I hate mornings. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been a night owl and have started my days more than a handful (sometimes two handfuls) of hours after daybreak. These past three months I’ve watched the sunrise over Chicago every Sunday from thousands of feet above the ground. After a week of football practice, I travel on a 6am flight back to L.A. to produce, host and perform at SunsehLA, a private concert series on Sunday nights. 

Last week was packed. I had football practice, started a part-time job in Chicago as a door person at Sidetrack (a girl’s gotta eat), had rehearsal with my band in Chicago for a show/fundraiser/birthday party at Martyrs’ on March 25th, flew back to LA for rehearsals and a stage reading of a musical (performed), hosted and performed with my band at SunSeshLA, had several meetings for the documentary we are working on, met with a 2017 Grammy Nominated Producer to discuss my next album, and solidified a remix of my song “Brand New Fairy Tale” with another talented producer who recently worked with The Weeknd and Big Sean. 

Amidst the chaos of trying to keep all the balls in the air, I was told something that I didn’t want to hear. Something I didn’t want to believe. “Nobody knows who you are. Nobody is interested in a story about a female football player who is also a singer-songwriter. We can’t sell your story because it’s invalid without the endorsement of a famous male football player.” This was during one of the meetings about the documentary. 

Let me be clear, I’m not looking for a pity party, or for accolades. This is merely an honest account of what I’m currently experiencing. I’m sharing this because I think it’s important to share the hard times. Especially in today’s photoshopped, edited, overnight-success-expecting society. This sh*t isn’t easy and there’s no guarantee success is on the other side, but I know I will be better for it if I can make it through. 

I’ve found myself in more disputes about women who play sports than ever before. It no longer feels like a choice to engage in difficult discussions, it feels like a responsibility. When I take the time to reflect on my current day-to-day, I’m virtually unrecognizable, and yet, I feel more like myself than I ever have. It’s been said that high-pressure situations reveal character. I have a feeling this is just the tip of the self-discovery iceberg because I’m 3 months in on a 7-month journey and the reality of what I’ve signed up for is revealing itself more and more each day. 

I watched as the Women’s U.S. Hockey Team announced they will be pulling themselves from their international tournament, not unlike the tournament those of us on the Women’s U.S. Tackle Football Team will be engaging in this summer. I read all the comments and that’s where I discovered the real story, one about what we value. Comments such as, “women’s sports don’t deserve money based on their attendance” and “maybe if women stopped whining and worked at being better athletes, more people would watch,” Infuriated and frustrated, I begrudgingly distanced myself from the quicksand of my ego and reflected on the history of sports. It was in this moment that I had an epiphany that shed some light on why I was driven in this seemingly useless endeavor. 

Athletics is a multi-billion-dollar industry, but this wasn’t always the case. For example, basketball was invented by James Naismith at the YMCA International Training School (later, Springfield College) as an outlet for young men during the winter.  The students were bored with the indoor games of the day and Naismith was challenged to create something as a physical outlet for them. He sought to create a game that relied on skill more than force. Basketball spread quickly as students returned to their home countries. People saw value in the effects it had on young men and thought it important to provide such an outlet. The sport was originally supported and nurtured because of the “good” it did for young men. Guess what? There weren’t arenas full of season ticket holders funding these early teams. People invested in the positive impact of the sport, not only the sport itself. 

Women, on the other hand, until very recently, have been discouraged from partaking in sports. So much so, it took the implementation of a law to allow women and girls to play, Title IX. I’ll let that sink in for a minute, fellas. While you have been celebrated for your participation in something that was handed to you on a silver platter, women had to fight tooth and nail for the opportunity and are STILL being ridiculed for participating. Traditionally, words like strong, competitive, and aggressive are positive attributes for men and negative for women. We haven’t valued those qualities in women, so why would we invest in the encouragement of them? 

Women are in positions of leadership in the workplace nowadays. We should probably acknowledge these traits are positive for both sexes and encourage them for both as well. Sports bridge differences between people and help men and women find common ground in areas of collaboration and teamwork, critically important in today’s human economy. 

