311. Elevating the Game: Empowering Women in Football with Odessa Jenkins

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The Daily Helping Episode 311: Odessa Jenkins

Odessa Jenkins: Do the impossible, do the possible, just do it. Start now and don't wait until it's over to appreciate your legacy and to appreciate what you're trying to change. Because sometimes trying is enough. Trying can change the whole world.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Hello and welcome to The Daily Helping with Dr. Richard Shuster, food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, tools to win at life. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, and whatever you do, this is the show that is going to help you become the best version of yourself. Each episode you will hear from some of the most amazing, talented, and successful people on the planet who followed their passions and strived to help others. Join our movement to get a million people each day to commit acts of kindness for others. Together, we're going to make the world a better place. Are you ready? Because it's time for your Daily Helping. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Daily Helping Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard, and this is another episode in the Athlete's Voice Series on The Daily Helping, where we interview exceptional athletes doing even more exceptional things in the world to make the world a better place. With us today is Odessa Jenkins. She's the Founder and CEO of the Women's National Football Conference. She has founded several nonprofits, including Got Her Back and the Elite Women's Football Alliance of Dallas. Through her football career, she has over 15 years of playing and coaching experience. She's a Hall of Fame, running back, a two time national champion, a USA football team captain, and two time gold medalist. Odessa is globally recognized in tackle football and women's sports in general. Odessa, welcome to The Daily Helping. It is great to have you here.

Odessa Jenkins: Thank you for having me, Doc. I'm glad to be here.

Dr. Richard Shuster: I'm just going to flat out express unbelievable ignorance. I did not know there was a Woman's National Football League and shame on me for not knowing that, so I'm excited to learn all about it. But, first, I want to learn all about you. So, let's jump in the Odessa Jenkins time machine. Let's talk about your journey. What puts you on the path you're on today?

Odessa Jenkins: You know, while it might not be a straight line, I've always been an athlete. Sports saved my life. And when I say saved, I just think it helped me reach my full potential. And growing up as a little girl in South Central L.A. Through parents who were entertainers and athletes, sports was something that powered me to see things that I had never experienced to reach the full possibilities. And so, growing up playing football early on as my first sport, and then going on and earning a college scholarship and being the first person in my family to go to college and graduate college. And from there, really, the things that I learned through team sport helped me to be, I think, an above average executive and using that outside of sports to sort of advance myself. And then, realizing that I wanted to play football and I wanted to give that access to women and girls all over the world. And that for 70 years, people like you had never heard of a woman playing or even seen it with their own eyes. After hundreds of hundreds of years in the sport, no one had ever really seen a woman playing. And this was 2017, you know. And so, my path here was through hope and I think some, probably, resilience and a little bit of ignorance and some aggression and intention to really show up and show people the power of sport. And really change the narrative that if a woman chased her dream or a girl chases her dream in professional sport, she is better for it, not worse for it.

Dr. Richard Shuster: I love that. And so, I talked about in your bio, you were running back. There's got to be a little bit of aggression if you played running back, right?

Odessa Jenkins: Listen, I think that we don't give aggression enough credit. And I think it's okay to have balance in your life. But some things that get a bad rap you need to go reach for every now and then. I think you can be based in positivity, and based in team, and sometimes passive is okay, but I think every now and then when you need to go reach for aggression, you better have it. And you know that if you're an athlete.

Dr. Richard Shuster: So, give me women's football 101 because, like you said, football has been played in this country forever, there's a progression, right? You play high school and those who are good enough go to college. And if you're in the 1 percent, you get drafted. But where's women's football fit into all of this?

