BC’s Dame Attends NFL Women’s Career Forum

Bluefield College student Savannah Dame is not your ordinary student. And she’s not pursuing what some would think is your ordinary career.

Dame serves as the head equipment manager for the Rams football team, while also pursuing a degree in sports management. A native of Richmond, Virginia, where she attended Manchester High School, Dame was also an assistant athletic trainer and manager for the Manchester football team.

But what stands out about Dame from most equipment managers is the fact that she’s a woman in a predominantly male sport.

“I truly enjoy the game and everything it has to offer,” she said. “One of the biggest things that sets me apart from other candidates is that I am in equipment. Another thing that sets me apart is that I am a full-time college student, and I have a full-time position as the head equipment manager for a school.”

Women working as equipment managers in male sports is indeed rare. In fact, Dame says she hopes to be the first ever female head equipment manager in the NFL.

Dame is also an excellent student with a 3.5 cumulative grade point average — an impressive accomplishment considering the countless hours she spends on the job making sure Rams football team is properly equipped for practice and games.

Recently, Dame learned a lot of information about her profession at the 2020 NFL Women’s Careers in Football Forum alongside the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, Indiana. The program serves to “support the development of a talent pipeline by connecting qualified women to career opportunities in football.

“I was in shock the entire time,” Dame said about her experience at the NFL Women’s Careers in Football Forum. “I was selected to attend this forum out of thousands of applicants, and I am known as one of the top women in football.”

Dame said she has always known that being a woman in football was going to be difficult, because most times she’ll be told “no.” But, she added, she knew it is was what she wanted to be doing.

“This forum put me in a position to achieve my dreams and believe in myself,” she said. “I was able to be put in contact with numerous owners, executives, general managers and coaches of NFL teams. That is going to help me along the way.”

Among the coaches with whom Dame made connections: Katie Sowers (offensive assistant coach of the San Francisco 49ers), Jennifer King (full-year coaching intern for the Washington Redskins), Mike Vrabel (head coach of the Tennessee Titans), and Ron Rivera (head coach of the Washington Redskins), among others. It was an experience, she said, she will remember for the rest of her life.

“The forum was focused on the change that the NFL is making to represent women within each club,” Dame said. “I realized that a lot of clubs are still trying to grasp the fact of a woman working for their club. I learned that becoming is better than being there, and you can never learn too much.”

Dame said she also learned that what you say and how you say it has implications for how you are perceived in your environment.

Outside of school and her work with the Rams, Dame enjoys showing off her creative side through photographs for others, as well as herself. Also, she’s just like anyone else who enjoys hanging out with friends, watching movies, and playing games.

After college, she said she’s considering two options: 1) attend a larger university to get a master’s degree in sports management while working for the university’s football program to gain more knowledge, and 2) go straight into the NFL, which would all be based on opportunities from her internship this summer.

An added benefit, Dame said, would be working for the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team she has admired since being a little girl. In addition to that dream job, Dame said she simply wants to be the best at what she does. The NFL forum experience, she said, put her in a position to make her dreams become a reality.