Have you always been a football fan? And how did you get your start in a career in football?
I have always been a football fan. I was just looking at a picture from about 2006 and I had a prayer journal that I had to write in for school. I wrote, “I had fun at the football game today.” I grew up watching the Carolina Panthers with my dad. He was a big advocate of the sport and I played football growing up, too. It was a casual watch. Once I got to high school, that’s when I realized I wanted to work in sports, specifically football. No one in my family works in sports, but I can’t sit still and it seemed like something that was never the same day to day. I thought I wanted to be a sideline reporter, but when I got in front of the camera doing a sports show in college at the University of Miami, I was like, yeah, never mind. This is not for me. But in doing that, I met a lot of really good people and networked while I was there. But when the Super Bowl came to Miami in the 2019 season, one of the producers at ESPN, who I had known because we worked together for one semester in college, texted me to ask if I wanted to work the Super Bowl. I had no idea what I was signing up for, but I said yes without hesitation. I ended up being a local runner for ESPN. I showed up at some hotel in South Beach, and they handed me some keys and said, “Go get Lisa Salters.” It ended up being the best weekend ever, and everything kind of snowballed from there.
I worked a little bit for ESPN throughout college on Monday Night Football games, one more Super Bowl and the NFL draft. I did that while also working for the university’s athletic department, along with random internships.
I saw you held several internships with the Chiefs before earning a full-time role. How did that process play out?
Going into my senior year of college, I ended up getting an internship with the Kansas City Chiefs during training camp, working with their events team. I kept in touch with the director of events throughout my senior year, so when I applied for the seasonal position with the events team, I got it right after graduation. During that seasonal job, I got connected with our general manager, Brett Veach, and met with him during training camp because I was interested in eventually transitioning to the football side of the business. He told me I could come into meetings, watch film, and that the draft room was always open for me to learn. So I would go before my shift with the events team, watch film and write reports.
Once that position finished in the spring, I took a job with the Kansas City Current women’s soccer team as a player care coordinator. I told our GM about the job and about two months into working with the Current, I got a call from our now assistant GM Mike Bradway. He told me they wanted to have me come to training camp if I was interested. I didn’t want to be one foot in and one foot out at my current job, so I asked Bradway if there would be any chance I could stay on as a fellow and work because that’s what I really wanted. So I ended up quitting my full-time job and came back as the Norma Hunt Player Personnel Fellow in July of 2023. They kept me on for the season and hired me full time the next summer.
What does your current role entail?
During my first year with the Chiefs as a fellow, I was given a list of college players to watch throughout the week, and Bradway would sit with me every Friday and we’d go through what I saw. This year, I had four schools and watched the players who were of a certain level. I had to watch those players and write reports by a certain deadline.
But I do a little bit of everything and help with pro and college personnel departments, maintaining depth charts, printing tags, taking players around when they come in for visits, things like that. During Top 30 visits in the spring, I’ll be with the prospects all day and write a character report, ranking them based on that character and how I think they would fit on our team.
During training camp, I watch practice and try to keep a mental note of each position and our player rankings, just so I have a good feel for our whole roster. Then there is one position I’m responsible for, and I’ll get a stack of names to rank throughout camp. On top of that, I help with our interns and fellows, serving as a resource for them.