“Get Stuff Done.”

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.”

Strawberry’s leadership style — nurturing but authoritative — was honed in her days on the volleyball court at UConn, and further sharpened after college when she returned home to Florida to teach elementary school and coach her younger sister’s volleyball team.

“I took it as I was coaching any other player. I mean, I was probably a little bit harder on her, just because she’s my sister and I want the best for her,” she says, with a laugh. “But being so fresh out of college volleyball, I was taking what I learned from my four years and helping the girls grow their game that way.”

In both the gym and the boardroom, Strawberry describes herself as “a quiet, dominant person, like the snake effect” — often moving silently, she explains, but always ready to strike.

“I think a lot of it was learned on the volleyball court,” she says. “I learned in college that I’m not going to be the loudest person on the court, and to this day at work I’m not the loudest person in our company, but I do lead by example.”

The results of her leadership at RCX are evident. The explosion of girls’ flag football in recent years is due in no small part to the sustained efforts of Strawberry and her team, who have raised funding for the necessary uniforms and equipment for girls around the country to play like the pros, as well as for scholarships for international students who want to compete but struggle to access resources in their home countries.

“Knowing that one day this could be a varsity sport where girls are receiving scholarships truly at all levels, like I did in volleyball, is awesome,” she says of her hopes for the future. [Indeed, days before this issue went to press, the NCAA voted Women’s Flag Football into the Emerging Sports for Women Program.] “It’s super exciting to see some of the work we’re doing on the back end, or behind closed doors, come to light.”

And when any flashes of impostor syndrome threaten to creep in today, Strawberry reflects on the words of her former volleyball coach, Olympian Rita Crockett.

“I will never forget, she told me: ‘You’re not a tipper. You’re an outside hitter, so hit the ball,’” Strawberry remembers. “That translates into the work world as: Don’t be passive with things. Get stuff done.”