Elevating Women in Sports: A Conversation with Jamie Middlemann, Founder of Flame Bearers Podcast

Speaker 1: 0:12

What is going on today? I am joined by Jamie Middlemann. Jamie is the founder and host of an unbelievable podcast called Flame Bearers. It's the world's first storytelling platform for women Olympians and Paralympians. Jamie is shining a light on the unsung stories of these resilient athletes. Flame Bearers is not just a podcast. It's actually a community with the mission of driving positive change and fostering connections.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Jamie comes from a really impressive background in media. She's managed multi-million dollar portfolios for leading conglomerates like Yahoo, huffington Post, aol and Verizon. She brings this expertise and her passion of storytelling to the world of sports, and women's sports in particular. Jamie's work on Flame Bearers has garnered international recognition. Flame Bearers has received a number of awards. Her reach extends into 48 countries, amplifying the voices and experiences of incredible athletes from around the world. She holds a master's in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she was actually honored with the Don K Price Award for her significant contributions to the Harvard community. She also has an MBA from Dartmouth. She has put together a really interesting podcast that I enjoy thoroughly. These are highly produced episodes, very similar to the 30 by 30 podcast, if you're familiar with that. She does a fantastic job. This was a great conversation. I really like Jamie a lot. Without further ado, here is Jamie. Jamie coming from rural Colorado.

Speaker 1: 2:12

I know that's not where you're from, but I'm excited to talk to you. Thanks for having me, Greg, All right. Well, listen, I've been listening to your podcast and I am going to start this interview the way you started your interview with Sue Bird, because I thought it was a great question. What gets you up in the morning? What's your why?

Speaker 2: 2:34

I much prefer being the asker than the answerer. I would say the people I care most about. So my loved ones, and trying to make today a little bit better than yesterday.

Speaker 1: 2:51

I love that. I will say this I listened to a bunch of your episodes and they're fantastic. They reminded me a little bit of the 30 for 30 series.

Speaker 2: 3:04

Everyone says that Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1: 3:06

It had a similar type of flow the music, the interviews. It's not your normal podcast. It's a very well-produced piece where, even with the the Sue Bird episode that I was listening to and a couple of the other ones, the Newel Lambert one was heartbreaking. I'm a girl dad, so hearing the situation of the mom hearing about the accident that she had where she lost her dog, but the way that you're actually producing these is fantastic. How did this all come about?

Speaker 2: 3:40

Yeah, thank you. Actually, it's kind of hilarious. This was actually a COVID adaption. I had been at graduate school, i was getting a master's in policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and I had been pitching a role to the International Olympic Committee around some of the work they do around elevating diverse voices and, specifically, women athletes. Then COVID happened and they were like you know what? The Olympics, the Paralympics, are going to be postponed. We don't know what's going on. We're not going to make any hires right now. I said, okay, fine, i'll do this on my own.

Speaker 2: 4:19

My background had been in the media space. I had managed a media portfolio of about $30 million for a media technology company. I said you know what? I think I know how to do this on my own. I applied for funding within the Harvard ecosystem, was lucky. They said yes.

Speaker 2: 4:39

I built out a team of advisors frankly, people who had been in the media space, in the gender space, in the sports space, who knew how to do this. Really, i credit them with helping guide me through that first season, because I had never podcasted before. I had done storytelling and I had done ads and I had done op-eds, but I had never podcasted. It was kind of a we're going to build the plane as we're flying model and just threw myself right in.