Odessa Jenkins: Yeah. So, let me just take you through the path of a girl today. A girl today who loves and wants to play football generally starts playing with the boys. So, she starts playing peewee or tackle with the boys, and then she goes just about to junior high school so the boys start getting too big. And once the boys start getting too big, she's generally told to move to another sport if she is an elite level athlete. And if she's an elite level athlete, she usually finds flag today, which is one of the fastest growing sports in the world and the fastest growing sport for girls here in Europe, 300 percent a year it's growing. And even, you know, supposed to be an Olympic sport in 2028. So, she finds flag football and she plays flag and she has the ability to now, as a result of changes at the NAIA, to play college football. So, college football for women is a thing. It's a varsity sport in the NAIA. Let's say she's great and she's elite at that, just like a boy would be or a man would be a top draft prospect. She goes through college. She's an All-American. She wins national title at the NAIA. And then, she has a decision to make. As a woman, I've graduated college. I have a degree. Generally, you have the ability to make $1 million more over your life than people who didn't take that path. But she decides I want to keep playing football. And so, as a man who is an elite athlete, he gets drafted, he goes to the NFL, he makes millions. As a woman, you're the elite athlete and you make two decisions. You go and you play flag football and you have the ability to win national titles, because USA Football - the governing body of football - hosts two world teams, a flag team as well as a tackle team. Women's Tackle National Team that has never been defeated. The most decorated national team in the history of our country is the Women's National Tackle Football Team that nobody really knows about. So, her path is that, and she decides I'm going to go play amateur women's tackle football. And I'm going to raise funds like an Olympian does, and I'm going to raise sponsorships. I'm going to have somebody fund my annual salary. And then, I'm going to play and I'm going to work full time, and I'm going to be a mom, and I'm going to be a sister, and I'm going to be an aunt. And that's her path today. Tomorrow, I want her path to be she graduates college. She's playing. She's playing in college. She's playing in high school. And she gets drafted to the WNFC and she makes a living wage as the most elite women's football player in the world.

Dr. Richard Shuster: So, the WNFC exists. There's teams. How many teams are there and where are they?

Odessa Jenkins: There are 17 teams. So, from Seattle, Washington, to Washington, D.C., teams all over the South, Atlanta, Dallas, L.A., San Diego, Las Vegas. Women have actually been playing organized tackle football for about 70 years. There's been leagues popping up all over the place. You may have even heard of the Lingerie League that popped up every now - yeah, that's a whole thing. Everyone's been trying to make women's football a thing. But in the WNFC we decided not to make it a thing. We decided to make it a profession. And that we took everyone who was already in the sport and put a sort of ten year plan in front of them and said, "Hey, here's what we think it's going to take to grow to professionalism. Do you want to come on a journey with us?" And some said yes and some said no. But that's the WNFC. We're here to help the world of sports step its game up.

Dr. Richard Shuster: I'm curious, the NBA essentially created the WNBA. They figured out, "Hey, we've got these arenas. They're only being used from, say, October to maybe June, depending on who gets into the playoffs and not. What a great idea, let's run some sports in the summer and we can, you know, make more money and get some kind of a T.V. deal, and what have you." Is the NFL, they're obviously aware of you guys, are they involved? Are they promoting? Are they hoping you get to be like this --

Odessa Jenkins: They're watching.

Dr. Richard Shuster: They're watching.

Odessa Jenkins: The NFL is watching. You know, I think they are not interested in women's football at the level that we are, obviously. I think the NFL is watching to see how Women's Tackle Football develops. They're very interested in flag because of the accessibility. They're very interested in women and girls playing because 50 plus percent of their fan base is female. And the dollar is being controlled in the household, women make 70 percent of the buying decisions in the household. So, I think from a business perspective, the NFL is very interested. But I think from an expense, a cost, and a responsibility standpoint, the NFL hasn't quite caught on. What I know is that the WNFC and Women's Tackle Football could help the NFL solve some of its woman problem. But that's me. And I haven't necessarily been in the room with them to pitch yet. They are very supportive in a lot of ways. A lot of Women's Tackle Football players are coaching in the NFL, hold roles in the NFL, and there are NFL teams that are embracing their local tackle teams. But from a league level, from a league operations level, they're watching.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Okay. So, not yet but they're watching.

Odessa Jenkins: They're watching.

Dr. Richard Shuster: So, I want to kind of pivot a little bit because I know you've done a lot in the charity space. So, talk to us a bit about some of the nonprofits you're involved in and why they get you excited.

