizing them all the time or we were infantilizing them.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: It was your little girl all grown up. So they
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: either had to be the perfect role model and never
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: do anything wrong, or we had to make them really,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: really sexualized. And that didn't always work for players who
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: were more masculine presenting or outwardly gay. It didn't always
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: work for sports where you tend to be bigger, stronger,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: or predominantly people of color. In those sports, they weren't
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: palatable for society's expectations of women. That's why we supported
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: things like tennis or soccer. Oh it's a bunch of
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: white girls next door.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Oh we love them, I mean right with their ponytails
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: swinging exactly.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: But women's basketball, Oh, they're black, and they're gay, and
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: they're big and all these things, all these isms that
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: intersect with women's sports that even if you wanted to
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: ignore them, you couldn't possibly, because just being alive is
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: a political statement as a woman.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Now, if you.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Think about bodily autonomy in equal rights and equal pay
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: and everything else, then add on to that a layer
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: of being a black woman. Then add on to that
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: a layer of being an LGBTQIA plus woman. Your life
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: and everything you do is intersected by all these things.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: So what happened is over the last even like fifteen years,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: people can be gay, people can be masculine presenting, people
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: can be very feminine.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: Female athletes can be a villain or a hero, or.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Funny or smart, and social media allowed us to see
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: that in them and when they were authentically and transparently
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: themselves presenting themselves as opposed to just the snapshots we
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: would see from advertisers, we liked them more and we
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: wanted them to be whoever they were honestly, and.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: We were drawn to them. That's the other thing.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: All the gatekeepers, radio, radio program directors, newspaper editors, TV
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: program directors were the ones deciding at every turn what
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: the thirty minute sports at the end of the news
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: was or the sports center highlights were. And they got
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: to decide every time what do people want, and every time,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: predominantly middle aged white men said, people want men's sports.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: And then the Internet opened up and the gatekeepers can't
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: prevent individual creators from creating content around things that they're
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: passionate about. Thousands of people flock to those things and say,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: we want more of this, we want more women's sports,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: we want more basketball, we want more soccer, we want
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: more or whatever, and those gatekeepers now have to reflect
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: on how they're making their decisions, and they're starting to
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: create space for people at Caitlin Clark for sports that
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: aren't as well known. So you add all of that
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: together and it's like we've been building a bonfire for
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: decades with sticks and then Kitlin Clark's just a match,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: so she's amazing, But that match doesn't start a fire
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: unless you have this incredible thing that's already been built
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: and all those little pieces come together. But for me,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: the one that's the least talked about is how much
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: the well of the product being poisoned happened before you
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: ever watched it, because people would say, two manly women
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: shouldn't play sports. They need to look prettier, their skirts
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: should be shorter, all those things. Before you even got
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: a chance to like it, you are already being told
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: it wasn't what you should want. And now that's not
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: the case anymore. And that just lets people watch it
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: and be like, hey, this is awesome. I like this,
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: this is very cool.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Wow. We have started to reframe the identity of a
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: female athlete by just taking the frame away.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've just allowed everybody, not just females and not
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: just athletes. You can be non binary, you can be masculine,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: feminine like that in general in society. Just lets us
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: see who people are truly, and that's much more endearing,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: that's much more like lovable and interesting.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: There was this comedian. I want to say it's Bilbura,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: but I'm not sure who made a joke about how
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: as a society we keep telling men to watch women's
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: sports when women are watching Real Housewives. And he's like,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: tell women to watch women's sports. And the joke always
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: pissed me off, but there was like a kernel of
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: truth to it that also pissed me off. It was like, yeah,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: we need to be watching women's sports, but as a whole,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: we're not as collectively interested. And now that I'm hearing
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: you share this perspective, I'm like, oh, yeah, we weren't
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: collectively interested because we were told not to be.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: First of all, you're not raised to believe that you
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: should care.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: About sports, which is how I get to my mid
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: twenties before someone suggests I work in sports, despite being
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: like the poster child for someone who should have been
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: doing it all along. We're told not to care about it.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: We're not fostered in our interest in it. Right, If
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: I had been a boy growing up and I played
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: three sports and I was obsessed with the Bulls, people
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: would have been talking to me about sports all the time.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Adults would have been asked me about it. No then
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: there's the idea of the product not being as good,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: but women should like it anyway, even though we're telling
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: them via the lack of resources investment. There's no halftime entertainment,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: the stadiums are crappy, but they should care about it,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: even though there's this other product over here that we're
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: telling everybody is better and should it is more deserving.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: We don't have civic investment. So are your cities paying
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: for women's stay us just the men's sports? Are your
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: tax dollars going to support the men's teams in your
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: city or the women's too?
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: How about that?
