Ep59 NAYA TAPPER Professional Rugby, USA Women's Eagles Sevens Team

This week I’m very happy to introduce rugby superstar Naya Tapper who was recently named the all time top try scorer for the USA Women's Eagles Sevens Team. As she said in Ep59, "I’m fast, powerful, and I’m hard to take down, so that’s kind of a try scoring machine, if you think about it."
 
Naya is originally from North Carolina and attended UNC, where she began her rugby career in 2012. She began playing for the USA Women's Eagles in 2016 and currently resides in Chula Vista, California, where she trains at the Olympic Training Center with the USA Rugby team. 
 
Naya began her athletic life as a sprinter so transitioning to rugby required learning how to work with a bunch of other super star athletes and how to play with a ball. As I mentioned to Naya, it never occurred to me I could work on improving my eye-hand coordination (which really is not my strength).  Naya reveals that she uses special eye-hand coordination glasses! What!? Yes. I love that. I love really specialized sporty tools. Take a listen to the episode to find out what they are all about.
 
Another standout portion of the conversation was Naya’s hesitation and answer to my feminine-side question. Relistening while editing made me feel old by even asking the question. Like what is a feminine side? Having labeled it seemed odd. And yet, the other side of it is her reply: "They have the bows in their hair. They have their finger nails painted. Things like that just to show, yeah I’m a girl, I’m feminine, and I’m playing this rough, amazing sport and I’m kicking ass at it. That’s as good as it gets, I think."
 
This episode with Naya Tapper is the 3rd rugby episode following Ep12 with Phaidra Knight and Ep47 with Hannah Hall and Laelae Mituanai of the YSU Rugby Team. I spoke with Phaidra almost 2 years ago so it’s particularly interesting to compare what she and Naya say about the growth of the sport and about tactics in rugby sevens.

Send me your thoughts via our Contact page.

Keep Listening,
Elizabeth Emery

Ep 58 Jen Gurecki CEO Coalition Snow Demand Exceptional

Once again, I have a phenomenal female athlete to introduce this week. Jen Gurecki is CEO of Coalition Snow, a woman founded ski & snowboard company, Editor in Chief SISU magazine, (uncovering the untold stories of the outdoors), Co-host of Juicy Bits podcast, and Founder of Zawadisha (improving women's lives one loan at a time).
 
With all that, what excited me most about having Jen on the show was the opportunity to hear an insider's view of selling quality women’s equipment versus "pinking down" something designed by and made for men.

If you’re a regular listener to the podcast, you have heard me talk about my quest for wide cycling shoes and I mention it again in this episode. It’s interesting, this time while editing our conversation it struck me that my feet aren’t really that small and yet I’m nearly apologizing for needing something special. My feet are 7.5, small for a man of course, but pretty average for a woman. Over the years my experiences finding cycling shoes have mirrored what Jen talked about in the episode. 
 
Jen says that women don’t spend money on equipment "because they don't believe they deserve it". We certainly can do a number on ourselves, so I’ll buy that. However, I’m not convinced that if it weren’t so hard to get what we needed, we’d be spending much more. Stores make it difficult to spend good money on good equipment if we don’t line up with what is expected of us. Often, I find only lower end models stocked. Would most customers know to ask for something better? I’m tired of spending so much time and effort seeking a good pair of cycling shoes. I’m also tired of riding with less than ideal.
 
I really like Jen’s point about how it takes work to support diversity, to support an inclusive outdoors, to support female-founded companies like Coalition Snow. It’s easy to say you will and way harder to make the commitment to actually take action to really get it done. It’s not easy. 

And the same is true for all undersupported, underrepresented groups. Let’s you and I do the work to spend money at businesses founded by and supporting people of color, LBGTQ, LatinX, and women. I do understand the financials of taking a stand and supporting people outside the center. And as an optimist, I believe there is a way.
 
Sometimes it takes only a bit of pre-planning. Jen shares a perfect example of not being defensive and then doing work on the front end for a women’s EVO + Coalition Snow ski trip.
 
A recent New York Times article writes there’s now greater diversity of lead characters in movies, but still directors are mostly white men. This is in part because audiences don’t vote with their dollars when it comes to directors, so there’s been no financial incentive for studios to make changes.
 
Here’s a partial list from the article of upcoming films directed by women. Make the effort to vote with your $$$.
“Frozen II” co-directed by Jennifer Lee
“Breakthrough,” directed by Roxann Dawson
“The Sun Is Also a Star,” directed by Ry-Russo-Young
“The Rhythm Section directed by Reed Morano
“Little,” directed by Tina Gordon
“Queen & Slim,” directed by Melina Matsoukas.
“Charlie’s Angels” directed by Elizabeth Banks  
“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” directed by Marielle Heller
“Poms” directed by Zara Hayes
“Wonder Woman 1984,” directed by Patty Jenkins
“Birds of Prey,” directed by Cathy Yan
 
That’s enough from me. Head right over to Apple Podcasts or where ever you go for podcast listening and tune in to hear from Jen about why she started Coalition and what the impact is of providing excellent gear for sporty women right from the get go. She is able to talk about her experience and challenges as she works to get her skis and boards into smaller independent stores. Right now, not one carries Coalition Snow.
 
Jen & I also talk about being kind, speaking up, and dealing with making mistakes and quite a bit of other great stuff.

Ep57 RACHEL HAINES Forgiving

This week's episode is skyrocketing to the top of all-time listens, so definitely make sure to check out what all the excitement is about.

Rachel was a two-time member of the US Women’s Gymnastics team, two-time National Champion, and Division 1 college gymnast at University of Minnesota where she studied child psychology and earned a master’s degree in family social science. She is also Survivor 195 in the Larry Nassar case.

Tomorrow, her excellent memoir comes out!
In Abused: Surviving Sexual Assault and a Toxic Gymnastics Culture she writes in detail about breaking her back in three places and everything she did to stay in the sport after that day. But, mostly Rachel uses the lens of her psychology training to dissect her time in the sport. She focuses on the culture of gymnastics, being a driven teenager, her own process of healing, forgiving, moving on, and creating a great life after sport.

Rachel’s goal is to inspire just one person with what she’s written.

Competing versus training is a favorite topic of this podcast, so talking to Rachel about the complex relationship between competition, having fun, developing into a better person, safety, and respect for sport has me still thinking. She asks important questions like what is the aim of college sports. This discussion is timely given the recent college application scandal (which I’ve been obsessing about). And yet, making it only about fun and games takes away so much of what sport is about.

This weekend I’m running in a 5K. Even at this mini level, I’m reminded of how racing differs from training. I’ve enjoyed and hated getting ready for an actual event with a timer. While figuring out pacing and pushing myself to run a bit faster feels like an accomplishment, there’s no doubt that I’m paying a price for adding even this small amount of speed work with increased stress on my still struggling knees.

Thinking back to Rachel – how DO you balance the dueling requests sports make? She’s coaching now and has successfully implemented some of her ideas. Tune in to hear what she said.