When Jade Strawberry ’17 (CLAS) got the news that she’d been promoted to chief of staff of the youth-sports advocacy organization RCX Sports as a 26-year-old with less than three years in the industry, she felt both immense pride and a brief flash of panic: Was she ready for the job? Could she handle the work? Had the team made a mistake?
“I had that one night of impostor syndrome,” Strawberry confesses. So, as she’s done countless times before, the former UConn volleyball player stepped into her bathroom, looked herself in the mirror, and gave herself a firm pep talk.
“This is literally what I asked for. We’re gonna go do it, and we’re gonna go get it,” she remembers telling herself. “You’re here for a reason.”
Since then, Strawberry has been named one of the 2024 New Voices Under 30 by Sports Business Journal for her leadership of her organization’s Females in Flag initiative, aimed at increasing the number of young women athletes in flag football at every level, from junior varsity to university.
Nearly 70,000 girls competed in high school flag football around the country last year. In 2024, the NFL Flag Championships — for boys and girls — broadcast for the first time on ESPN.
“Teams were buzzing, that’s for sure,” Strawberry says of the competition, recalling her own excitement as fireworks whizzed and crackled overhead during the opening night ceremony at the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Onsite with her team were two college women’s flag football players, inaugural winners of the International Scholarship sponsored by the RCX Sports Foundation in partnership with the NFL.
“In between meetings, we would walk around the fields together, just sit down and hang out,” says Strawberry. They asked her advice on all manner of things, making Strawberry recall her own time as a young athlete, eager for support from her coach or older teammates.
“I love that you are looking at me in that way, as a mentor,” she told them. “And if you need a resource, I’m here.”