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: We never talk about that. There's intentionality behind it. For
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: seventy years, British women were banned from playing professional soccer.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: And now that the numbers are going in thousands and
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: ninety thousand, people are going to the stadiums and you're like, oh,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: they're just figuring it out. No, you, for seventy years
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: you were intentional about not letting them play. And when
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: you do that, that doesn't just affect the women playing,
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: but the women watching and viewing and understanding where they
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: belong and what they should be interested in. There's a
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: million like that. Bilt b don't get me started on that.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: But the kernel of truth is that there is still
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: a slightly higher percentage of men watching women's sports than
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: women watching women's sports, although that demographic is very vastly changing. Yeah,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: but that's because men from birth are handed a ball
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: and told this is what you do, and women are
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: told that's not lady like, that's not for you. We
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: don't have the resources for that. Oh sorry, we don't
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: have a field, so only the boys are going to play. Like. Yeah,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: to ignore all the context that gets us to now
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: is to be intentionally up to. So it's the same
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: reasoning that got us to the product isn't good enough.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: That's why no one watches even though we had no
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: access to watch the games. There was no coverage, The
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: media didn't tell us about it, and yet somehow we're
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: supposed to know and care about.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Something we can't even see.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I was a really good swimmer and
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: I was told one, don't pursue it, and then also
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: definitely don't play water polo because your body won't look
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: the way you want it to, and it's just yep, yeah,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the world is changing, Thank god, Sarah, are you willing
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: to talk about trans athletes and sports.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I'm really curious about your opinion on this, especially in
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the wake of the Olympics and the whole false conversation
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: about the boxer that the female boxer being born male
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: in Algeria. I interviewed doctor Stacy Simms, who's an environmental
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: exercise physiologist, about a year and a half ago, and
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: I asked her about her thoughts on trans athletes and
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: she said, we have to ask ourselves what do sports mean?
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: What do they mean to us? Which I thought was interesting,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: But as the world progresses, I find myself feeling more
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: complicated about the topic. How do you think about it?
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: I actually just had a guest on my podcast, Rose
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Evelyth that has an amazing NPR podcast called Tested from
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: the CBC and NPR about DSD athletes, primarily in track
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: and field. So DSD athletes are differences in sex developments
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: also used to sort of be called intersex, but those
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: are now different things. And the boxers and the Olympics
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: this year, the two boxers, what is being alleged that
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: they might have differences in sex developments, not that they're trans,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: but that they might develop differently chromosomally and anyway, long
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: story short, the IOC assured us that they were allowed
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: to compete and done everything that they needed to compete,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: and that's all you can do, right. Whatever the rules
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: are is what you have to follow. But people not
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: understanding the differences between things like that and trans is
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: part of the problem because the hysteria around trans participation
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: stems so much from ignorance, and so for me at
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: the youth level, it is a absolute no brainer. The
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: only goal is inclusion. The only goal is inclusion. When
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: you get into higher levels of like I say, Olympic competition,
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: the science is still trying to catch up on the
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: advantages of testosterone and on the advantages of pre pubescent
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: versus post pubescent development for males and females.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: So I am constantly going to rely on science telling
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: me quote unquote what's fair, while also balancing that with
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: who and what are we protecting.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: If you look at those boxers, the people will argue
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: that they're protecting women's sports, But those are two women
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: that you did not protect and that you did not
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: care for. And particularly as we're learning more and more
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: about sex not being binary and in fact it not
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: being as simple as X, Y and xx, but they're
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: being a spectrum, and that if you were to test
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: an average bunch of people, many of them would discover
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: completely unbeknownst to them, that they have chromosomal differences, that
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: they are DSD, that they are potentially intersex. There are
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: stories of a man in his seventies who had three
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: kids and went in for hernia surgery and he had
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: a womb. There was a woman who was having her
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: third child went in to get the baby tested and
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: they found that she had probably had a twins embryo
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: that joined when she was born, and so she had
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: both male and female chromosomes. She'd been woman her whole
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: life and had kids and everything else. It's much more
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: common than people realize. And so when we try to
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: take a binary of male and female and apply it
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: to human beings who are not in fact binary, we
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: get a little bit stuck, and they're inter secting topics,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: but they're not the same. So what we ultimately have
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: to decide is, to the point of the person that
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: you had on before, what does our goal with sports
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: and at the youth levels, at the high school level,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: to me, it's participation, inclusion, teamwork, lessons, all the things
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: that I told you off the top of the pod
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: that I learned as.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: A result of being an athlete.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: And then when you get into professional and Olympic that's
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: where I think there need to be set rules. You
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: decide on them and then you stick with them. One
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: of my good friends is Chris Mojori's a transman. He's
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: an incredible triathlete. He doesn't get any shit because he's
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: a transman, and nobody believes that someone assign a female
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: at birth could compete as a transman. But he does
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: all the time, and no one cares because it's not
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: really about trans participation. It's about misogyny and the idea
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: that there's a cap on women's achievement. When men do
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: something great, we just expand the record books and we
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: call them freaks of nature and we laud them for
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: the men any ways that they are super different than
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: us in ways that are heralded and praised. And when
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: women get too good at things, we call them men.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: When they get too fast, it's a man. When they
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: get too strong, it's a man. When they get too good,
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: it's a man, and they're not. It's just the way
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: that we consistently try to cap women's accomplishments.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: And so that's those are the questions.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: And I don't think I've heard the perfect answer, but
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: for me, starting by airing on the side of care
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: and inclusion and following real science is the best way
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: to try to approach it, as we know continue to evolve,
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: and also for people to stick with the facts and.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: Remember that they're human beings.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: There was a law passed in a state that had
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: one transgender girl and they passed an entire law in
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: the state to keep her from being on the bench
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: of a softball team that she didn't even get into
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: games for. And that's a little girl whose life is
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: forever changed. So that you could prove a point about
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: protecting women, who did you protect their absolutely no one
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: except for to hurt that girl and to tell and send.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: A message to people that they're not included.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: What life lesson has sports taught you? I'm like all
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: of them, I'll tell you mine. I always think about
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: this quote that what lies within determines what lies ahead,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and sports taught me that that, like everything I need
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: is inside of me. And it's like it's a mental game.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: It's mental toughness. Did you have anything that a coach
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: would say to you?