Odessa Jenkins: Yeah. I'm pretty linear right now. You know, I am a part of a group that is unseen but very on the forefront in a lot of ways. The only girl, right? I was the tomboy and the girl that was running around with the boys and playing football and basketball. So, the charity, Got Her Back, is probably the most active of my charities that I've founded so far. And Got Her Back is really intended to be a allyship, an amplification of voice for girls who are the only girl playing on boys teams. And we saw a niche where there were a lot of charities and a lot of organizations who were trying to keep girls in sport. But a lot of the girls who were in sport were playing with boys, particularly in contact sports, still in basketball or in football or in lacrosse or in soccer. And I wanted those girls to not give up. I wanted those girls to see that there were women like them who were being successful in life on the field and off the field. So, we started Got Her Back, and that started in 2019, and so far we've told over a thousand stories of little girls who are playing with the boys. And we've seen those girls go from junior high school to high school and now working to play sports in college. And every year, annually, we bring Got Her Back girls together to, not just show her that there are women like her, but there are other girls like her. So, ultimately, from a charitable standpoint, it's all about keeping girls in the game.

Dr. Richard Shuster: As you're sitting here and you're talking about these thousands of stories you've told, are there any stories - you just name one or two - that come to mind that are really powerful to what you did made a tremendous change.

Odessa Jenkins: So many. I mean, if I could put you in the room with these girls, it would change the possibilities for you in the world. Because there's a kid named Haley, this year at the WNFC IX Cup Championship weekend every year, we host a Got Her Back gala. And the Got Her Back gala, as I said, it's a fundraiser for the Got Her Back Foundation, but it's also an opportunity to bring all these girls. Patrick Willis was there last year and gave away some awards and really supported the girls. And there was a kid, an eight year old named Haley and she came into the gala with her bedazzled football, and her parents. Her dad got up and spoke about how being a part of Got Her Back and seeing the women of the WNFC saved Haley's life as an eight year old and how she was being bullied for wanting to play football. And she went from being a bullied sort of quiet, meek girl to being a kid who could stand up on a stage in front of hundreds of strangers and tell them that she was a football player. And that she carried her bedazzled football around because she didn't want to be silent or quiet in the fact that she was a football player. She wanted you to see her coming even when she was off the field. And, to me, if I don't get to change the world at all one bit, knowing that we changed Haley's perspective on herself is enough.

Dr. Richard Shuster: It's always interesting, you know, it's the ripple effects. So, now Hayley goes out into the world and who knows what Hayley does and who Hayley inspires. I love that you're doing that. And I thank you for the education on women's football that I clearly needed. Talk to us, Odessa, about what's next. Give us the Odessa masterplan.

Odessa Jenkins: So, today, we're headed into our fourth season in the WNFC and the Women's National Football Conference. There are almost a thousand women around the country playing tackle football, adult women. We are now global where we have women who are putting their lives on pause and coming over to the United States to play tackle football because it's the most advanced. So, the short term future is making more opportunities and expanding our global programs so that more women in Europe and abroad can come over and learn the sport and expand the sport locally for them. We are headed into our first round of fundraising, so we want to raise capital as a women's league founded by women for women. We want to be one of the few who's able to raise capital in the first five years. And really looking to get into flag, to expand the global program, and look to continue to expand our revenue generating line. We're a for-profit entity and we're making money. And a lot of people didn't think that we could do that for the purposes of women's football. So, the next big move for us is to continue to expand, not with teams, because we'll add a few teams, but really it's to continue to fund this sport, continue to fund the charity, continue to grow the league through sponsorship, through funding so that we can pay these women. Ultimately, we want women to make a living wage playing tackle football.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Is there a separate charity other than the one you spoke of that is attached to this league?

Odessa Jenkins: No. Just Got Her Back.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Just Got Her Back.

Odessa Jenkins: That's the one that's attached to the league.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Okay. And if somebody's listening to this like, "Yeah, Odessa. I want to give you some cash," how do they do that?

Odessa Jenkins: Yeah. You can go to wnfcfootball.com or you can reach out to us at [email protected], and we'll share with you our management presentation and tell you how you can contribute to our seed round. And if you want to donate to Got Her Back because you want more Haley's of the world, you can go to igotherback.com and donate right from the page or you can get involved and be an advocate. Or if you own a business and you want to market it to over five, six million people, then you can become a sponsor of the WNFC and see your brand alongside of one that's really looking to change the world.

Dr. Richard Shuster: That's really cool. We've blasted through this because we're having so much fun. Is there anything else that you feel you really want me to ask you that I haven't talked to you about already?