Speaker 2: 5:11

I think I was pretty lucky in the sense that I had a number of contacts at organizations with the national governing bodies who were helped, who in the beginning helped put me in touch with a lot of the athletes we worked with. Then it's kind of just snowballed since then. Now athletes really just connect me to their friends because they're really excited about the work that we produce on them, but high level, what we do for those who are not familiar. We elevate the voices of women Olympians and Paralympians and we use sport as a conduit to talk about these bigger issues. We're not sports reporting. We're not telling you who won what game. We're talking about the issues that they care about, be it motherhood or equal pay or racial justice or overcoming tragedy like Noel Lambert, really using sport and the fact that they're literally the best athletes in the world to get people to care and engage with these larger issues.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Yeah, no, absolutely. And along the way, the conversations are really engaging. I personally find I mean first of all, the whole Olympic. Becoming an Olympian has always been something that fascinates me because you watch it. It's this thing that happens once every four years. As a former athlete myself, you know how much time and effort and dedication goes into it. In a lot of Olympic sports it's like a moment, right. I mean, if you're on the soccer team or the basketball team, it's a little bit more of like a body of work. But you know, if you're a runner or you're a gymnast, i mean it's like okay, here's your event. You're going to either qualify or you're not. Like like go get it Totally.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Yeah totally.

Speaker 2: 6:54

It's wild. I was working with Dhanusha Francis. She is a Jamaican Olympian. She was. She tried to qualify three different times. The third time she finally made it. The other two times she was the first one, she was the replacement athlete And then the second time, jamaica chose a different athlete over her. The third time she makes it to Tokyo and she tears her ACL. So just as she was about to live her dream, yes, she's an Olympian now, but to your point, it is a moment in time, it is a snapshot, and then it's over for most athletes. So it is a really interesting phenomenon where you know, most people have a profession where they go to the office or they do the same thing day in and day out, and it's not necessarily working to you towards one specific date or one specific gunshot, and then you sprint and then it's over. With a lot of these elite athletes in sports that are really confined to short periods of time, it's, it's, it's over, and then and then you have to readjust and figure out who you are.

Speaker 1: 8:00

Yeah, one of the things I love about hosting a podcast and having the opportunity to speak with people like yourself is is I learn things all the time And I'm able to sort of grow as a person. You know, i have a daughter. She's 12 years old, a pretty good athlete, but you know and I actually had this conversation with her the other day she has this like ultimate, like fear of failure, and and it it's something that I think it limits her in a lot of ways. She has this very high expectation of herself. She hates it when she doesn't do well or she feels like people are letting her down.

Speaker 1: 8:35

So we had this conversation the other day about resilience and you know this concept of you know many of the most successful people in the world and you call success a lot of different things are people that are not afraid to fail. They look at fail, failure, as these stepping stones. What, what are some of the things that you've learned? Because I mean, you know you're talking about athletes, like like you just described, who have failed to make the Olympics and continue to come back. You have athletes you know, like Noel, who lost the leg and continue to compete at a high level from an athletic perspective, like what are some of the lessons you've learned along the way with these conversations?

Speaker 2: 9:11

Honestly, i feel the same way about having a podcast on my side, because getting to work with these athletes is probably one of the greatest teaching moments for me. So I do feel very lucky in the sense that I feel like they have taught me so much And, frankly, during a pretty dark time, during the pandemic, when everyone was locked inside and looking and actively searching for connection. So a couple of different things I'd say in regards to resilience in particular. The first is that every elite athlete who I have worked with talks about failure or falling short as an opportunity to learn and to grow. They go through moments where, yes, it hits them and they feel horrible and they're down and out. But one of the common threads that I have noticed in these conversations is that, at the end of the day, many of them, or pretty much all of them, have reframed that feeling of failure, of being less than, into an opportunity for growth and saying, okay, maybe I didn't make it to the Olympics or the Paralympics this time. This is where I may have, you know, not fallen short, but this is where I could have improved And to really reframe it in more of a okay, this is what I can do next time to make sure that I have different results.

Speaker 2: 10:36

I would also say another learning that I had that it comes directly from these athletes is not thinking that you can do it on your own.

Speaker 2: 10:45

So the idea of surrounding yourself with a village, with a community, with a tribe who's going to have your back for when you falter because it's not a if you falter, it's a when you falter it's going to happen that you have people who are going to have your back, that you have a community of teammates, of friends, of family members, aunts, uncles, whoever is important to you, who are going to say hey, jamie, you didn't get them this time, but tomorrow is going to be a better day.

