Last month, I had the eighth episode of my podcast “Work Hard, Play Harder” with Maysa and Wade Gillingham. This week, I am dropping episode nine with Southwest Minnesota State University Director of Athletics Jennifer Flowers. Flowers is a new hire and officially started her job on July 1.

The podcast is called “Work Hard, Play Harder” because that’s how I like to live my life. It is about finding out your why and getting to know you beyond the occupation. The podcast is informative about what you do but also asks fun questions as well. Building connections and being able to be relatable is an important aspect of my podcast as well.

In this podcast episode, Flowers will talk about her why into wanting to be involved with sports, the importance of sports in her life and coming from an entire family that either coaches or played sports. Flowers also talked about the process of her going for this position and leaving an already great position from her previous employer. She recalled some memories and was very candid/open about her experiences playing sports at Winona State University. Flowers spoke about the challenges of being in this industry as a woman and being able to have a positive impact in the lives of student-athletes and how her children can be impacted by the collegiate athletes as well. 

“There’s more and more women in positions of leadership which is awesome and exciting to see and be a part of,” Flowers said. “When I took the job at the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), that was probably the biggest challenge that I have taken on because I didn’t know much about the sport and it wasn’t my background. That was an intimidating space for me for a couple of reasons because of the expectation and success of the league. Also being one of the few women in that league that added pressure to perform because I now had a seat at the table.”

Flowers followed up by stating that more women should be involved in leadership roles but the “want to” has to be shown. Nothing is given and hard work is a must to be able to be in these positions. 

This episode will show the personality of Flowers and the passion for sports she has. Also it will show how much goes into a job like this and pave the way for other women to want to be in hierarchy positions of sports. Also, building a competitive atmosphere within the 19 athletic programs at SMSU that she looks over is a new, exciting and fun challenge for Flowers. Although it has been a lot to take in her first couple of weeks on the job, she is excited for her family to be here and accepting of the new challenge that awaits. 

Below is the link to the episode:

— Chris Drummond is a sports reporter for

the Marshall Independent.

Email: cdrummond@marshallindependent.com

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