As a former Flint athlete, Jashell Mitchell is a Flint resident and native with a great perspective on women in the sports profession. Jashell has worked in collegiate and professional sports for the last 15 years, currently working for the NFL.
“I’ve done a lot of things I am proud of. I recently served as the manager of DEI – Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion at the National Football League, where I was part of the team that created the NFL experience-ship program.” This program included a series of trainings for young professionals designed to help assist NFL programming work, one project being the Super Bowl. Jashell has been working at the NFL since 2018. Her past work has been in collegiate roles, from academics and alumni engagement to donor operations, and other various roles across the country in collegiate sports.
As a former three-sport athlete of Flint Northern High School (in basketball, track, and softball), sports has always been a passion for Jashell. She shined the brightest in basketball, winning back-to-back championships in 1995 and ’96. Jashell shared, “Recently in 2016, we were inducted into the Greater Flint Sports Hall of Fame. Back in my high school years in Flint, star athletes were everywhere, coming out of every school. We were the creme of the crop, some of the best in the nation. Coaches would come from all over, knowing Flint was the best place for athletes.”
With her never-ending dedication to sports and her academic achievements, during her undergraduate career at Bethune-Cookman, Jashell was a three-year letter-winner in women’s basketball and an administrative assistant for football and men’s basketball, all while earning her bachelor’s degree in physical education and recreation in 2005.
Jashell is still heavily involved in volunteering and community service, working with the Adopt-A-Park program in the City of Flint to continue to keep Genesee County beautiful at Iroquois Park. Through this work, she spends her weekends keeping up the park, keeping the basketball courts neat and clean, trash cans empty, and working with the city to issue a street sweeper if needed. Jashell is also on the sports board of Sylvester Broome Empowerment Village, working with other Flint athletic icons such as Brandon Carr for continuous collaboration and improvement in Flint sports, like running camps for Flint youth. “We all come together to help create opportunities in Flint and continue to be involved and provide support as much as possible,” Jashell shared.
Being a student-athlete, she’s been part of various groups and has networked with women across the country who she looks up to and who share the same interests, and she continues to look into best practices. Having this network of women who want to see women in sports evolve is very important to Jashell.
Jashell recommends taking up sports as it promotes a healthy quality of life to anyone willing to give it a try, especially women. Studies show that when girls start playing sports young, they do more risk-taking in life and have more confidence overall. She encourages everyone to at least try a sport out. She shared, “Playing sports isn’t for everybody, but it teaches you different life skills, keeps you healthy, and provides an avenue for you to travel. It also allows you to meet people who can be friends for life.”
Jashell is continually inspired to see women getting more involved in sports and is really looking to see more opportunities for advancement with women in the NFL. She shared that while it’s always wonderful to see women making history in sports, we’re still seeing a majority of women behind the scenes. As women have always had a hand in moving sports forward, Jashell is eager to see an uptick in women in football get more actively involved in the NFL, moving from behind the camera to the front.
Program Director of Crim Sports, Chris Collins shared that he’s happy to see encouragement growing for getting women more active in sports. “Sports are great for everyone and are a great way for our youth to gain leadership skills. Jashell’s dedication to this mission speaks to the same principles that the Crim Sports Program is committed to, and we are appreciative that she has dedicated so much time and effort to make this a reality.”
Jashell continues to stay inspired doing the things she loves like traveling, watching movies, learning, reading books, and spending time with her family.
“My favorite thing to see as I’ve worked with so many great people and students is watching our student-athletes win championships and graduate. That is the greatest achievement for me to see them do.” Jashell shared.
