Female interns speak out on bias and double standards within SU Football
SU Football female interns speak out on bias, double standards
While women have active roles with the team, some interns recount experiences of exclusion and sexism within the program’s culture.
Editor’s note: Some interns interviewed by The NewsHouse requested to remain anonymous to safeguard their identities and ability to work in the sports industry. Pseudonyms are initially indicated with a first name in quotation marks.
In August 2024, Lauren Demuria attended one of her first meetings as a sports medicine intern with the Syracuse University football team. She and her fellow interns signed papers that vowed one promise:
I will not fraternize with the players.
DeMuria then watched as her supervisor looked at the only male intern in the room and told him this rule didn’t apply to him. The women in the room looked at each other, stunned to hear this said out loud.
Last spring, a former male recruiting staff member approached “Madison” at a meeting and asked if she had a boyfriend. When Madison said no, he replied, “Well, don’t flirt with the football players. They will flirt with you. Do not engage.” Madison was puzzled, unsure if it was a warning, directive or comment about her.
“I know that sounds bad not to report it, but I wasn’t sure how to cope with the situation,” Madison said.
While women have successfully broken gender barriers on and off the football field in recent decades, uncomfortable instances and interactions like the ones DeMuria, Madison and other female interns experience persist in the male-dominated realm of football.
Studies have shown exclusion, sexual harassment, sexualization and assumptions of incompetence are among the discriminations that women working across the sports industry face regularly. Interviews with five current and former female interns reveal their personal experiences with bias and double standards while working as part of the SU football program.
Football has evolved, but gaps persist
Since the first college football game played in 1869, American football has been exclusively male. If there was a woman near the field, she was wearing a cheerleader outfit or band uniform, or was part of a broadcast TV crew.
That changed officially in 1970 when Patricia Palinkas became the first woman to play professional football in preseason games for the minor-league Orlando Panthers as the holder for her placekicker husband. While this “female first” was minor, the notion of women playing and working in football has become less taboo with each milestone.
Forty-five years later, the first female coach in the NFL arrived in 2015 when the Arizona Cardinals hired Jen Welter as a defensive coaching intern. That same year, Sarah Thomas became the first female NFL referee. More female pro football firsts followed, including full-time coach, Super Bowl coach and team executive. In 2025, a record 15 women were full-time coaches in the NFL.
The introduction of Title IX in 1972 aimed to create gender equity at schools and colleges that receive federal funding. Since then, the landmark legislation has increased the number of women’s teams. Female participation has grown in sports such as rugby, which has risen by 316% over the past ten years. Still, women struggle to find their place within male-dominated programs. In 2019 and 2020, women held only 5.8% of head coaching jobs for men’s teams in the NCAA, while men held 58.7% of the head positions on women’s teams.
At SU, there are no female players on the team’s 103-member roster and one female staffer — Brown’s executive assistant — among 24 coaches and assistants. Only four women are listed among the team’s 25 support staffers.
Unequal rules, unfair expectations
Don’t fraternize with players.
Don’t chat with the boys on the sidelines.
Don’t be too friendly.
Don’t flirt back.
SU football interns received these warnings when they started the job, with many of these specifically directed at the female student interns.
When Fran Brown took over SU’s football in late 2023, “Amelia,” a sports medicine intern, remembers the first-time head coach explicitly banning relationships between staff and players.
Brown wanted to keep drama off the field and out of the locker room, leaving the focus on the team’s success, according to Amelia.
But what Amelia learned is the responsibility for preventing relationships usually falls on the interns at the bottom of the pecking order, not on the players.
“[Football players] know they’re not supposed to be flirting with anyone on staff because it’s Fran’s rule,” Amelia said. “But they don’t face repercussions, whereas we do face repercussions. So they will hit on you, they will say things, they will DM you on Instagram even though they’re not supposed to.”
A 2018 Pew Research Center study found that 28% of women working in male-dominated industries have experienced sexual harassment compared with 20% of women overall. This level of harassment makes professions like football less accessible to women. In workplaces with more men than women, 49% of women say that sexual harassment is a problem and 62% say it’s a problem in their industry. In female-dominated workplaces, 32% and 46% of women felt this way, respectively.
Former intern “Olivia” felt close to several members of the team, but acknowledged that she experienced flirting from the football players.
“I don’t think there’s any denying it,” Olivia said. “[Football players] will flirt and they’ll go talk to anybody. They will go push their luck.”
During the same team meeting where Brown announced the ban, Olivia recalled him telling everyone to go straight to him if a player or staff member made them uncomfortable. While Olivia felt this was admirable, she also saw it as unrealistic.
“At the end of the day, I would never rat out a player to the coach because the chance of creating those problems wasn’t worth it,” Olivia said.
This power imbalance is difficult for almost anyone to navigate, but especially a college student. Olivia said she wouldn’t complain about a player's behavior because she risked losing the trust of the entire team. This could make the workplace uncomfortable and keep her from doing her job effectively.
Tyler Cady, SU Football’s communications associate athletics director, outlined in an email the program’s standards since Brown took over.
“Coach Fran is focused on building a culture of respect, accountability and excellence across all facets of Syracuse Football. This includes creating an environment where all staff, student-athletes and other members of our program feel supported, empowered and positioned for success,” Cady’s statement said. “He has established clear expectations and is committed to holding every member of the program to the standards he has set.”
The sports medicine interns were warned by a supervisor not to even talk to players because it could be seen as flirtatious. One of their jobs is to hand out water bottles to players on the sidelines during games and practices. Players often try to start conversations, leaving the intern with the tough decision to engage or walk away.
One time when Amelia did not end her interaction with a player fast enough, she was immediately called out by a supervisor.
