Think about Iowa State football. Who is seen as the driving force behind the program’s success? Brock Purdy? Matt Campbell? Breece Hall?

While all three people have been vital to the success of the Cyclone’s football team over the last two years, some impact doesn’t have to come on the field for it to be felt.

Everyday, four women impact the lives of players and the day-to-day operations of the Iowa State football team, but go virtually unknown to the common fan.

Erica Genise, Natasha Novak, Meaghan Hussey and Erin Hinderaker are those women. Each has a different journey of how they got to work for Iowa State football, but all share the common thread of what it means to be a woman in the predominately-male world of football.

Erica Genise

With over 20 years in football administration, Genise has seen it all and knows what it takes to be a woman in the male-dominated sport.

After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1993, Genise began her career in football working as a coaching assistant for the Minnesota Vikings from 1993-97. 

Once the running backs coach for the Vikings, Tyrone Willingham, took a head coaching job at Stanford in 1997, Genise’s path in football began to take off.

After Willingham got fired as head coach at Stanford in 2002, he took Genise and the rest of his staff to Notre Dame, where Genise would assume the role of Director of Football Operations — a role most women had never been given before.

Genise said that when she received the position from Willingham in 2002, she was only the second woman in a “Power-Five” school in that spot — the other school being Nebraska.

After Genise’s first year on the job as director of football operations, the director of football operations took a job in the Nebraska athletic department, leaving Genise as the only woman in a “Power-Five” program with the title.

“Before women started coming more into football I don’t think coaches were saying ‘I’m not hiring any women,’ it just never occurred to them to hire women,” Genise said. “They were just never exposed to women in that kind of capacity. Most women have never played football, so that “puts us at a disadvantage,” but that can be easily overcome; I’m not coaching football so I think if you get beyond that and ask ‘What does your football director of operations do?,’ Does that need to be gender specific? — no, it really doesn’t.”

For almost a decade, Genise would follow Wilingham from Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington — getting fired at every stop.

After being fired and fired, Genise made one of the toughest decisions of her life: She left football.

Genise left football for four years for one main reason — she missed her family.

At the time of her firing in 2008, Genise’s son was four, leaving her feeling she had missed out on too many important moments in his life while being in football.

Genise expressed that football takes a toll physically, mentally and emotionally — particularly at higher levels of the sport. Genise said after being fired so many times, she wanted her family to be in a stable situation.

“I really had to do a lot of soul searching at that time; it was probably one of the most difficult periods of my life to figure out ‘what do I really want to do, where do I want to be,’” Genise said. “As much as I love sports and love football, I didn’t want to live that lifestyle anymore.”

Once Genise left football behind she returned to her hometown in Mason City, Iowa, as a ‘leap of faith’.

She found a job in economic development — a field she admits she knew barely anything about — and was content with never going back into football again.

“I thought I was done with athletics forever,” Genise said. “I wasn’t looking to get back in.”

That was the plan for Genise, until an old contact from Iowa State Athletics reached out and offered a chance to get back into football in a completely new position. Genise said the stars aligned perfectly in Ames.

Genise said working at Iowa State offered her the chance to be part of a diverse community — something she was missing in Mason City.

“It was a chance to still capture that life balance that I needed but also be back in football again, so that’s what really attracted me and I’ve never regretted it for a moment,” Genise said. 

Now entering her eighth season at Iowa State, Genise has a lot on her plate on a day-to-day basis.

Her responsibilities include making sure the office runs effectively, handling the football program’s finances, signing off on all expenses, helping with budgeting and scheduling events.

Once Campbell became head coach in 2015, Genise said she began to realize that women were hard to find in football staffs. Beforehand, Genise said she focused on her own work and never cared about what people were doing. She said her environment caused her to never think about a scenario where women would be around.

Genise said fitting in is important for women, but if you are trying to be someone you’re not, people in this industry will notice right away. 

“You want to be ‘one of the guys’ in order to fit in, but you can fit in and not be ‘one of the guys’,” Genise said. “A lot of times you still have to prove yourself, but you do that by doing your job, not by being like the men around you. It’s a chicken and egg type thing where if you aren’t exposed to women in this industry how do you know that they can do this job?” Genise said. “There are two of us in the football office and [Novak] was only hired this year,” Genise said. 