I don’t believe in handouts, and I don’t believe women are asking for one, although it may sound like that sometimes. In fact, let’s be real people, women have done much more, with less, in a shorter amount of time. In football, we had to fight and are still fighting for the opportunity to play and that speed bump set us back about 75 years. The women’s game is still in the beginning stages. Women’s football isn’t pretending to be NFL caliber. I’m one of the first women to ever play a non-kicker position from youth to high school, and that happened in the last 20 years. If you watched the earliest football footage which is from the 1930’s (nearly 40 years after the invention of the game) the current women’s game is far more impressive, in half the time. I’m not saying either sex is better, that’s just stupid. What I am saying is some people prefer watching High School football over NFL, regardless of the lesser athleticism of the former, because many believe there is a “purity” to the game. 

Successful women, put your money where your mouth is and support women’s sports, so little girls have athletic heroes with which they can identify. Successful men, you know a little competition goes a long way, why not check your egos and see how everyone might benefit from an even playing field. Today, American Football is no longer just an American sport as sixty-six countries field competitive teams. Do we really want an American sport to grow worldwide without talented American athletes and an impressive Team USA? 

What message would we like to send to our little girls and boys? What do we want our future to look like? Because as it stands half of our future population will be entitled and believe sports is merely a vehicle for fame and ego, while the other half will believe there is no value in participating because all they have seen is a difficult path layered with ridicule. What would happen if we encouraged and supported women athletes and the sports they play by simply attending more games?

While this process has most definitely been a challenge and the word "tired" has taken on a completely new definition for me, I am also energized and more driven than ever before. There is much to be done, my friends. This weekend we, the Chicago Force, will face our first opponent of the 2017 season in Detroit. I'm grateful for the opportunity to take the field again and perhaps an even bigger opportunity, to change minds with our actions. Sleep can wait. 

(L to R: Sami Grisafe, Kelly Crull, Peggy Kusinski, and Kelly Amonte Hiller) Click Image above to find out more about TOMBOY. Thank you to CSN Chicago for inviting me to be a part of this very important conversation!)

I recently participated on a CSN Chicago panel to support the launch of the documentary, “Tomboy, Elevating the Conversation about Gender in Sports and Beyond.” I’m often asked to speak to groups and the media about women in sports. This is due to my background growing up in a primarily male dominated California sports scene and for being a quarterback with Team USA and the Chicago Force. I was grateful to serve on the panel and enjoyed hearing the perspectives of the other panelists. It was a provocative experience as it kept me up most of the night with lingering questions. 

Why do we refer to “women’s sports” instead of “women in sports?” Specifically, in my sport, why is it “women’s football” instead of “women who play football” or just simply, “football players?”  Why do we feel compelled to constantly make the case that women’s sports are just as important as men’s?  I believe that language matters and affects how we perceive and promote ourselves as athletes. 

Being a part of a female team eluded me for most of my childhood. I only played on male teams for the first decade of my athletic life. I don’t believe this makes me better than an athlete who grew up playing solely on female teams, but I do think it has given me a perspective that might help provide some insight in the disparity between male and female sports. 

When I took the first steps to realizing my first dream: to be a member of the Redlands High School football program, I faced adversity. I knew I would face adversity. I didn’t care. I loved football so much that I was willing to take on the chin anything that anyone wanted to throw at me. My motivation was pure, I had no ulterior motive. I had to prove my integrity every day at practice and guess what, so did everyone else in the program. Yes, every male player had to prove that he wasn’t just there to show off his jersey to a girl he liked at school, or garner the “points” it might get him for his college applications. 

Here’s an example: 

During one of our pre-season workouts for the RHS football team, the coach came up to me just before we were about to endure a painful amount of push-ups and said, “You can do girl push-ups*, Sam”. I replied, “Those aren’t football push-ups, Coach”, and continued doing the same push-ups as my brothers. The coach was trying to be helpful to me, but I knew that if I took this shortcut, I would never be looked at as an equal. Not by the coaches, nor my teammates. The shortcut would become a booby trap and my existence on the football team would require an asterisk (*modified workouts according to gender). 

Respect was awarded to no one by asking for it. Was my road to respect more difficult than my male teammates? Sure, it was, but complaining about growing pains doesn’t expedite the process. Nobody ever whined their way to a championship.             

