The Backbone of SMU Football is Female Sports interns, NFL reporters and girlfriends provide crtitical team support

Liz Cruz | Engagement Editor

If someone told you that nearly all of the SMU football intern staff is female, would you believe them?

Probably not. And why would you? The majority of faces on the sideline are men.

The SMU football team is fostered, supported and promoted by women through their unpaid intern positions.

Players are front and center of SMU football while seven recruiting interns help make the magic happen.

When football recruits visit SMU, the interns are in charge of making them feel included in campus life. Kylli Asaro, a sophomore who has been managing football and basketball teams since high school, does this by getting to know the recruit before they set foot on campus. She analyzes the players’ stats, memorizes faces and finds gold.

“I’m in control of a big part of how they perceive SMU,” Asaro said. “I want to give them the best possible experience to make them want to come back to SMU and play with us.”

Growing up, Asaro received backlash from boys for wanting to be in the sports industry. She’s used to them “mansplaining” different sports to her.

“They don’t know me,” Asaro said. “They don’t know that as football manager she kept track of player stats and swapped out practice equipment or as basketball manager she brought essentials for game day and lost sleep over the wins and losses.

Now, those boys who made fun of her are learning from her everyday.

The third longest tenured sideline reporter in NFL history, Laura Okmin, can relate. She was a “guy’s girl” her whole life. She understands how women need to fight for their place in any industry, especially in the sports industry.

“I was a bit confused when I started hearing that girls had no place in sports because that’s not the world I grew up in,” Okmin said.

Okmin has interviewed icons like Michael Jordan and high-profile Super Bowl players. Like Okmin, Asaro is committed to her personal development in the sports industry.

“There’s a newfound respect for me because I know sports and like sports,” Asaro said.

Asaro feels accomplished when she sees online encouragement. Personal DM’s, reposted Instagram stories and tweets from recruits are ways Asaro connects with them once they leave campus. Recruits thank and remember her.

“Excited to join the SMU Football family,” a current player who didn’t want to be named posted on his Instagram.

“Seeing that made me feel like it was well worth the chaos and energy that comes with typical game day operations,” Asaro said. “Everything we sweat about to make sure everything is perfect was worth it.”

She did it. Finally, some public recognition.

It’s not just Asaro but a school of women who uplift and support SMU’s 126 football players.

Not on the recruiting intern staff, but just as important to players are girlfriends like Emma Gretzky who lend support from the stands or at home. As an avid tennis player, Gretzky understands the importance of emotional support on gameday. Her boyfriend, Stone Eby, showed up for her games and now she makes sure to do the same.

“I want to stay for him,” Gretzky said when talking about why she goes to SMU football games.

Coming from a family who lives and breathes sports, Gretzky knows how a sport can be emotionally and physically chaotic. With a last name like Gretzky, she says she is used to a busy sports schedule but still makes time for those she loves.

“Winning or losing, Stone will come talk to me about how he felt on the field,” Gretzky said.

The abundance of support from the variety of women show the dedication to sportsmanship that often goes unnoticed.

Sophomore intern Lily Podolsky works with the team to recruit but also on their nutrition. She attends 5:45 a.m. practices, makes personalized smoothies and prepares snack bags for players.

These are just a few of her daily tasks. She loves what she does, not just for the athletes but to support her dreams.

“I wanted to take every opportunity that I could to put myself in the best position for my career,” Podolsky said.

While Asaro and Podolsky agree that the SMU Football team is extremely grateful for their work, women are not the face of the team. They’re the backbone.

The backbone provides structure and support. And to win the game, you can’t lose it.

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This year also brought benefits to Gerald J. Ford Stadium as construction began on the Garry Weber End Zone Complex. Garry A. Weber, SMU class of ’58, donated $50 million, the largest gift in SMU athletics history to begin the project.

The new complex features three levels that will enhance the overall experience of SMU football for both current players and incoming recruits, including a locker room, weight room and kitchen.

Between the ACC and the upgrades to the stadium, SMU hopes to boost recruiting efforts, including with staff scouting and hiring.

Sophomore Preston Stone, SMU’s starting quarterback, will be playing in a new conference and renovated stadium. He hopes the enhancements will bring recruits to SMU.

