Being the only woman in the room was something Gina Miller experienced daily at the beginning of her career. Every time she got into a locker room, someone would say the words: lady in the locker room or woman on the floor, and suddenly hundreds of eyeballs will turn around and look at her. Although that made her cringe and feel very awkward, it also boosted her sense of confidence, and she managed to translate that into every other area of her career. 

Gina Miller is a communicator, a storyteller, and a media coach for C-suite executives, athletes, and coaches. She is the Senior Vice President of Media and Communication at FC Dallas, serving as the chief storytelling for the club. Gina is a trailblazer in sports and broadcasting, being the only woman featuring sports across the country for many years. She holds a BA in Radio and Television from the University of Houston. She covered the campaigns of the Houston Rockets, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Cowboys, to name a few. 

In this episode, Gina shares her extensive career in sports media, how she decided to work in sports and the challenges she had to face until becoming a reference for women in sports and journalism in general. We talked about how hard it was to be the only woman in almost every place she went and how that affected her career. We also talked about diversity and inclusion, collaboration vs. competition between women, and the importance of going beyond criticism.

You can visit Gina’s website: http://www.theginamiller.com/

or you can connect with her on

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginamillermedia/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theginamiller/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/theginamiller

or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thatsportsgirl

To follow John on Twitter: https://twitter.com/J0hnDavids0n

Full Episode Breakdown:

1:39 – Going to the dark side. Gina talks about the moment she decided to move from working in the newsroom to PR, “the dark side of journalism.”

3:42 – Gina shares her experiences in an internship for the Houston Rockets.

5:41 – First job in Guam. Gina talks about her first professional experience.

7:44 – Gina shares the extraordinary story of how she ended up working with one of her childhood idols, Randy White. 

10:02 – Gina explains how developing different skills helped her during her career. 

13:15 – John and Gina talk about how the audiences evolved and how hard it is to create content engaging to the “three-screen people.”

16:29 – John and Gina discuss the concept of owning our own story.

20:37 – Gina talks a bit about how being the first woman and many times the only woman in many places helped her develop tools to thrive as a professional.

24:54 – John and Gina talk about collaboration vs. competition in communication, and more specifically, between women in the industry.

29:07 – Gina talks about how sometimes people get caught in the transactional side of making connections and networking.

34:01 – Gina shares some of the activities FC Dallas did during the pandemic.

38:41 – John and Gina talk about tokenism, inclusion, and the importance of seeing diversity as something more than just another box to check.

42:10 – Gina talks about the importance of overcoming and going beyond criticism to evolve as professionals.

46:16 – Gina shares her experiences covering the 2011 Dallas Mavericks NBA title.