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: I think for me, I guess without realizing it until
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: this very moment, my feeling.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: Of gratitude toward life is very natural.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: I have always been someone who looks around I'm like,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: oh my god, we get dogs and sunsets and music
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: and mountains and you know what I mean, Like, I'm
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: that corny person. I didn't drink till I was like
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: a junior in college because I was like, why would
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: we need to drink?
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Everything is amazing. We get all the things.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: And I think that that is related to sports in
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: the sense of if you do your best and you
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: put in the work and you try your hardest and
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: you don't get what you want, that's all you can do.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: That's all you can do is try your hardest, work
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: your hardest, do your best, and what's meant for you
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: will happen. I don't say that in a religious sense.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: I don't even necessarily say it in a mystical sense.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's meant for me, what that means,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: or who's deciding that. But it's a way of life
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: for me where if there's a job I want and
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: I don't get it. I am not sitting around crying
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: about it. If there's a meat I had that I
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: wanted to win and I didn't, I was sad and
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: then I kept it moving. And so for me, sports
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: is a constant humbling and then uplifting and then humbling.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: You win and you're the best, and then you lose
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: and then you're not.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: And that hard work that you put in is usually
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: what you see come out on the other side, and
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's not going to be enough.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: And that's life.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: Like the idea that the world is out to get
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: you because you did your best and still didn't get
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: what you want, where does that get you? Or the
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: idea that if you work your hardest you'll always win,
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: that's not real life. You're setting yourself up for disappointment.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: So for me, it's just sort of like leave it
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: all out there, Like as long as you could say
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: I left it all out there, I did my best,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: I tried my hardest, then you can have no regrets
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: in what the result is. And that's like sort of
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: my life is like just like grab life by the
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: balls and do every single thing all the time, which
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: is why I suck it. Relaxing but that way when
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: I die, I'm like.
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: Did it nothing to regret?
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: It?
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Got it all in, You left it all out there
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: on the field. Can we do a few rapid fire questions? Yeah, okay,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: this is tough. Favorite sport to watch?
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, come on, that's mean.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: How about like one that you find and most enjoyable?
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: That's really meaning?
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: I can't do it, so right now, I'm just gonna
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: stay tied for basketball and soccer and football.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: Favorite sport to play basketball. Best part of being in
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: a Oh.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: You can buy whatever you want almost all the time.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: I love a prior podcast episode that you did titled
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: be Who You needed when you were a kid? Who
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: or what did you need as a kid that you became?
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: I needed a completely unapologetic, unf withable, fearless, tall, sarcastic,
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: confident woman who seemed like she didn't give any f's
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: whatsoever about what the world or the spaces she went
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: into thought.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Of her, and then you became her. Hopefully best sports
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: film or documentary of all time?
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, the Last Dance about my boyfriend Michael Jordan.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Oh really, that is not what I thought you were
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: going to say. Yeah, okay, is there a book that
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: you've read something that really change your life or impacted
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: you well.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: I mentioned Untamed, and I was talking to some twenty
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: year old girls and I told them that they needed
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: to read it, and I said, I really wish that
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: I had read a book like this when I was twenty,
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: because the way that it made me think about what
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: had been put in my head and what I believed
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: without choosing to believe it or even thinking about it
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: was so important. And it actually made me think of
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: like podcast ideas and conference ideas and ways to try.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: To get to women when they're younger and get them.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Passed that idea, particularly of the patriarchy and pleasing men
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: and aligning with the proximity of power to men and
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: instead realizing the power of aligning with women and lifting
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: with women instead of trying to please men in power positions.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: I think we could shift a lot of the power
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: dynamics in this country and at companies. But you have
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: to get to the women younger. It's all the people
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: my age that are like, oh, we get it now,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: like this is BS. But when I was in my twenties,
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: I was very much still thinking always about pleasing men,
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: like making men respect me, making men think I was
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: good at one, like because all the spaces I was in,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: that was who was making all the decisions.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Yep, me too, Sarah. Okay, I do a pretty smart question. Okay,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: you let me know when to stop.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: Stop.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, what lesson has taken you the longest to learn? Who?