Speaker 2: 11:14

And the third I would say is starting to be really open about when things suck. Frankly, i think we've seen a lot of this, with athletes like Naomi Asaka, with Simone Biles starting to be really open about their mental health. And I think that that is giving a lot of athletes the courage to just own when things are not going their way. So when you are down or when something is going on in your personal life, to tell people about it and to not hold it in, because then other people can't help you out. So I think those would be my top three learnings.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Yeah, that's great. The mental health thing, like you said with Simone Biles, and you see it more and more with athletes. I think it's such a great thing that it's coming out more in the open. I come from a generation where you just didn't talk about things like that. You were considered weak or soft or whatever it was.

Speaker 2: 12:11

Totally. I had the opportunity to work with Deja Young, who's now Deja Young Craddock. She is a Paralympic gold medalist and she's very open about her attempt to commit suicide and why she went through that And she is now the number one advocate for mental health. Saying hey, if you're having a hard day sliding into my DMs, i will reply to you because I've been there And I think it takes people like her who are willing to put themselves out there and say, yes, this is a really terrible part of my life, but I've learned from it And I want to make sure that other people don't go down the same path.

Speaker 1: 12:50

Yeah, one of the things I've learned more and more, and as I've done more coaching for people, i used to have this thought that to be a coach or to be a consultant, you had to have all the answers.

Speaker 1: 13:04

They expected you to talk to them and you had this wealth of experience and you were going to give them all the answers and solve all the problems. What I've learned recently is it's just allowing people to talk Like if you just ask questions and actively engage with people and give them the opportunity to let you know what they're thinking, most of the time the answers of what they need to do are within themselves. And I think when athletes were in this situation where they were too afraid to talk about the issues they were having their mental health challenges, it was bottled up inside, because if you say something publicly, it's like oh well, you're an athlete, you're obviously mentally weak, you're not strong, you're not going to perform. If you have those feelings of self-doubt or whatever it is, you're never going to be a championship athlete. And I think by opening it up and just allowing people to be open with their own thoughts and feelings, it's going to change a whole generation of just making people happier.

Speaker 2: 14:01

I totally agree. It's interesting. That was something that I personally felt when I was getting my masters at Harvard and before I got my MBA. Dartmouth and imposter syndrome is so real and wanting to be really clear about the fact that, A I'm not going to be the smartest person in the room and, B I'm going to mess up a ton And C I'm going to laugh about it with my classmates because, guess what, I'm a normal person. So, yeah, it's cool to see that. I think this phenomenon of people just owning and really sharing what's going on within themselves is kind of spreading to more normal, non-olympic and paralytic athletes like myself.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Yeah, and conversations like you're having, i think, are so freeing to other people, because when you hear someone like whoever Sue Bird talk about some of these different feelings, it frees you up to be like, oh, it's normal for me to have these feelings too.

Speaker 2: 14:59

Totally. Here's someone who I've put on a pedestal my entire life And guess what? She's just like me.

Speaker 1: 15:04

Yeah, like the whole imposter syndrome thing. I think a lot of people deal with that And I don't even know if that's a term I understood two years ago. It's kind of something relatively new in my own life. But then you hear more about it and hear more people talk about it and you realize in some ways, the more successful you get, the more imposter syndrome you have.

Speaker 2: 15:25

It's so, it's so wild, and then then you start to wonder where it comes from and who is upholding it And you're kind of just like no, i am part of the group and I should not be feeling this way And I need to actively make sure that no one else around me feels it. So it is a bizarre phenomenon where It is kind of almost the higher you go, the more you feel it and the more out of place you feel it.

Speaker 1: 15:51

Yeah, so I want to. I want to talk a little bit about you for a second. Um, i know you were. You know like you said you were. You come from a media world. You were managing huge books of businesses for You know, conglomerates, yahoo, i've eaten, post, all these types of things. And then, looking at your, your, your, your profile, your biography, it's like, okay, i'm gonna go back to, to dart myth and I'm gonna get an MBA dart myth, top 10 in school in the country. And then it looks I fold them And well, then it looks like you left darmit and then you go to harvard to get a master's in public administration. Uh, what, help me understand that thought process, like what was driving you to do this.