Odessa Jenkins: Sponsorships is the biggest one. I think we're competing. We're in a market where we don't look like the other sort of assets that sponsors normally - and everyone's like, "Why don't you have more sponsors?" There's a process that they go about to evaluate entities. And if you are a growing entity, how do you get in? And I want to challenge that. We meet so many check boxes. We are 65 percent BIPOC. We're women. We're for women. We meet the DNI standards. We're growing at 200 percent. All these things. Yet, we can't even get in the door because there's a formula for sponsorship that we don't fit.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Okay. Well, that's a great place to talk about. So, you mentioned, you know, you can go to the website, find out information. You mentioned sponsorships, so talk to us about what that looks like with the WNFC.

Odessa Jenkins: So, right now, we're super grateful for our sponsors, Dick's Sporting Goods, Adidas, Riddell Sport, who have, over the years, continued to support us and really changed. Adidas was the first of the Big Three and the only of the Big Three to ever sponsor Women's Tackle Football. And Riddell Sports and Dick's Sporting Goods, what they're doing with us this year and last year was amazing. But if you're out there and you're listening, and you are a CMO or in charge of  experimental marketing, I would challenge you because we fit. We check all the boxes in terms of being BIPOC. We're Black female-owned and operated. We are national. We are growing at 200 percent in terms of our fan base and our engagement. We're young. We fit that core demographic of 20 to 44. Yet, we can't get in the room with lots of sponsors. And the reason we can't get in the rooms is because there's a formula that looks like all the businesses that are currently getting sponsored. And so, I would challenge that if you're out there and you're looking to really market and move your business, that you check your sponsorship process so that it actually can get businesses like ours and leagues like ours through the funnel. Because we're getting kicked out. We're getting spit out of the evaluation funnel before we can even get in front of someone. And it's like everyone's out here screaming about Jedi and DNIB and all of these things in the advancement of women and girls. And you got this entity sitting right in front of you with thousands of women all over the country who can tell a story that no other sports league can tell and we can barely get in the room. So, I challenge you that if you really want to authentically change the world, this is a legacy that's only going to be done once.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Beautifully said. Odessa, your energy is exciting. You walked into the room and it was like a bolt of lightning and I loved it. As you know, I wrap up every episode by asking my guests this one question that is, What is your biggest helping? That one most important piece of information you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our chat today.

Odessa Jenkins: I'm going to say this in the form of a quote from my mother. One of her favorite gospel songs had a line in it, Don't wait until the battle is over. Shout now. Because in the end, you're going to win. And so, if I could leave anyone with anything, I started this league with no funding, no real connections, no nepotism. Almost everything I've done, as the kids say, I got it out the mud. And I didn't know if I was going to win. There was no guaranteed win on the board. But I didn't wait until the battle was over. I started now and I celebrate now. And I would say, if anyone's listening and you can take anything from this, do the impossible, do the possible, just do it. Start now and don't wait until it's over to appreciate your legacy and to appreciate what you're trying to change. Because sometimes trying is enough. Trying can change the whole world. So, don't wait until the battle is over. Shout now. Because in the end, you're going to win. Just don't give up.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Beautifully said. Odessa, give us some URLs. Tell us where people can find out more about you, find out more about the league, and contribute.

Odessa Jenkins: Yeah. If you want to connect with me directly, I'm on LinkedIn at Odessa Jenkins. The league, wnfcfootball.com, @wnfcfootball on all socials, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. We're everywhere. But if you want to be a part of this movement and you want to give your time, your talent, or your resources to women, to seeing the legacy of Women's Tackle Football come to fruition, please reach out, LinkedIn or at WNFC Football anywhere.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Perfect. And we'll have everything Odessa Jenkins and WNFC Football in the show notes at thedailyhelping.com. Odessa, thank you so much for being a guest with us today. I love what you're doing and can't wait to see how this league develops.

Odessa Jenkins: I am honored. Thank you so much.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Absolutely. And I also want to thank each and every one of you who took time out of your day to listen to our conversation. If you liked it, if you like what you heard, go give us a follow on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five star review, because this is what helps other people find the show. But most importantly, go out there today and do something nice for somebody else, even if you don't know who they are, and post it in your social media feeds using the hashtag #MyDailyHelping because the happiest people are those that help others.