“I think the new Garry Weber End Zone Complex will attract a lot of highly scouted recruits, especially those looking for the opportunity to stay close to home,” Stone said. “Dallas has always produced an abundance of highly recruited players, and I think the complex along with a conference change will allow us to keep more recruits at home.” much fun. I was like, ‘Maybe he could be the one, right?’ That was the very first time I ever thought that about anybody,” she said. began a long-distance relationship, visiting each other on the weekends.

The Garry Weber Complex is the most historic addition to the structure of SMU’s stadium since September 2000, when Ford stadium was first built. Previously, home games had taken place in Irving, Texas. A large part of the construction is a new seating area for Mustang fans, intended to put more fans in seats and keep them there for the whole game. With blue blood programs on SMU’s horizon, such as Clemson and Florida State, the athletic department is hopeful that not only Dallas fans will start packing the games, but supporters of ACC teams across the nation.

It turned out, he was.

The two dated throughout the rest of college and continued for a few years after that. When Ken proposed six and a half years later, it was on SMU’s campus, at a place he knew was special to Melody.

The two were out for dinner with friends, and Ken managed to get Melody back to campus where his plan could unfold.

When Melody was in SMU’s student senate, the revitalization of the seal on Bishop Boulevard was near and dear to her heart.

It was a project she had been working on her senior year.

The seal had just been cleaned when Ken took her to see it on Homecoming weekend, years later.

On that seal he got on one knee and asked her to marry him. The couple wed a year and a half later.

November 6, 2023, marks 30 years since the couple got engaged.

One weekend, just before class registration at Baylor, Buddy surprised Linda with a visit.

“There’s no such thing as cell phones, no email and Waco was a long distance call,” he said. “I was visiting with a client and I asked him if I could borrow his [landline] phone. He just laughed and said, ‘Sure.’”

Buddy called Linda to ask her out and headed down to Waco, where the two took a stroll at nearby Katy Park. Then and there, just two months after the couple met, Buddy spontaneously asked Linda to marry him.

The two drove back to Dallas to tell Buddy’s parents and began to talk about the wedding. Two words from their bible study teacher would change the course of their lives:

“Why wait?”

“We planned a wedding in three weeks,” Linda said. They married September 15, 1973, at 5 p.m., the only date available at Perkins Chapel. And then they moved on to the next question. Where would Linda finish her senior year?

“I wanted to liberate her from Baylor,” Buddy said. He did just that.

Buddy made a call to SMU President Willis Tate’s office, a man he called “one of the finest human beings that has ever lived,” and he asked Tate’s assistant to speak with him.

Dan Pitts (‘16) and Alicia Pitts (‘16, ‘19)

Music was blaring.

Dan Pitts was a diver on the SMU swim and dive team, but tonight, he was a DJ at a party.

Alicia Arnold was invited to the same party by a mutual friend. There, the two were introduced and were instantly hooked.

They began to hang out right after. Throughout the next three years, the couple fell more and more in love.

“Be each other’s best friend. Don’t withhold pieces of yourself.”

-Linda

Not thirty seconds later, he was on the line, Buddy said.

“He said, ‘I’ll make 15 minutes available to you,’” Buddy said. “‘You be in my office at 4:15 this afternoon and you bring that pretty bride of yours.’”

Sure enough, the two went to his office. Tate looked at Linda’s transcript and said “This is not going to be any problem at all.”

Tate picked up the phone. He made a call to the dean of the education school.

“[He said] ‘I got a young couple, he graduated from SMU in 1970, and she just finished her junior year at Baylor,’” Buddy said. “‘We want to make her a Mustang.’”

Linda then began her senior year at SMU.

The two wed weeks after, and Linda graduated from SMU in 1974.

“I wanted to marry him from the third time I’d hung out with him,” Alicia said.

One of the central things in their relationship is faith, Alicia says.

“He was fun, cute and also loved Jesus,” she said. “We’re both very devout Christians and that honestly is what made me interested in him to begin with.” friends

Late October 2015, on Family Weekend of their senior year, Dan and Alicia got engaged. It was pouring rain, and Dan was standing outside of Perkins Chapel with an umbrella. Alicia knew what was coming.