Women's history month: Leah Withrow

To celebrate Women’s History Month, RenoAces.com is sitting down with some of the women leaders in the organization. The transcribed Q&A is below, and the full video is also available.

Up first is recently-promoted head groundskeeper Leah Withrow. Leah is the first female to lead the grounds crew in team history, and the only female head groundskeeper in Triple-A baseball!

Question: What does it mean being in this position, at this level as a woman?

Answer: Being a female groundskeeper, I never thought it was different. I just did what I liked to do, which is be outside and work in sports and play in the dirt, mow the grass. It’s just something I always loved to do and never thought any different of it; until I went to a turf managers conference and there’s 5,000 men and 100 women and you realize that ratio is so low and so far off that it was like a ‘oh dang’ kind of moment. Then when I got this promotion in January and we started looking at the numbers of female groundskeepers, and out of 150 professional baseball teams there’s only four head groundskeepers that are women. So I did the math, it’s 2.6% which means anyone can go to any professional baseball game and they only have a 2.6% chance of seeing a woman run a groundscrew. Which after doing that math, really blew my mind and sunk in how important it is for women to step up in this industry, and in sports in general. When you are walking around a baseball stadium and you’re looking for staff to answer your questions, you have I would say a 40% chance of finding a woman over a man … it might be even less than that, that’s just what I’ve seen. It is crazy to think you can walk around a stadium looking for a seat and find a male staff member before a female. The importance of women stepping up in sports is huge and they shouldn’t shy away from it, even though it’s a male-dominated industry and it is scary but it is important.

Q: What’s the value of that 2.6% chance of a little girl coming to a game and seeing a woman working on a groundscrew?

A: I think it’s huge, I mean 2.6% is not very much, unfortunately. 150 stadiums is a lot and to only have four leading groundscrews is a staggering number to digest. For a little girl going to a game with her dad, only 2.6% is the chance of her seeing myself or any of the other women. That’s so low that it might not ever happen, which is crazy. I think it means a lot that the four women doing it are killing it and impacting the next generation and hopefully those younger girls in the stands see us and know that it’s a possibility, because without seeing us doing it it’s not even a thought in their head. So I think that’s the biggest first step is having women being shown doing it, and then hopefully change it.

Q: Can you talk about any challenges, or anything you’ve had to overcome working in such a male-dominated industry?

A: There’s plenty of challenges being in a male-dominated industry, and a female in a male sport. It’s one thing if you work for a WNBA team or a WNHL team. It’s another to work for an MLB or MiLB team. It’s a lot of men, around you all of the time. at any given point you have the home team, the visiting team and all of your male staff. It’s extremely intimidating and extremely scary. It’s hard to keep your shoulders up, to show that you belong there too. It’s really hard to be mistaken for someone’s wife instead of the head groundskeepr or someone’s girlfriend instead of who I am, and I’m the boss. It can be hard to overcome some of those challenges, but I know I’m meant to do this and I know what I’m doing will impact younger females looking to get into sports and that pushes me through.

Q: What kind of advice would you give to women trying to break into a male-dominated field?

A: You’ve got to grow thick skin, and you’ve got to want it. It’s really hard to be here with only one foot in, you’ve got to go in with both feet and you have to want it. It pays off 10 fold, I guarantee you’ll love it. There’s not a day goes by that I want to work anywhere else, I can’t imagine not working in a ballpark. I just have to know that along with all of the good things and the awesome gamedays, the walk off home runs and all the excitement, you have to deal with some of the nonsense. And it is worth it, I would say any young girl that wants to get into sports should. And if you want to, reach out! Any woman in any front office or grounds would love to talk to you. Any of us would answer any of your questions.

Q: Do you have any final thoughts, comments?

A: Just do it. It’s scary, it really is scary I’m not going to lie to you. I was 18 when I first stepped on a baseball field, and not only is your environment huge – two and a half acres is a lot of grass – and all 5,000 seats plus suites. The building itself is very intimidating, let alone having players and people around you is scary. But it is so worth it, just do it. If you can get over that initial over-stimulation, you’ll be fine.