Women are rising up the ranks throughout professional football, earning positions of power in a space that for too long was ruled almost exclusively by men. We're seeing more and more women breaking barriers in the sport, but what are the stories beyond the headlines? Who are the women shaping and influencing the NFL today? Answering those questions is the aim of the Next Woman Up series. While the conversational Q&As are edited and condensed for clarity, this is a forum for impactful women to share experiences in their own words. Without further ado, we introduce:
Blayre Holmes Davis, Pittsburgh Steelers
Position: Senior Director of Community Relations
First of all, how did you get your foot in the door, and how did you get started working in sports, specifically in football?
Probably my journey to sports is a little bit different than some others. I have over 10 years of experience in the nonprofit sector really focusing on women's rights and social justice work. Before this, I worked at a healthcare organization here in Pennsylvania, and it was really all focused on reproductive healthcare, also around SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), SNAP education, working with youth and really making sure healthcare is accessible to communities that don't have it. I managed their advocacy and community outreach, and the opening came up for the Steelers, and somebody recommended me for the job. I'm born and raised here in Pittsburgh, and so of course, you know what comes with being in Pittsburgh is being a Steelers fan, and so I said, 'I'm always game for a new journey and a new opportunity.' This will be my sixth season with the organization, and it's been really great. What I always say I love most about my job is really being able to amplify a lot of organizations here in our area who have been just doing really amazing work and need someone to really step in and amplify it more and talk about it in a different lens.
What exactly does your role entail, and how do your relationships with the players and the organizations work?
My job is working with each of our players, to talk about how they want to give back to the community, and that could be from multiple different lines [of work]. It could be around youth justice work, juvenile justice, focusing on health care. I work with our community partners to find that specific niche. We have around 80 to 90 events during the season. Some of them are Steelers-led, some of them are player-led, where guys are just out in the community and really spending time with kids or the organization. I always say, the No. 1 priority is being a really good community partner. So, even if our players aren't involved, really having my ear to the ground when we're learning about issues that are happening in our community and how we as the Steelers or one of our players might be able to get involved and support those different issues. Last but not least is working with the NFL on all of their social responsibility initiatives and how they're executed here in the Pittsburgh market, from Crucial Catch to Salute to Service to their newest initiative, Inspire Change.
What does the communication look like with the community partners?
Some of it is some of our partners reaching out to me and saying, 'Hey, Blayre, here's something that's going on, it'd be great for the Steelers to get involved.' For example, recently, there was a fire at a homeless shelter that we've worked with previously, and thank God nobody was hurt. But, you know, those folks lost everything that they had, right? So I reached out, and we had a distribution event at that homeless shelter, just providing folks there with, you know, they didn't have any clothing, so providing them with clothing and then a dinner. I always have a community partner breakfast every season, to, No. 1, thank them for all of the hard work that they do throughout the year, not just the football season. And then also to talk about our partnership between the Steelers and those organizations, how we've been able to make an impact, and to talk about what's ahead.
Within your role, is there a specific event or partnership that really stands out to you as being one of the most fulfilling or rewarding?
Yeah, that's a good question. We've been able to touch so many different spaces, so I feel like, it's fulfilling overall just to see the big impact that we've been able to make. I would say one of my favorite programs is Cafe Momentum. They built their first restaurant, outside of the original one (in Dallas), here in Pittsburgh. And so I believe this will be their second year of them being here, but it all focuses on juvenile justice work. I love that program so much because it's great to really be able to give kids who need that encouragement, need that mentorship and that partnership, to have them have a very specific skill set as they're transitioning out of the juvenile justice system. A piece of that partnership was funded through our social justice fund, which is a matching fund between our players and our organization. So it's been really great to see our dollars be used in a way where it's supporting youth, but it's also a restaurant concept, and for our players to be able to go there and not even have a meal but just go and cook with some of the kids that are there, too.
That's really special! So you've talked a little bit about the partnerships between the organization and the players specifically. How have you been able to see your work with community relations inspire and bring out a different side of those players that people don't see on the field?
