 And we have to talk about the specialness of today. It is National Girls and Women in Football Day. And we are all about celebrating that. We, it is, on our show, I can say very normal to have women in leading roles. That's Marissa McBride right there. Of course, our associate producer. That was Amy Howe. Can we go again? Wow, that was Amy Howe, our CEO. The CEO of FanDuel is about the most badass woman. That's Haley Heckman and Haley Hoff, who worked the early hours. That's Michelle. Michelle! Of course, we love her. Michelle Bryant. She is our editor. You saw Amy Howe up there. Serushi White, our director, who I'm half afraid of and half just reverence of, and reverence of all time. She's so badass. Because she's so brilliant. And I always, you know, I never wanted to disappoint her by having my foot up like this. But from up in Adams and FanDuel, give a little, give a little love to the women who are working in sports. It is not easy. And we will have Sam Rappaport joining us after this. That's great. We've got lots of women to celebrate today. Girls as well. Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day. No one better to have on. I'm so excited about our next guest right now. She's currently the NFL's senior director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has been part of the NFL family, y'all. Since as far as I can remember, definitely since I've worked for the NFL back in 2013, no, so 2003. But when I started watching the NFL, she won a commissioner award for her work. And I can say that, which is, you know, not a small deal, to win a commissioner's award. She's a former quarterback as well for the Montreal Blitz and a trailblazer. And I'm a little nervous and excited. I have Sam Rappaport on the show. Sam, how are you? Good, Kay. I'm so excited to be here. Tell me about, I mean, are you excited about Super Bowl? What are you working on right now? You're the senior. I'm going to get that right. Senior director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. That can't be a small task. That's not. I've been working for the league for 21 years and Super Bowl never gets old. So I'm incredibly excited for the game. But yeah, under Jonathan Bean, who is our chief diversity officer, we're really working right now to operationalize diversity, equity, and inclusion across the entire league, all our clubs, our league offices. We really want it woven through absolutely everything that we're doing in the league office. And that comes straight down from Commissioner Goodell. And how have you seen inclusivity? Like, you know, we talked last year. I know, you know, Jane worked on a brilliant documentary. And I've talked to a lot of the owners. There's more and more female owners. We want to get into that more and more women taking those big roles on and sort of shaping the league. And it sort of has to start at the top. That's my opinion. How have you seen that inclusivity sort of grow over the years and how much more work do we have to do? Yeah, it's been expedited substantially in the last six years. If you look at the NFL six years ago to where we are today, you know, we have three female presidents now at the beginning of training camp this season. We had 15 women working in coaching positions. You know, we have five female officials right now. So if you look at where we were before, which was a lot of zeros across the board to now where we're working closer to normalization and ubiquity of women in these roles, it's remarkable to see. And I'm pumped to be along on the journey of it. It's amazing, Sam. And I talked to you about this a lot. And I follow you on Twitter. And it's how I learn about a lot of the women that are doing incredible things and incredible work in the NFL. I always have a bit of a confusing moment about it because, of course, I want to celebrate women in these roles and in sports whenever I can because I know how hard it is in my little field, in my little corner, as a woman. But I also hate talking about it. I hate pointing it out. I hate, because I think it adds and perpetuates a storyline like, that's weird. She's a woman out there. And we're seeing it less and less. Like, we have four women involved in the Super Bowl more than that. I'm talking about two on each side as far as coaching and those sort of personnel roles. And it's not the biggest story. And I love that. I'm so excited. So how do I balance or marry or reconcile this want for celebrating and need for celebrating it while also wanting to normalize the presence of us in the sports world? Yeah, it's the million dollar question and something we've been working on since we started this program. But I think we got into a good place with this. So what we're trying to do is recognize it. Don't fixate on it. So recognize that, yes, it is a big deal that Autumn Lockwood is the first black woman to coach in a Super Bowl. We mentioned it. Now let her do her damn job. And really that's what we're trying to do. So it's important to recognize it because the more and more barriers we break down, the more normal it gets. So we don't want to ignore it. But then after that, and if you talk to any of the women in the league or any marginalized person in the league, they just want to do their damn job. So don't add spotlights to them or rocks to their backpack or whatever analogy you want to use. Just let them succeed. And really that's what's going on in the league. And I credit a lot of clubs for putting women in a position to succeed in that realm. We love seeing it. I was just even saying Kelly Klein, like Sean Payton's making this decision, like this big coaching candidate to go to Denver where there's newer ownership. That can be scary. Like what's that going to look like? But you have George Patton there, but you also have Kelly Klein who's his right hand person. They're making these decisions. And it's just, that seems normalized to me in a way that I'm really proud to be a part of and proud to work and cover an organization that treats it that way. Now you mentioned Autumn Lockwood, but as we're just gonna give love and move on, like you