“It's very hard to shut conversation down sometimes, but for the most part I just walk away,” Amelia said. “Some of them think I'm a bitch, but I really don’t care.”
While the interns have all been told not to “fraternize,” Amelia is not sure whether the players are aware of these rules. Without clear expectations on both sides, the interns are forced to set boundaries.
These interns are not paid for the hours they spend working on the sidelines and around the athletic facilities every week during the season. Players, on the other hand, get scholarships and other benefits, which sports medicine intern Lauren Demuria feels only increases the inequality of treatment.
“It's kind of a double standard,” DeMuria said. “They're the ones getting paid to do this job and get this stuff done. They're talking to us, but I'm the one getting in trouble.”
Breaking in, but not into the “boys’ club”
Most interns work, unpaid, between 10 and 40 hours per week, depending on the game’s location and their role. These days are long, beginning as early as 6 a.m. to set up for lifting sessions and ending as late as 9:30 p.m. after collecting equipment. Getting to know the players is not only inevitable; for some, it's essential to doing their job effectively.
Lauren Hindman, an associate professor of sport management and organizational behavior at Hofstra University, said that women’s motives for working the job are often questioned in these types of environments. Her research on women working within sports organizations showed that women sensed suspicion from coworkers that their motive was to have sex with a player.
When DeMuria’s supervisor said the fraternization rules didn’t apply to male interns, she implied that there would be suspicion of the women’s intentions. Hindman’s research found that this type of heteronormative assumption questions women’s professionalism and reinforces workplace gender stereotypes.
“It goes back to the threat to the power, that women have this supposed advantage that is going to give them access that men can't get,” Hindman said.
These deeply rooted gender biases shape perceptions of women working in these roles. Hindman explained that women are accused of having ulterior motives for entering the industry, and when they succeed, the validity of their achievements is questioned.
“We hear it all the time. You know, the ‘sleeping your way to the top’ narrative,” Hindman said. “That's not something that men are accused of.”
The “boys’ club” attitude forces women to accept behavior from men they might not allow elsewhere, perpetuating the sexualization of women in the workplace. Lexi Katz, a sophomore sport management major and equipment management intern, has had to make her intentions clear.
“I'm here to work,” Katz said. “I'm not here to find a boyfriend.”
If a woman excels at her job, she can be accused of using her gender as an unfair influence. If she doesn’t do well at her job, that can also be blamed on her gender. According to a 2017 Pew Research study, women are four times as likely as men to say they have been treated as if they were not competent because of their gender. These no-win situations put extra pressure on women that men don’t face.
Hindman explained that gender is humans' primary organizing principle. Historically society has determined attire, activities, sports and even bathrooms around the male-female binary. Over time, norms have been established for all of these categories.
When a woman enters the sports world, she becomes an outlier, deviating from societal expectations. And because of that, Hindman said, she must meet higher standards than men to prove her worth.
Katz spent practices during the fall catching from the quarterbacks, snapping the ball and setting up drills. But when she began, she was pushed to the sidelines while male interns ran the exercises.
During practices, Katz recalled being told she wasn’t loud enough.
“You want me to be loud?” Katz asked. “I'll be loud.”
Coaches said she didn’t articulate enough.
“Do left and right sound the same?” Katz asked. “No, they don't sound the same.”
Then the coaches lamented that they couldn’t yell at a woman.
“You're gonna yell at the guys. You're gonna yell at me,” Katz said. “I'm okay with being wrong.”
These assumptions of her incompetence blocked her from experiences her male coworkers had. Katz said she had to prove herself capable, working harder than her male counterparts to earn her spot. Yet even when she did prove herself, she faced condescension.
“I'll catch a ball that's not easy to catch and they'll be like, ‘Oh, that was a great catch,’” Katz said. “If a guy did it, you wouldn't say that.”
Pushed to the sidelines
Female interns can begin to doubt their abilities or feel like they are not truly part of the team. When women are pushed out of these spaces, the organizations also miss out on employees who can contribute.
“These women are talented,” Hindman said. “They bring skills to the job and you're potentially losing those people just because you don't want to deal with the cultural issues or don't want to acknowledge that those cultural issues exist.”
According to Hindman and Richard Paulson’s research, employees in spectator sport industries are most likely to be male and white. Women and racial minorities in the industry are much more likely to be in less powerful, lower-earning, part-time jobs. Within spectator sports, occupational segregation is a large issue. Women can also be excluded through the “boys’ club” cultural attitude. Workplace conversations center on shared interests and rapport in an industry that is 70% male.
Madison noticed that the players and male interns bond over nicknames and banter. Being left out of these small interactions affects female interns’ sense of belonging and appreciation for their work.
Sports cultures are particularly influenced by hegemonic masculinity, a system of social norms that praise stereotypical masculine traits like strength and competitiveness, according to Hindman and her co-author Nefertiti Walker. Everything from the jokes to management styles supports male gender norms. In the world of football, being the biggest and strongest is an advantage. Misogynistic comments made by men are often ignored or allowed because that’s “how things are.”
During practice, one coach called Amelia a “little lady.” While she knows he didn’t mean to be demeaning, it still felt weird. These diminutive nicknames, as Hindman calls them, lessen the importance of women’s roles and can feel uncomfortable.
Players have also commented on how interns like Katz dress nicer outside of practice. The jeans-and-sweaters outfits she wears to class may be cute, but they are less practical than athletic wear when running around the field.
“Unfortunately, that's how it is working in sports,” Katz said. “We get the comments that we don't want to hear. As much as you're at practice, I'm at work, and I didn't come here to be your toy and be a show.”