Speaker 2: 16:32

Yeah, um, i'll give you the professional answer first and then I'll give you the the more personal, real answer. If I'm going to be totally honest, um, so I wanted to go into public private partnerships. So I had been in the media world. I'd been in the nonprofit world. I had never worked with the governmental side of things. I worked on obama's await campaign Campaign but besides that, had no experience working with the government. So when I had been working in the media world, i came up against I was seeing who was getting promoted in my company. It was predominantly people with MBAs. I was also looking at some of my favorite projects that I had done and they had been at the intersection of public private partnerships. So, for example, i had um worked with michelle obama's let girls learn campaign, the peace core and the media technology company that I was at to Put out a tech challenge for girls around the world. That was really cool because I was able to bring stakeholders to the table who normally don't talk to each other. So I went back to grad school thinking, okay, i need to get my MBA because That's how, basically, people within the company are going to promote you, and then, two, if I'm able to check out a policy degree. That would be really cool. That said, i do need to credit A lot of my classmates who I was with at dartmouth, who were going into masters, into policy programs, because I think a lot of them were more socially oriented people. Within the MBA ecosystem, i think you get a lot of people who are optimizing for something other than purpose. Usually Many people's goal is more on the profit oriented side of things and I saw the type of people who are going into policy And I and I was really drawn to that. So so that's the official answer, if I'm going to be 100 real.

Speaker 2: 18:21

I lost my dad to incurable brain cancer three months before starting my MBA and I had this moment where I had been hustling, where I frankly been working my butt off in New York City For a very long time, and I said what am I doing this for? What is the bottom line? Am I, am I working for um, a company who I really respect? am I, when I lay my head down at night, um, and I ask myself the big questions, how am I feeling about it? And that's not to say that I I disagreed or didn't respect the companies that I worked for. But when you lose someone who's so important to you, i think it makes you take a step back and really evaluate the big picture. Um, a year later I almost lost my mom and I. It was kind of this confluence of life altering moments that made me say stop and actually go for what you want. So I think it was The losing my dad and then almost lose me losing my mom that frankly gave me the courage to go out on my own after grad school and the courage to say no, um, you can actually do something on your own And you don't have to Go back to the more traditional safe environment where you're reporting to a manager. Give it a shot and if you fail, you fail, uh, but at least go for it.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Wow, that's, that's, that's powerful. Uh, well, sorry to hear about your dad. That's, that's a terrible thing to have to go through. Um, thank you. So you know clearly, uh, you're purpose driven and you know, i think that comes out in in flame bearers and what you're doing. You know, one of the things that I I find unbelievably offensive is that whole concept of shut up and dribble right, like that thing that you know a lot of athletes have to deal with with. Like you know, you have no view in anything else. You're here to entertain us. You know, grab your ball and go play and let the grown-ups deal with with important issues. Uh, sounds like that's A big part of what your show is right is that these athletes are much more than the sports. It's, it's, it's, you know, things like motherhood, but but it's also things like, you know, diversity, inclusion and those types of things. Uh, talk to me a little bit about you know how, how you run that through line, through your, through your show.

Speaker 2: 20:44

That's. That's spot on, um. I've always been um very eager to kind of pull that thread and show the fact that anyone, be it a celebrity, a politician, um, a professional athlete, they're people and You have to listen to them and respect them as people too. It's it's like when someone uh says you know, i'm not gonna vote for a Paul, or they think about politicians and their, their personal life and what they say is very separate. They're a full package. What who someone is is who someone is, and you know it's. If you want the the cake, you got to take the icing too. Icing too.

Speaker 2: 21:23

So, what, what we try to do, the way we approach the show in each conversation, is we Basically clarify what each athlete cares most about. So we usually have a pre-call or I ask them in an email What is it that you want to focus on? It's not me Approaching them and saying oh, i saw you were in the news for this. This is the through line. It's actually me going to them and saying Um, we would love to do your favorite piece on you ever done. What do you want to focus on? and usually they come back with a pretty clear sense of what they care about. Um, and then we kind of build it out from there. We say who are the people that you would like included?