said, we're not gonna add to it, but let's give some love to some of these women that are going to be on the sidelines and heavily involved in the Super Bowl. Super Bowl 57 between the Eagles and the Chiefs. You mentioned Autumn, but there's also Amina. There's Tiffany Moore and there's Julie Freymeyer. What do we need to know about these women? Ah, they're all bad asses and just like taking names in the NFL. Julie Freymeyer, interestingly, Patrick Mahomes recently tweeted about her that she was the reason that he was able to play last weekend. So these women are absolutely incredible. One thing I love about it is that I think there are 19 women on the football side that will be working Super Bowl this year with the Eagles and the Chiefs. And so I can't even name them all, right? So we used to be able to say, hey, it was Autumn, it's Amina, it's Julie, it's Tiffany, but really now there are 19. I can't name them all, but there are so many women that are involved in moving this game forward. And because it's not a huge story right now, which I'm super happy about, that's the progress right there. It is, it's forward progress, which you preached. Whenever I see or hear the words forward progress, I think Sam Rappaport and all the brilliant work that you and everyone are doing there over at the NFL. Now, you were instrumental. I think it's fair to say you created the NFL Women's Careers and Football Forum back in 2017. How has it evolved? I know a little bit about how the idea was born, but how has it grown over the years? The list of coaches that are taking their time has made such an impact, Sam. It's really inspiring. It's incredible. You know, when we started the program, there was one GM, one head coach and one owner who raised their hand to be a part of it. And at the last forum, which was the sixth annual NFL Women's Forum, I had head coaches and GMs texting me during the opening session saying, don't let anyone get her, I'm bringing her into training camp. You know, they were getting competitive with each other. They were naming their friends saying, don't let him get her. I want to hire her. And they were hiring women on the spot. And so really what we've done is we've taken it from an idea into something that's molded into NFL culture now where our progressive coaches, our amazing head coaches and general managers are saying, if you're not part of this, you are behind the eight ball. And that's been said by Commissioner Goodell and several other people that that's the tone of the league. If you're not trying to achieve gender equity from a number standpoint, but also from an inclusion standpoint and equity, you're behind the eight ball. And clubs are recognizing that and really stepping up and making progress. If somebody wants to get involved or would want to attend the NFL Women's Forum or somebody who's just thinking, man, I really hate my job. I've always wanted to work in football and I'm seeing it's a possibility for me now. How can we help make that happen? Yeah, I mean, the first thing that you need to do really is get involved in football in some way if you're not already. I always say volunteer for your high school team or go out to a semi-pro tackle league and volunteer to coach or what have you. We are working on live streaming parts of the NFL Women's Forum that are not confidential this year. So I'll be posting that on my Twitter. So if anyone wants to follow with our open sessions, we'd love to have you. And if you'll be at the combine, hit me up and we'd love to have you in our guest section. Oh my God, you're the best. You're just the absolute best. What's coming up league agenda? Anything going on with, obviously we're celebrating girls and women today, but I know inclusivity is not just women. So I know at the Super Bowl, there's lots of events going on. I have a partnership with Smyrna Bhadka and I was just with them in Dallas and they were talking about how they've sponsored an event around inclusivity and it made me all the more proud to be partnered with them. Yeah, I mean, it's apropos that we're talking on the first day of Black History Month, right? Where we celebrate our black and African-American trailblazers in this game, which is really the reason why it is the reason why we are successful. So there is a lot of celebration and discussions around Black History Month right now at the league. And we're also working on our accelerator program, which is led by Belinda Gardner and Vanessa Hutchinson. And they're really trying to put our top talent, our senior talent in positions to meet with our head coaches, our owners to potentially get jobs in network. And Rand Carthon was a participant in that program and he recently preached about how that helped him get to where he is and super proud of what they're doing. And overall, the way that we're trying to weave DEI and absolutely everything we do is something that I'm incredibly proud of. It'll happen because of you, Sam. So we appreciate you. We celebrate you. We're not gonna talk about it too much because everybody knows you're doing your thing. So hopefully, I really hope I get to run into you at Super Bowl. And I was talking like, I have an associate producer. We have a very small team over here with my new little startup venture, but Marissa McBride, my director, our amazing editor. We've got so many women on this staff. And I just, I feel like I can be doing more and I want to do more. So hopefully you and I can talk and make that happen. I would really love that. Let's do it. Let's flip some tables together, Kay. You're on. All right, let's do it. Okay, I'll see you next week. Enjoy it. Hell of a year for the NFL and for everything. Sam, we're having for you an absolute badass. And we will talk to you down the line. All right, that's it. That was amazing. Absolutely amazing. What a day. So much news. So much to get to. Could not be more grateful to end it though. She's, if you have to, she is such a badass. She's, I'm just gonna start a woman's form and then Bill Belichick is like, okay, I'll join. Bill Belichick isn't gonna join anything. Can you imagine?