Genise said in order for women to become more common in football, they need to have patience and a desire to work hard for their goals.

Natasha Novak

Novak graduated from Iowa State in 2018, working two years in Iowa State Football as a student and then one year unpaid after graduation.

Novak works as a recruiting assistant with official and unofficial visits, handling mailings to recruits and managing the student assistant program.

Derek Hoodjer, Iowa State football’s director of player personnel, approached Novak the summer after graduation and asked her if she would be willing to stay on staff unpaid. Hoodjer would look for a position if one came about, but until then, Novak would be working with no promise of a job in the future.

Novak and her family had reservations at first, as the prospect of taking this big of a risk after college was out of character for Novak.

“I had always been the person with the ‘five year plan,’ Novak said. “I had a twenty year plan about reporting and here I am about to give up a job with real money to work unpaid and have no end-all of when I was getting a real-paid job. My parents struggled to understand it, my friends struggled to understand it, but I loved it, I didn’t feel like I was ever at work and it paid off.”

After being rejected for the position initially, head coach Matt Campbell approached her in the hallway and said ‘stop applying for other jobs, I’m not letting you leave’ — a gesture that would quickly turn into Novak’s opportunity.

A little over a week after the exchange with Campbell, he invited her into his office and offered her a full-time job he essentially created for Novak. 

Novak officially joined the full-time staff as a paid employee this March.

“They are honestly some of the best people I’ve been around, especially not having any family in Iowa; they’ve become my second family and the players have become my little brothers,” Novak said.

One of Novak’s goals while working in Iowa State football is to one day make it to the position of director of on-campus recruiting. Giving a woman the title would mean a great deal to Novak.

Novak said Campbell accepting and valuing her work made her realize that more women need to feel that acceptance to get the momentum going.

“If you get the ball rolling, if you keep pushing the rock, it’s going to start moving, and once it does, there’s no stopping a big boulder rolling down a hill,” Novak said.

Erin Hinderaker

Hinderaker may not work with just the football team at Iowa State, but she has changed the way nutrition is viewed and handled by the team since Campbell took over in 2015.

Hinderaker has been a dietitian for over 10 years and did her undergraduate and graduate work at Iowa State. Hinderaker graduated in 2004 and later received a certification in sports dietetics. 

When Campbell’s staff came on in 2015, Hinderaker’s role went from 16 hours a week to a full-time job that required an overhaul of the entire nutrition aspect of football.

Her main contact within the football team is strength and conditioning coach Rudy Wade. Wade and Hinderaker meet and coordinate the best plans for nutrition for specific players on the team. 

The main objective of these conversations, Hinderaker said, is to choose players that need help gaining or losing weight and plan education that best suits each player.

“My athletes aren’t just a client or a patient, they’re an individual and I really want to see them succeed overall,” Hinderaker said.

Meaghan Hussey

Athletic training has been the goal of Hussey since her days in high school. For the past six years, she has been living out her goal for Iowa State football.

After doing her undergraduate work at LSU, Hussey’s senior graduate assistant recommended she continue her education and possible future employment at Iowa State.

Hussey has worked with Iowa State football since July 2014.

A typical work day for Hussey begins at 6:30 in the morning and ends around 8:30 at night, as she monitors and treats injured players throughout the day.

“I’d say I watch plays a little differently than your average football fan,” Hussey said. “The play happens and I say ‘did everybody stand up? OK great, next play’.”

Hussey said that while she does want Iowa State to win and succeed every time the team steps on the field, the health and safety of the players comes first.

As with all trainers, Hussey is not hired by Campbell or his staff (trainers are hired by the athletic department), leaving no power dynamic the coaches can hold over trainers.

For Hussey, being a woman in football means she has to give out tough love more than others might have to. Hussey said she feels some players feel like they would be able to get easy standards of treatment from her, but that it’s far from the truth.

Hussey said she is a shoot-it-straight kind of person, and by now, most players thank her for her tough support in stopping them from harming their future health. She said even though current and former players thank her for her tough love, the gratification Hussey needs comes from when players can make a full recovery. 

“You take someone from when they get injured on the field to when they play again and make their first big play,” Hussey said. “It feels like a victory for me too.”