Speaker 2: 22:04

Um, with sue, we actually surprised her and got her sister and her niece and nephew on. She didn't know that. We thought that that would be a fun surprise to her. But many athletes say, oh, it's important to me that you have my partner, or it's important to me that you have my coach, uh, because they can help Provide some context on who I am when I'm not competing, because, guess what, i can only compete for so many hours of the day. So, um, i think one of the ways that we do that is by adding Contributing voices to who they are, and it's not just them sharing their own stories. I think the other way that we do that is By really thinking carefully about what questions we ask. So, yes, we talk about sports, but Really gearing towards who they are as people. So humanizing people who Traditionally are considered goddesses and gods. We put them up on pedestals, but then really getting them to talk about things that are accessible to more normal people, normal and quotes who, um, are not super hyper elite athletes.

Speaker 1: 23:08

Yeah, and, and that's why you're an award-winning podcast right, Thank you Yeah so.

Speaker 1: 23:14

I like to say they're doing the hard work, but yes, Well, i mean, you know, I mean these conversations that we're having. I mean I like to do my due diligence and I like to speak with really interesting people and do a little bit of research. But you know, at the end of the day I always take the approach of I'm gonna talk to someone that I find interesting, i'm gonna ask questions and interest me and hopefully other people out there Enjoy the conversation. But you know, you're, you have significant production time. That's going into the episodes. How, how much time are you spending on each show?

Speaker 2: 23:47

That is a lot. It's definitely a labor of love. So We just wrapped up season three of the podcast and what I would say is we probably put between 40 to 50 hours into every episode. So that includes The prep work, the writing of questions, the emailing back and forth. The final pieces is like actually hopping on the call and interviewing them. Then there's all the post-production work of putting it into a script, adding music, making it sound good. So people who are tuning in in their car feel like they're kind of just floating along, but it's definitely a labor of love. Oh, then there's the whole. Let's build out social media graphics.

Speaker 2: 24:31

Let's put this on YouTube. So it's, it's not just Audio storytelling. We're beginning to think through how can we make this more visually appealing for people too. So it's, yeah, it's. It's a lot more than you would guess. I remember when I started I thought this was gonna be a pretty turnkey five to ten hours and then I quickly learned that that was way off and You're on season three, ali, from my understanding, and season one, season two, were like the road to the Olympics, right, it was like Tokyo.

Speaker 1: 25:03

So you know, like that type of thing. And then see, exactly, i find very fascinating because it's something that I've I've I've had a lot of conversations with athletes is this this idea of life after sports, right?

Speaker 2: 25:17

exactly.

Speaker 1: 25:17

Yeah, which exactly? so go ahead I was gonna say so.

Speaker 2: 25:21

Season one was athletes trying to go to Tokyo, most of whom made it, many of whom won medals. Season Two was athletes trying to go to Beijing. So the Winter Olympics, paralympics. Season three what happens afterwards? So when the fans go home, when the cameras go home, obviously that was kind of Stunted or impacted by by the pandemic in terms of the crowds and the audiences who were able to be there. But I think the phenomenon of The Olympic or the Paralympic blues Absolutely still remains the same, in the sense that This is a moment in time where these athletes have been working for their entire life. It happens and then they're on a plane back home, and then what? so those are the conversations that we tried to have yeah it it's.

Speaker 1: 26:09

You know, when I, when I started this podcast, it was really around athletes, athletes that had transitioned on into, you know, the business world or whatever it was, and what I was trying to do is draw A lot of the parallels between what makes somebody successful in athletics and how it translates to business, to bountries, to new ship or whatever it might be, because Sports ends for everybody. Eventually It's a ticking clock, like nobody is gonna play forever right, and you know even the greatest of the great, like you know they're, they're in their early 40s And it's like now, what do I do for the rest of my life? One of the things that I've I've found to be kind of a through line with a lot of athletes I've talked into is this like loss of Purpose or identity that happens After, after sports ends. What are some of the things that you find consistent with these athletes, and how, how were the ones that are successful at making that transition able to deal with it?