One of the things I always say is that my job is to humanize our players. T.J. Watt is such an amazing player on the field. And in the community, it's great to see this human side of him where he's at Children's Hospital, or he's at a backpack distribution or he's, you know, just providing food to someone who's in need. While our guys are amazing players on the field, there's also a different side to them, as well. It's great to see when people are just like, 'Oh my gosh, I just watched him on Sunday, and he's here in my community, you know, helping me do X, Y and Z.' And I feel like that's so important that we continue to have that in sports, because they're human beings just like us. They have causes that they care about. They've had things that have happened in their childhood that they want to support and focus on. I always say that's why intentionality is so important in my job, because I can take a player and we could go to a food bank, but I'd like to sit down and get to work with them one-on-one so I can really pull out, what are things that you really care about, right? It can be, someone in your family had cancer. It could be, your mom and dad were veterans. It could be something that you went through, growing up when you were in high school. And how can we really use this time and this opportunity in your life and your career and your platform to really highlight that, to bring awareness, and also just to really make some change in the community? And also for our guys to really take a minute to understand the bigger things that are happening in the world around us outside of football.
I was extremely honored to be a part of the team to help Cameron Heyward receive the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. Cam is a true leader on and off the field, and watching him receive this award was one of the most exciting times in my career in the NFL.
I love that you bring up that "human" aspect of the players. Is there any part of it that is a little challenging, or that you kind of had had to go through some hardship in your role over the past six years that you've been there?
There's definitely been some hardships. My first season was 2019, and then after that it was COVID, right? So I only had one year under my belt before COVID hit. And, you know, trying to really make sure and figure out, where do we really want to put our resources at to make the most impact? And so many people were hurting during that time. I would say like, while we haven't seen as many COVID cases, COVID is still here, right? And so we need to make sure that we're aware of that. There's still organizations that have been impacted by COVID that are still in the space of recovering. And so that was definitely a challenging time of just not being able to connect with people, and thank God we were all able to get creative. And so a lot of Zoom meetings, a lot of Zoom links set to players for community events that we just had to make virtual.
Now, I want to talk about you specifically and your journey before you got into sports. What kind of inspired you to get into community relations, and why was that sense of community so important for you to be a part of?
My senior year of college, I entered AmeriCorps, and I loved that program. A big part of my family is service, and so that's just always been a part of my family's giving back to the community. And so when I went into the AmeriCorps program, it was a great experience for me. I majored in marketing, but one thing I really never thought of was really using community impact as a lens through my career. So when I went through AmeriCorps, I was able to see that. And I spent a year at a marketing firm where I was able to do social media and email marketing for nonprofits and ministries. And one thing that I realized very quickly was that I love the mission of these organizations and I wanted to work through that lens. After that, I went to the Women and Girls Foundation and really focused on advocacy work and civic engagement, which was just a part of how I grew up.
You've used the word "serve" so much, so I wanted to ask what you would define service as. What does it look like to you, and how has your definition of service changed over the years, and especially in your different roles?
I mean I think it's definitely through action, right? I feel like you can serve in a lot of different ways, but I'm one of those people, service has to be an action, and so for me, it's really getting in the community. For me, that's why, when people say, 'Oh, we'd love to have a player come out and do X, Y and Z,' and I'm like, OK, well, what is tangible for them to actually do? Because I want them to feel like their service is actually something. Like, they are going to hand out X, Y and Z. They're going to talk to the kids about leadership and being a good person and all these things and having sportsmanship on and off the field, right? I think you can talk about it so much, but until I fully see you in the community doing those things and kind of living out that mission and the platform that you have, I feel like that is truly service to me.
Yeah, that's awesome. Because I think it also serves as a little bit of accountability for these players. They have all these ideas and like you said, with the timeline of things, it's really difficult to kind of squeeze it in and so you kind of have to take on a leadership role to decide how to plan out things and what is a tangible goal for players or community partners. So, how have you seen your leadership and confidence grow within your role?
Yeah, I feel like definitely my first season, coming in, I always say, whatever career that you're in, it always takes you one year to get your first job, for sure. And so I think for me, it's confidence and also relationship building that you build over time, right? I feel like it's really important to tell folks that it takes time to kind of build what you're wanting to build. So my first year, I just followed a playbook of what had happened in previous years, and then my second year, you know, made a lot of different changes to kind of fit what I felt like best suited our players and the organization and our partners, and how we needed to be really tangible on supporting our community. And then just getting to know the guys one-on-one, right? Do you have brothers and sisters? What are your hobbies? What do you like to do? Are you an avid coffee drinker like I am?