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: I'm still working on being a gracious loser?
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: So if that is it?
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: What even is a gracious loser?
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: If you mean one we've learned, I'm still not there.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: It's embarrassing to me how much I can't lose things
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: without being an a hole.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: I'm working on it.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: I'm very competitive, like problematically competitive, and it's not really
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: useful so much the way it used to be, Like
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: don't have a good excuse for it anymore.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: It's not like getting me anywhere. That I'm like an
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: angle in every competition.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: And then the other one I would say that I
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: actually have learned, was that my way, even though it's
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: been very successful for me, that doesn't mean it's the
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: right way.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: That there isn't one right way.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: And also that I owe so much of my happiness
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: and success to my mental health, my family, the things
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: that I haven't had to be burdened with and Yeah,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: I'm just like, I feel like I'm a much better
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: person now that I recognize that. I would just like
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: to say I wasn't a jerk about it before. I
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: wasn't like everyone listened to me. I knew everything, but
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: I did sort of always very flippantly be like, well,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: why do they make that choice?
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: Or why do they do that?
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Or why would you ever want to like try heroin
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: or why would anyone do I just didn't understand that
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: people were saddled with these things and that it felt
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: better to escape or to numb, or to make bad
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: choices or to have risky behavior.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: That it was a result of things. It wasn't just
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: them being more on or like making a bad choice.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: And anyway, I just want to put that out there
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: because I'm making it sound like before I was around
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: like I'm a queen.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: Follow me.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think so at all. I think you
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: sound like you just have a lot of empathy and gratitude. Yeah,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: the smartest decision you've ever made.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: When I was about twenty seven and I wasn't making
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of money and I started I was starting
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: to get more job offers in this business, I decided
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: that going forward. I would always ask myself before every job,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: will this make me happier?
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Or will it just make me more famous and have
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: more money?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: And every time I turned down a great job opportunity,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: I knew I was doing it because it was not
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: going to make me happier. And maybe it would have eventually,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: maybe it was a path to something great, but you know,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: it was work with someone that you hate, or wake
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: up at four am every day, or move to New
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: York or whatever these things were that I didn't want.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to be constantly making decisions based on
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: the idea that if I had more money or I
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: was more famous, that that would.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: Make me happier.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: I always knew that my happiness was rooted in other things,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: and so to make choices based on that.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: How does it feel to be so fucking good at
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: what you do? Ah?
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: I don't think I am, or know that. I think.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: I have certain things that I will admit that I'm
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: very good at, and other things that I have a
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: very healthy understanding that other people are much better at
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: and that I still need to get better at. But
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: I do like the feeling now of being in the
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: business long enough that I I do walk into spaces
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: and think like I belong here and I deserve to
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: be here, and when people try to tell me otherwise,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: it doesn't even like like it used to.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Really, I used to really believe it and be like
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: they're right, but I have to pretend they're not right,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: and then I have to learn, and now I'm just like,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: n yes, I'm good, I'm good. I earned this.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: I used to be so scared about getting older in
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: this business, and now I revel in it.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. There's a Mindy Kaling.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Excerpt from her book that I can't remember which book
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: it was, but somebody asked her about like being in
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: charge and like owning being in charge, and she said, basically,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: if you work hard enough for it, then you can
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: own it and show it, like you can be confident
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: and proud and tell people about your success because you
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: earned it. And for me, that's very hard for women
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: a lot. But I find that I try to give
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: women permission to be more outspoken, more confident, more hyping
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: of themselves, because I don't see that very often, and
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: we need to give other women permission that because like
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: when I see Megan Rappino wearing her fancy watch and
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: telling people I wear this, so people know that you
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: can make millions of dollars as a female athlete.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: I want girls to know that you can be rich.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: Just like we see men wearing their chains and there whatever,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: and we laud them for it, but with women know
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: it's you know, you shouldn't be you should be humble. I'm
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: I would rather be representative for women who are already
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: pretty confident but need another notch, then be.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: Someone that's more palatable and easy. And so for me,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Is huge, just the idea of like if you earned it,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: then you can feel confident about it.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: Like own it.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: That's so awesome. Thank you for that. Okay, you know
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: what time it is. Today's a good day. To have
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: a good day. I'll see you next week.