Speaker 2: 27:04

Sure such a good question. What I would say is I am noticing a generational shift. So Season four of the podcast which we haven't announced yet, but to give you a sneak peek is on the first woman's national soccer team And we're releasing it around the world cup. The reason I bring this up is because the transition from professional sports To life after that has dramatically changed. As women's sports have been more widely recognized, more, more sponsorship opportunities, people are willing to invest in it. So I will I would just, to give you a sneak preview, say that Athletes from previous generations haven't necessarily had a lot of the same opportunities as athletes today Who are already thinking about building their brand, building their social media presence, sponsorship things that are previously not been open to women of previous generations.

Speaker 2: 28:02

So I would say a couple different things that I've noticed. What I would say in general is we're not there yet. So little of sponsorship dollars goes to women athletes. Less than four percent of sports media coverage Goes to women athletes. If you are an athlete with a disability, if you're from the global south, good luck getting any coverage, let alone something that doesn't really paint you with the pity brush.

Speaker 2: 28:27

So I would say it's an uphill battle for those athletes to think about creating a brand, which is essentially what many people lean on.

Speaker 2: 28:37

When they go to retire, they're able to say I Achieved a B and C, i appeared in these games, i have a command of an audience that tunes in regularly.

Speaker 2: 28:51

Those are usually the numbers that Sponsors are looking for and able to invest in someone. That said, i think that there are a ton of opportunities that are coming down the pipe for athletes to directly connect with consumers. With the WNBA and The final four having off the chart numbers this year, people are seeing that people are really eager to invest and care about women's sports, and I would say I think it's really important for Athletes to try to build their brand directly with the people who support them and watch their sport, and I think the best ways to do that are to be super authentic and real about their experiences, to share who they are and, in kind of traditional ways, so writing their opinions on issues, but then also Talking about what they care about in their games on social media, because at the end of the day, you know their games are gonna stop and they're gonna be looking for something else.

Speaker 1: 29:52

Right and you have a fellowship program that you're releasing. Right flame bears.

Speaker 2: 29:57

We do, we do. I am definitely more of a Teach a person a fish model. Then you know, catch fish for them. So essentially, what this is is it is a digital storytelling Fellowship program. It's great that we can tell stories. It's much better if the athletes We work with can actually go out and tell their own stories, so then they can sell themselves to people who want to invest directly in them. I would love if my role didn't even have to exist, because people went directly to the athletes themselves. So what we're teaching in the fellowship are things like How do you produce a podcast, how do you create a viral reel, how do you write a compelling op-ed and get picked up in a major news outlet All things around. How you tell your story in a compelling way to get people to care and invest.

Speaker 1: 30:52

How much of where you're at today is where you wanted to go when you started this.

Speaker 2: 30:59

You know, I would love to be able to say this is exactly where I want it to be. As I said, I was building the plane as I was flying it. I thought this was going to be a internship. Between my graduate school years at Harvard, I never in a million years thought that this would turn into A my full-time job, and let alone a company that has reached in 50 countries. That is absolutely wild to me. I kind of have to pinch myself and throw water on my face, But I would be lying if I said that this was the plan. This had not been the plan.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Yeah, well, where do you go from here?

Speaker 2: 31:42

So we are now expanding to video storytelling and live events storytelling. So have recently been hosting events in a couple different forums, be it school conferences We hosted an event at a Super Bowl side panel out in Arizona this year creating space for women athletes, essentially thinking of podcasting, as one spoke of the wheel, but there's lots of different ways that you can tell stories of elite women athletes And I think that video and live events are two of the areas that we're really trying to heavily invest in moving forward. I would also say that, with the Women's World Cup coming up, we have some really exciting coverage of the original team that we're very excited about. Essentially, no one has ever given this group, the 1985 team, the credit or the space to tell their story And they jump started what many consider the greatest national team success story in history with the US national soccer team. So I'm really excited to get their stories out there and to be a microphone for them.

Speaker 1: 32:54

Yeah, that's great. Like you said, the 1985 team in my mind, i was like, oh wow, i've never even thought about that Right. You kind of.

Speaker 2: 33:03

I think everybody It was before the First World Cup.

