Representation is key for Falcons’ Kirsten Grohs, other women in NFL

Kirsten Grohs’ journey to the NFL started with a pile of envelopes, a stack of $3 Starbucks gift cards and 32 postage stamps.

One of her mentors, Marcel Bellefeuille, then the coach of the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, suggested that she send a Starbucks gift card along with a copy of her resumé to every NFL team, theorizing that it might set Grohs apart from her competitors. Having just graduated from Ohio University’s combination master of sport administration and MBA program, Grohs couldn’t fathom sending gift cards worth more than $3 or spending the extra money to send the envelopes via FedEx.

“I mailed everything out snail mail and hoped for the best,” Grohs told the AJC.

Within days, the San Francisco 49ers had called to set up an interview. Dave Caldwell, then the general manager of the Jacksonville Jaguars, went one step further and flew Grohs to Jacksonville to discuss a potential job opening. The gift card caught Caldwell’s attention — though he remembers giving it back to Grohs when they met.

“The Starbucks gift card was a nice idea to make sure her resume was read and got the appropriate attention that it did,” Caldwell, a former Falcons director of player personnel, told the AJC. “She was a great hire for the Jaguars. … The way she presented herself, I knew she would be a great fit and obviously, she’s extremely intelligent and well-educated. She was very motivated.”

The opening was an administrative assistant role in salary cap and contracts — nothing fancy, but Caldwell promised there was room for growth. That was enough for Grohs.

“We talked about my goals and aspirations and obviously, finishing grad school with two master’s degrees, sometimes you enter into an entry-level position hoping that you don’t get stuck as an executive assistant,” Grohs said. “Not to say stuck, but you’re looking for opportunities for growth. Dave was really open to that, and so I interviewed, I felt really good about it, and I got the job a few days later. That’s what started everything off.”

That was in 2013. Grohs quickly was promoted to an analyst role working on salary cap and contract research, and by June 2016, she was the Jaguars’ manager of football administration — the first woman in that role in Jaguars history, and the same role she now holds with the Falcons.

Grohs being the first woman to be the manager of football administration in the Jaguars organization didn’t cross Caldwell’s mind when promoting her.

“She earned the title, regardless if she was female or male,” Caldwell said. “We gave it, and it was well-deserved. … She’s very intelligent and could handle any task. Always kind of craved to do more and be more valuable for any job or duties that we asked her to do.”

After briefly leaving the NFL for a stint with Mamba Sports Academy in California, Grohs returned to the NFL in 2018 as a scouting coordinator for the Falcons. It took only five months until she was promoted to manager of football administration.

In that role, Grohs maintains a database of every contract signed across the NFL, helps manage the salary cap and is involved in the negotiation of every player contract, including executing the language of things such as signing bonuses and escalators. She’s also the Falcons’ co-liaison to the NFL league office — a particularly important role this year with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“In 2020 with everything (COVID-19)-related, there’s a lot of information that comes out from the league head office on a weekly basis about ensuring that we’re all abiding by the (COVID-19) protocols,” Grohs said. “It’s really important that we work with the league office to get all that information out to the staff and work with all the staff to ensure that we’re doing all the things we’re supposed to do and that everyone’s getting the message communicated properly. There’s a lot of legalese-type documents that come out that need to be digested. Between that and the player contracts, those are the big things (I do).”

When Grohs was first looking to break into the NFL, she was aware that there weren’t many women in front office roles, and even fewer specifically working in football operations. She wasn’t fazed by it.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Grohs points to Dawn Aponte, now the chief administrator of football operations for the entire NFL, as someone who showed her what was possible for women in football operations. Aponte’s NFL career began as an accountant for the New York Jets in 1994, and by 2001, she’d moved over to the operations side to work as a salary-cap analyst and pro personnel assistant. Before taking her executive role with the league, Aponte led operations and football administration for the Cleveland Browns and then the Miami Dolphins.

“I talk about Dawn Aponte a lot because she really did pave the way in player contracts and salary cap for so many women,” Grohs said. “She was, in my opinion, the first to really do it. I could go on and on about her. … Knowing that there had already been somebody before me to go and do it and do it successfully, and also have an impeccable reputation to back that up, I came into the league feeling good about the ability to progress and have opportunities.

“I chalk a lot of that up to Dawn because, in my opinion, she was the true trailblazer for women in salary cap and contracts.”

Seven years after Grohs first started working in the NFL, there’s been undeniable progress. Though there’s still only a handful of women working in salary-cap management or football administration around the league, every year more and more women are hired in operations, scouting and even coaching.

“I think more and more people are open to the possibility of change and that we don’t all have to look the same to come into a building and run a successful football team,” Grohs said.

“I think just because something has been the same way for so long, sometimes so much time can pass and you don’t even consider another option or consider another avenue until somebody speaks up and advocates for it. I think that’s the domino effect of that.”

Now when a woman is hired for a front-office role, she isn’t the first, or the second, or even the 20th. That matters, because being the first comes with it a laundry list of responsibilities and pressures — beyond the basics of the job requirements. If you’re the first, you have to be above reproach in every aspect, at all times, or there’s a risk that the first will become the last.

Grohs had Aponte to look to as an example of what’s possible for women in the NFL, and now other women entering the league have Grohs — among others — to look to as well. As more and more women enter the NFL and other leagues, the chain of representation will continue to grow.

“A lot of people say representation matters, and I really do love that saying,” Grohs said. “When I first heard it, the gravity of it didn’t weigh on me as much as it does now. But when I think back on my own experience and think about Dawn, it does matter. It really does.”