People think being the first woman to play QB in a Varsity Division I football game is a great accomplishment. In reality, I just got lucky to have that title, because of timing and the work of so many people before me who fought for Title IX. The real accomplishment was earning my place as a player on the team. Earning the respect of my teammates and coaches. It was an accomplishment for anyone to make the team at my very traditional school, male or female. The Long Blue Line is a proud group of student-athletes and I earned my place beside them. No asterisk, no pink jersey. 

Immediately following my first football season at RHS I was asked to try out for the Women’s Water Polo team. Women’s Water Polo at my high school in California was elite. The year I played on the JV squad, the Varsity Women’s team won the CIF Division I Championship. I had no experience with the game and, frankly, I was awful. Let’s just say, I stuck to land sports from there on out, but I showed up to every practice and gave my best effort. 

It was early in the Water Polo season when I experienced a major difference from what I had experienced playing on predominantly male teams. We arrived at the pool before dawn for a hell week workout, steam billowing atop the water. I thought to myself there is nothing worse than the workout we are about to endure, I was wrong. Before we could change into our swimsuits, the coach called us into the weight room adjacent to the pool. We were to have a heart-to-heart addressing some hurt feelings of a few players on the team. I was completely oblivious. One teary-eyed player voiced how distraught she was that one of our teammates wasn’t more cordial to her during the passing periods at school. You guys, I was out of my damn element! 

I sat in that weight room and listened to sob-drowned conversations wishing I was doing laps before dawn in that steaming pool. I had no experience with this on any team in my life up to that point. When I put my insensitive two cents in, I was disregarded as the benchwarmer who didn’t get it, which wasn’t entirely untrue. 

Eventually (after three hours), the heart-to-heart ended. I can’t say if the intervention actually worked because again, I had no idea there was an issue in the first place. I do know I enjoyed my role as the team clown writing rap songs (“Fatty, Fatty, Fat, Fat” was a classic. Inspired by my pre-game obsession with Cup-O-Noodles, Chile Picante Corn Nuts, and Slim Jims) in the back of the bus to away games and providing self-deprecating comic relief. My first season of water polo was also my last. (Side note: “Fatty, Fatty, Fat, Fat” is still revered by several of my high school peers and, as my 10-year reunion would have it, my legacy. So, I can thank Water Polo for that). 

I’ve heard female athletes complain about coaches who, “just don’t know how to coach women.”  I think we are doing ourselves a disservice with statements like this. The job of a coach isn’t to feed the second-class narrative rollercoaster. The job of a coach is to help us become the best athletes and competitors we can be. Navigating the social-emotional aspect of a team of women is much more involved than a team of men unless it isn’t. A fire can only grow if you give it the oxygen to do so. 

Now that you think I’m a self-hating, anti-women a** hole, let me tell you another story about my experience with my female athlete peers. I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I am the only woman in the world who doesn’t buy into the marginalizing rhetoric that accompanies a lot of women’s athletics. I have A TON of female athlete friends, whom I hold in high regard and who inspire me just as my male athlete friends do. What’s the difference? Culture and ownership. 

I stopped playing football after my sophomore year of high school. I used to say it was because I wanted to find another sport for scholarship opportunities, but the truth is I had fallen in love with acting and our theatre program was just as intense as our football program. In fact, the head of our theatre department and the head coach of our Varsity Football Team saw eye to eye on many things. So much so, that I acted alongside my former head coach in our school production of The Man Who Came To Dinner, the Spring after my last season playing football, but that’s a story for another time (a pretty damn good story, actually). 

I knew I had to choose between football and acting. Acting seemed like the more practical choice (Acting? Practical? In this scenario, it was) since I was wanting to pursue it as a career. I was losing my athletic outlet with football, which meant I had to find a replacement. Luckily, we had an amazing volleyball coach, Coach Jen, who reached out to me in the spring following football season. The Varsity Volleyball coach was a former Division I college volleyball player and a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team. She was a badass and she didn’t take sh*t from anyone. 

Coach Jen was the first woman I met in sports who treated female players in the same manner as her male counterparts. There was no room for drama. We were too busy striving to become better players. She had high expectations and didn’t care to listen to us talk about how we were going to achieve them. Action was the only language she spoke and if you couldn’t speak that, you didn’t play. 