Speaker 1: 33:05

Right, i think everybody when they think of their first introduction to women's soccer. It's like those Brandy Chastain, like those days right.

Speaker 2: 33:13

Me, ham, christine, Lily, exactly 100%, and those are the women who I grew up idolizing. I was a soccer player in college for a little bit And those were my idols, and then including Michelle Akers who was on that original team. But I think there's a whole generation of players who have kind of not that they've been swept under the rug, but they have not been given the credit that I think they deserve. So I'm excited to help give them the mic and elevate them, because I think they deserve the limelight for a change.

Speaker 1: 33:51

Because it seems like that. I don't know, was it 92? What was the Me Ham years 91.?

Speaker 2: 33:59

It was the big World Cup. So that was actually the first women's World Cup, so before that there hadn't been a World Cup. So that's part of what we talk about is because a lot of these players felt like there weren't opportunities for them.

Speaker 1: 34:14

Sure, like the idea would be that they would have probably have won a World Cup if there was one, hopefully, hopefully, who knows? So you mentioned you played soccer. You were a soccer player for a little while in college. One of the other things that I thought was interesting I saw this on your I think it was like your LinkedIn profile You played Quidditch In college and I was like, wait a second, like I was confused. I was like is that a joke?

Speaker 1: 34:42

And then I looked it up and, sure enough, the college that you went to invented like a real game of like Quidditch, based on the Harry Potter series.

Speaker 2: 34:54

Right, Yes, okay. So this is one of my most cringe-worthy but also slash proudest moments, so I kind of need to rethink if that should stay on my LinkedIn profile. Yeah, so Middlebury College, small Liberal Arts School in rural Vermont, someone in the class above me his name was Alex Betipi basically decided to create Quidditch, so the game from Harry Potter which my generation grew up idolizing in human form. So essentially, you take a bunch of college age kids Many of them, hilariously, are like actual, very serious athletes, combined with people who have never played a sport in their life and they just love Harry Potter And you basically put hula hoops up, you have deflated volleyball and the wall balls And basically you have to run with a broom between your legs.

Speaker 2: 35:57

It's pretty wild, but, yes, i was a three-time national Quidditch world champ, so we would. I think my senior year there was 28 different colleges from the US who came to rural Vermont to compete in this. So that is kind of my Quidditch claim to fame. But again, when I talked to these athletes, i definitely do not put math, but I thought it was fun setting.

Speaker 1: 36:21

You should totally do that, no way. Okay, listen, i know you have won two gold medals, but did you know I'm a three-time Quidditch champion? We're the same.

Speaker 2: 36:32

We're the same Basically. Yeah, totally, The training I went for that was just on par with what you did, 100%.

Speaker 1: 36:40

Yeah, when they talk about like their, you know when they won the, you know their first WNBA championship or whatever it is you're like. I remember when we won our first Quidditch world championship.

Speaker 2: 36:50

It was Credibility out the window.

Speaker 1: 36:54

No, that is phenomenal. I was looking at the pictures online too. It looks actually just like a ton of fun.

Speaker 2: 37:00

It is a ton of fun and you know it basically gets a bunch of kids together who don't take themselves too seriously. So if you were into Harry Potter and you happen to be at, you know, in college, at the time I thought it was a blast. You get a bunch of people who are running around on broomsticks, more more realistically, tripping over broomsticks, and it's wild because I now see Kids playing in like the Boston Common. I guess it's done pretty well and take it off and I always just kind of chuckle.

Speaker 1: 37:31

Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's, that's unbelievable. So All right. So, as you, as you look forward here, you're getting you know, deeper and deeper into Into this world of sports, you're building more relationships. Where, where do you see you guys? and you know the next three to five years.

Speaker 2: 37:51

I My hope is that we become the preeminent global storytelling platform for elite women athletes so, and storytelling in different formats so, podcasts being one of them, live events being one of them, video being one of them. When people think of Elite women athletes, they think of the flame bears brand.

Speaker 1: 38:14

That's what I'm hoping as your brand starting to gain traction within the community.