I always say it takes time getting comfortable in spaces like this, especially male-dominated spaces. It takes time, it takes relationship-building, it takes just talking to people to learn about their background, too, and advice that they would give to you. I always say I listen to understand and not to respond, and regardless of how tenured you are in your career, there is always something new to learn. Just because someone is younger than me and might not have as much time in their career doesn't mean I can't learn anything from them. There's stuff to learn from people who are more seasoned and people who are younger in their spaces.
I wanted to pivot and talk a little bit more about the empowerment and being a woman in the space that you're in. Who are some of the mentors that you've looked up to or people that have played a part in your role before your job in the Steelers, and also right now?
I'm really big on family and so, you know, I grew up around amazing, really brilliant, strong women, and they were always mentors to me in my life and continue to be to this day, especially my mom and sister, letting me know that I had all the capability and I could step into whatever role that I wanted, and also knowing that I'm fully prepared for that. Faith is something really big to me, as well.
I've had really great mentors in my life at all of my different positions, and just even here at the Steelers, there's so many amazing women that I'm able to work with on a daily basis. We really support each other and empower each other. One of our coaches, John Mitchell, he retired last year, and I'm so thankful to him, because my first season, he really took me under his wing and just really gave me some advice; he was really a great mentor to me. One of my favorite coaches, Karl Dunbar, I talk with him all the time.
I love this platform so much because I don't think fans understand that a lot of things that you see and concepts that you see from our teams and the different teams across the league are being shaped by women. And I think that's so impactful and so amazing. We're able to just really make sure that we're supporting each other, uplifting each other, and just also making sure the next generation knows, and the next women who want to be in this space, that No. 1, there's a space for them to be here, and belong here if they want to be here.
Also I'm a new mom, and so my daughter will be a year on September 3. When I look at her, that's literally all the motivation that I need to continue to do this work.
I want to follow up a little about the next generation and wanting to bring up more women in these leadership roles. What is some advice that you would give to women wanting to break into sports, or also specifically wanting to enter the community relations space?
Yeah, I mean, I think for women who want to be into sports, is No. 1, know you belong here. And I think what's so important is that in these roles, transferable skills are a very real thing, right? So there's certain things that follow across different industries, right? If you know how to build a program, if you know how to work with people in the community ... for me, having a marketing and communications background, I'm able to talk to our marketing team and talk about, OK, what's the ROI, right? Like an understanding that there are different things that I didn't all gain through being in the sports world that makes me be able to do my job really well.
We've talked about your career path and how you've been able to play such an important role with the Steelers, so looking ahead, what are some of your goals, both short-term and long-term?
This is my season back from maternity leave, so I'm really excited to get back in and really kind of move forward for the season. We have a lot of great players that are new to Pittsburgh, so really getting them ingrained in the community. There's a lot coming up in the next year, since the NFL draft comes to Pittsburgh in 2026, and I'm on the internal planning committee for that. So I'm really excited to showcase and start to build for that, and to make sure to have our partners recognized on a national level. And there's the community work that's going to happen here during that time and kind of the legacy projects that will stay here even after the draft.
That's awesome. I'm so excited for the draft, too, it will be really cool to see the things that you're able to highlight. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you would like to add?
Being a new mom and working in this space, I would just say, shout out to the moms that are working in sports. Coming back from maternity leave was great, but one thing that I really appreciate is that there's so many women in the NFL who are moms and new moms, and I think there's a support network there; I think it's really important, and I appreciate it, especially being a new mom and coming back into the season.
Has being a new mom changed your perspective on community relations and the relationships that you've built?
It's been great to see specifically women's sports take a lift and just go off these past couple of years, and to be amplified even through girls' flag football. For me, being a mom, it's really, if anything, just continuing to be even louder and make sure more women are exposed to working in the NFL and also just sports in general, to make sure we continue to expose and talk about how women are navigating these spaces, and how organizations are continuing to be thoughtful and welcoming to women who are moms returning back to work. For me, it's just made me want to make sure that I continue to do this work and also know that I'm doing it for not only the girls who are in our girls' flag football program, but the intern who is hoping to land a position in her work at a sports organization, and also just for my daughter, as well, to let them know that there's a space for them here. My daughter, Harper, is going to be with me at some community events. It's just amplified my passion for making sure more women can be in spaces like this, and that they know that they belong here.
