It’s hiring season across NFL front offices, and while the league has made some strides to diversify the executive ranks, no team has turned over its football operation to a woman. Despite an expanding pool of candidates, it’s unclear if that day is close.
The incredulous look on Oakland Raiders CEO Amy Trask’s face was worth a thousand words, but the thump caused by dropping her pen on the conference-room table broke a stunned silence.
During a meeting between front-office executives and a group of business associates interested in a partnership, Raiders owner Al Davis — one of the NFL’s brashest and most powerful figures of his time — preemptively addressed a woman he was introduced to for the first time.
“I try very hard not to swear in front of women,” Davis told the room. “If I swear, I apologize.”
As the first-ever female CEO of an NFL team and one of Davis’ closest confidants beginning in the 1980s, Trask knew this declaration to be a lie. Or so she initially thought.
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