Speaker 2: 38:20

Definitely, definitely. It's really really special to hear When people reach out saying you know, i've been listening to your show for years. I've you know. This is the impact it had on me or my daughter or my friend, and and that, honestly, is what makes me keep doing it.

Speaker 1: 38:38

Yeah, and you're. You know, as you says, we started off, you're out in, you know Colorado right now and kind of the Vale Mountains, and I know you're based out of Boston. So it seems like this is your, your, you're able to do this, but also be able to travel a little bit and enjoy life.

Speaker 2: 38:54

I'm very, very lucky, i think, that With the ability to conduct many of these interviews remotely, there is definitely a level of flexibility that comes with that that I I definitely don't take for granted. Having Worked in a more traditional nine to five environment where you know you have to be in the opposite 830, i definitely don't take the flexibility for granted. So that's a hundred percent right.

Speaker 1: 39:18

Nice, have you started season four already? Have the interviews started?

Speaker 2: 39:23

We are. Interviews have not started. All of the prep work has started. So this coming weekend, june 30th and July 1st, the actual team is getting together for the first time in 38 years to Honor the players and I'm gonna be there, so that's when we're gonna start our interviews.

Speaker 1: 39:44

That's amazing. Did you help facilitate that at all, or?

Speaker 2: 39:48

a small part. Stacy Enos, who is, was one of the original 85ers. She is the first UNC Tarheel to go to the national team. She is really the brains behind it. I've been working closely with Michelle acres because I'm working with her on another project and she's the one who pulled me in, so I've I've done a whole component with flame bears, but Stacy is it's really the brains behind the weekend.

Speaker 1: 40:15

Nice. Well, by the way, that just made me feel really old too, when you're like, yeah, haven't been together in 38 years 38 years ago, oh, my god, crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. Well, listen, the podcast is awesome. I love what you're doing. I I am the father of two, two daughters who are both athletes, and I've been coaching both of them. So it's like not just them, but a team of young ladies there that are part of that, and I will tell you this is a as a boy growing up in a very athletic Oriented family with a dad that was pushing sports, i I don't think I ever gave women sports They're do and it was always like, oh yeah, that's not real. And, and as I've been coaching and I've been watching my own daughters, i will tell you that young women athletes and and women athletes in general, are just as fierce, just as competitive as as any boy out there. I I've absolutely loved watching my daughters and her friends and being a part of coaching them, and So I love, i love what you're doing.

Speaker 1: 41:22

Your podcast is is fantastic and and I love how it's much bigger than just just the podcast.

Speaker 2: 41:28

Thank you. Well, thanks for saying that. You know it's. it's interesting. My my boyfriend, was a was a D1 college athlete, and I've had a lot of conversations with him Specifically around how to make sure that we're presenting this as something that we want men to listen to. You, too, we want men to tune in, so we're in the process of building out a male athlete ambassador program So they can be a part of this. I think that This is not something that we view as just open to women, because men are half the solution.

Speaker 1: 42:00

Yeah, absolutely. Well, i know this is totally off-brand, but would you ever build a, a male version of this, or it's like male male?

Speaker 2: 42:08

potentially. You know, i'd have to give that some thought. I hadn't considered it, so I would. I would be open to it. I would never say no to anything. Let's say that.

Speaker 1: 42:19

Yeah, men get enough attention I? think what you're doing there's a bigger need for it in the space.

Speaker 2: 42:27

I'm a little biased, but I tend to agree Yeah plus it plus it.

Speaker 1: 42:32

There's like an authenticity that I think comes from you, that comes out for it right, like you know, we talked a lot about it Like there seems to be a genuine Passion for what you're doing and purpose behind why you're doing it, where you know, i don't know. Great, yeah, it is different.

Speaker 2: 42:49

So I definitely would be different.

Speaker 1: 42:52

Well, i appreciate it. Show is is And website is what flame bears calm, right, you got it Awesome. Well, it's great talking to you. I appreciate you fighting through those internet.

Speaker 2: 43:08

Yeah, thanks for having me. This was, this was a wonderful conversation.

Speaker 1: 43:11

Great, i'm glad you thought so. Thank you.