Keep the Light On: Reflections on My Advocacy Journey
First and foremost, happy U.S. Black History Month and belated National Girls and Women in Sports Day!
Each quarter at a company All-Hands meeting, Hudl recognizes five people that have embodied one of the company’s core values: We’re a Family, We Listen, We’re Respectfully Blunt, We Thrive on the Front Lines, and Dominate. In October 2021, I was given the “We’re a Family” value award for the second time in my nearly five-year career at Hudl — a massive honor! To present the award to me, my team made this video that simultaneously made me laugh and brought me to tears. As someone with words of affirmation as a top love language, this video is one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. 🥲
It was a huge surprise to be given this award again after receiving it for the first time in October 2019. The recognition sparked a few months of reflection on my personal growth over the last two years. That reflection ran into the new year's intention setting and influenced my word of the year: clarity.
As Brene Brown says, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” This year, I want to be clear with myself so I can be kind to others. So let me be clear: one area of growth in the last few years that I am most proud of is my advocacy journey.
Advocacy journey
At Hudl, I’ve witnessed a combination of grassroots efforts and empowering leadership start to ignite sparks. Those sparks have spread to people who are now advocating for equity in all corners of the company. There are four efforts and a lot of incredible people that I have learned from and been inspired by over the last few years. As I’ve navigated the phases of the Advocate Journey Activity Map (pictured below), each of the mentioned people has contributed to pushing me personally from being curious to actively advocating in some way or another.
This activity was made by Startup Advisor Jennifer Kim, who teaches a Udemy course, Diversity & Inclusion: Building a Grassroots Foundation, that dives deeper and I’d highly recommend it. Part of my motivation for writing this quote:
“For every mildly horrifying story, there are hundreds of untold stories about ordinary signals of progress. Putting the spotlight on the terrible and the extreme is important for awareness, but it shouldn’t be the *only* tone.” — Jennifer Kim
Now more than ever, we should all be acknowledging, complimenting, encouraging, supporting, and uplifting the light we see in each other. My hope is that by highlighting and celebrating the impact these people have had on Hudl’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts, I will encourage them to keep their light on as they continue to do for me and so many others.
Together, we can continue to build on the momentum.
Before we dig in…
This article does not cover everyone that has ever had an impact on DE&I at Hudl. It also does not indicate that we are, by any means, done. There’s always more learning and growing to do, but I am proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish thus far.
I am not a diversity, equity, and inclusion specialist by any means and that’s kind of the whole point. You can make an impact wherever you are by choosing courage over comfort.
I am the Media Operations Manager at Hudl and my top five CliftonStrengths are includer, harmony, empathy, communication, and arranger. Even without knowing much about all 34 strengths, those words start to paint a picture of how my strengths contribute to making allyship important to me. Here are a few key lines from my report to further illustrate who I am:
- The Includer theme is accepting of others. They show awareness of those who feel left out and make an effort to include them.
- The Harmony theme looks for consensus. They don’t enjoy conflict; rather, they seek areas of agreement.
- The Empathy theme can sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others’ lives or others’ situations.
- The Communication theme generally finds it easy to put their thoughts into words. They are good conversationalists and presenters.
- The Arranger theme can organize, but they also have a flexibility that complements this ability.
Now, let’s dig in.
Community Champions & Level The Playing Field: Hudl’s Technology Grant Program
My dear friend Brooke Denker asked me to co-lead the Community Champions taskforce with her in 2018. Community Champions brings opportunities for Hudlies to get more involved on both a company and individual level through partnerships with organizations that provide mentorship to youth in the community. At this point, I was in the curious phase of the advocacy journey map and beginning the informed phase. I am really proud of what we accomplished in our ~year together and the experience definitely pushed me to the empowered phase. We more than doubled the number of Hudlies that were TeamMates mentors through our internal recruiting and training efforts AND Hudl was named the 2019 Carmen and Tony Messineo Community Involvement Award Winner.
When Brooke passed her co-lead torch to Marilyn John, we created new goals and plans for growing the Community Champions taskforce together. In 2020, the opportunity to create Hudl’s first grant program arose and we enthusiastically chose courage over comfort and got to work.
“Broad access to technology and information has become a ‘great equalizer ‘ for many, especially in the world of sports. While we know technology alone can’t get rid of the deeply ingrained misogyny, racism and homophobia in our society, we also know it has an important role to play in the fight for equality.” – David Graff , Hudl CEO
Enter the Level the Playing Field grant program. It annually provides $30K of Hudl product-based grants with a three-year cycle to ensure recipients have time to adopt and implement the technology. Hudl has awarded grants to these six organizations in the last two years: Tech Exposure and Access through Mentoring (TEAMinc), Football for the World, The Keys Foundation, Team 402, Equal Play: Inspiring Confidence for Girls (EPIC), and USA Deaf Soccer Association.
Along with Marilyn, there are so many empowering and kind people that contributed significantly to the building of this grant program: Joy Shadley, Kari Schmitz, Sean Carney, Mick Conlan, Matt Miller, Catherine Chapman, Megan Kolarik, and many more people in leadership and influencing positions. The way everyone responded to this rare opportunity to establish an impactful and long-lasting grant program was inspiring. Each Hudlie leaned into their strengths and creativity to reach outside of their job responsibilities to learn and define how to bring the program to life.
Keep an eye out — we will be announcing cohort three grant recipients via an original content series that launches in August 2022. Long-time Hudl partner Gatorade is sponsoring year three. You can learn more at hudl.com/theplayingfield.
Eventually, I passed the Community Champions co-lead torch to my incredible friend and ally Robby White. I truly underestimated how cool it would be to watch him progress on his advocacy journey and start to leave a positive mark on the community in the process.
A message to these friends: you are all community champions, and that’s facts!
Alright, next up…
The Evolution of Together@Hudl into ERGs
Hudl started its journey to the current Employee Resource Group (ERG) structure by forming task forces for initiatives important to Hudlies, like the aforementioned Community Champions, and it was a pretty natural shift from there to ERGs. Slightly different than a task force, an ERG is an employee-led and organizationally supported group of Hudlies drawn together by something that the group has in common — such as social causes or shared attributes and characteristics — and their allies.
“Being an ally is a practice — something you do every day to support underrepresented people. Doing research and unpacking your own privilege is part of the work.” – Jennifer Kim, Startup Advisor
With this growth and restructuring, originally pitched by alum Maria Balogun, the Hudl Together task force evolved into the Together@Hudl committee that now serves as an umbrella organization to actively and formally promote inclusion at Hudl, and align efforts happening across the company. After “retiring” from being a taskforce co-lead, I joined this committee as a member-at-large. It’s one of the most genuine and empathetic groups I’ve ever been involved in and I’m constantly learning from their compassion.
Jasmine Kinglsey, Caroline Sheridan, alumni Nichole Tiggs, and Kyle Murphy are the leaders and influences that were responsible for creating the charter for the Together@Hudl committee and Anthony Galvan has recently joined as another executive sponsor. These people (and more) have helped foster accountability, lead hard but meaningful conversations, provide direction, and bring visibility to grassroots efforts happening at Hudl.
Zach Henry and Winston Jones are the current co-leads of the committee and, I must say, we’ve started to hit our stride! Hudl Black, Her Hudl, Pride@Hudl, and Community Champions are all well-established ERGs now and a group of Hudlies is forming a fifth ERG for mental wellness/health, too. Each group has been tackling important and impactful projects, including making contributions to the third annual company diversity report coming out this month.
BreakThrough Summit created by Hudl + WeCOACH
What is BreakThrough Summit? It’s a digital leadership summit created by Hudl in partnership with WeCOACH. WeCOACH is the premier membership organization dedicated to the recruitment, advancement, and retention of women coaches of all sports and levels.
BreakThrough Summit is a virtual event for women in sport and their allies. We spend a day connecting, learning, and just generally being wildly inspired by leaders in different parts of the sports world and viewers can tune in from anywhere! In three years, we’ve had an absolutely star-studded roster of speakers, including Jill Ellis, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Tara VanDerveer, Becky Hammon, Julie Foudy, Muffet McGraw, Layshia Clarendon, Dr. Jen Welter, Sue Enquest and our host, one of THE best in the biz, ESPN analyst LaChina Robinson.
I can say with confidence that working with Megan Kahn and Jan Whitbeck from WeCOACH taught me a vast number of lessons on how to be a better feminist, coach, and dreamer. They broadened my awareness of methods and strategies for advocating and creating a better reality for women in sports now and in the future.
It takes a village to pull off this event, but I want to especially clap for these core people: Kailee Luddy, Rachel Wudarczyk, Megan Smith, Nick Goodwin, Kelly Mosier, Bella Breck, Reid Alt, Tyler Thomas, Alex Jacobsen, Chris Walsh, Kaylynn Knuth, Alexis Wingert, Matt Hansen, and Hudl alumni Hannah Bauer, Allie McPhail, Kevin Buglewicz and Trevor Hellman, and Thrive Events owner, Justin Fuchs.
HerHudl Snapchat and Instagram
Yes, you are remembering correctly — HerHudl is an ERG. Great callback, I’m proud of you! The HerHudl ERG is co-lead by Jessie Horn and Amanda Jahn and its mission is to create a safe space for women and allies to learn, share experiences, empower each other, and get involved in our communities to hold the door open for the women coming up behind us.
HerHudl is also a discover partner show on Snapchat and an Instagram account launched on National Girls and Women in Sports Day 2 February 2022! Bailey Fitzgerald and Kaylynn Knuth have been advocating for and building these extensions of the Hudl programming to be dedicated entirely to lifting up girls and women in sports. I’m so proud of these two for embarking on their own advocacy journeys and for finding ways to impact the systemic issues we see in sports media.
Jasmine Kingsley elaborates on the topic of equity in sports media. She writes, “Traditional media have a long way to go to cover men’s and women’s athletics equitably if we even get there at all. But, as new live streaming and game capture platforms, new and dedicated media properties, and NIL all converge, the question becomes, is there another way? Instead of waiting for legacy players to catch up, women are leveraging the new resources at hand to both engage with their fans and grow their brands, and ultimately, their sports.”
One more special thank you to two impactful mentors and advocates in my life, Kelly Mosier and Adam Gouttierre. I’m grateful for the way you both encourage, coach, and empower me daily!
Advocacy is never done
It’s been a joy to be surrounded by the light and passion of these people who create a safe, diverse, and inclusive workplace. As Content Design Manager and Pride@Hudl co-lead Christina Gibbons said: “Hudl sits at the intersection of sports and tech, two historically male-dominated fields. Two fields that can sometimes make increasing the diversity of our teams feel like an uphill battle.”
Our work isn’t done by any means, advocacy is never done. It is, however, important to pause and reflect on how far we’ve come. I am a better advocate because of these people and Hudl is a better place because of their efforts. As Jennifer Kim says, “Every big social change entails hundreds, if not thousands, of incremental steps that added up to a movement.”
Thank you for joining me on this journey.
Do you have a story of a coworker whose light you appreciate or an initiative that has had an impact on your advocacy journey? I’d love to hear about it in the comments or in DMs. I also hope this inspires you to express your gratitude to those people today!