Much like my experience with water polo, I was a volleyball novice. Coach Jen pushed me. She and my teammates helped accelerate my under-developed skills in what seemed like no time at all. The game was all that mattered. I quickly became smitten with Volleyball and to this day it is the only other sport that comes close to my love of football. I attribute that to the mentorship of Coach Jen and the culture she fostered. 

Since then, and having played football with women for 8 seasons I have befriended many who have a similar viewpoint as I do regarding gender equality in athletics. It’s no surprise that most of them have played or coached at a high level. If we want to be viewed as equals to our male counterparts, we must provide a similar narrative. We needn’t tell our story with a gender qualifier in the headline. We needn’t use language like, “just as good as” or “female athlete”. This tells our story from a place of weakness. Our male counterparts don’t include their gender when speaking about what they do, why should we? Let our actions tell the story. We must take ownership of our narrative. 

I just received news that I have earned a spot on the 2017 Women’s U.S. National Tackle Football Team. This will be my third time representing the U.S.A. in the International Federation of American Football’s Women’s World Championship. I do not take this honor lightly, I never have. I will say, however, that this year my motivation will be coming from a different place. This time I will not just be playing for my country, but for the sport. It’s my intention to help tell the story of every athlete I take the field with in a way that highlights our athleticism, wisdom, and tenacity. We’re not athletes despite our mind, body, and soul. We are athletes because of our mind, body, and soul. I’m grateful for this challenge, this opportunity. I hope you will join me in changing the way the world views athletes like me. Through action, and a bold, unapologetic narrative. 

With Grit and Grace, 

Sami Grisafe #15

P.S. if you are in Chicago on March 25th. Come support the Chicago Force Football Team (see what I did there?). Date auction, lip sync contest, live music, DJ, prizes, THE WORKS. It also happens to be my birthday. Come celebrate with us! Get your tickets here.

(Photo: Redlands High School 1999 Fighting Freshmen Football Team. QB, Sami Grisafe #10)

In 1999 I was playing on the Freshman Football team at Redlands High School. The culture surrounding our team and the entire football program was based on these principles: work hard, push beyond mental limits, be reliable, and no individual above the team. This environment was insufficient for growing catty conversation and was heavily enforced by our coaching staff. Sure, this is high school athletics I'm talking about and some may scoff at the smallness of the example, but this experience serves as a microcosm for something much bigger.

It was early on an August morning in Redlands, CA. The grass covered in dew, the sun playing peek-a-boo behind grandiose purple mountains. Forty-three young men and I stood before our coach to begin Hell Week. He taught us "Oh What A Beautiful Morning" in the way you would expect a football coach to teach a song, ending the chorus with a grunt, "hey, hey". When the team sang together we sounded like a 1970's muscle car idling at a stop light.

As Coach conducted role call, he discovered our roster of 45 was incomplete. "Has anyone talked to Fowler?", he calmly asked. Nobody replied. "He didn't notify anyone of his absence or tardiness?", Coach persisted. We all silently shook our heads no. "Well, we'll do sprints until he arrives. It is every team member's responsibility to make sure the entire team is here. His tardiness is your tardiness."

We ran sprints for approximately 15 minutes (which felt like an eternity) until Fowler showed up. All of us quietly whispered every expletive known to man as he strolled out to the field unaware of his crime and the punishment we endured for it. Once the entire roster was accounted for, Coach said, "OK, now we can begin". We proceeded to the originally scheduled programming. More of the same, sprints, up-downs, and other exhausting drills. All of us fuming, our legs reminding us of the extra sprints we had to complete because one guy didn't show up on time.

Fowler was what we 90's kids called a "poser". He wanted to wear the jersey, get dressed up on game days, and receive the attention that came along with it, without actually doing the work. Believe it or not, people used to view individuals who lived by this code as "less-than" (at least they did where I grew up). A clean jersey and un-scuffed helmet meant you were a spectator and had no heart. Today, it seems appearance has superseded integrity. People have mistaken the phrase "smarter not harder" for "I watched a documentary about leadership and now I'm an expert. Respect me." (As if that scene in The Matrix where Neo downloaded knowledge and experience suddenly became available in the form of Netflix).

When we finished our first session and broke for lunch, not one person left without making it clear to Fowler that if he couldn't show up on time, he couldn't come back. Fowler returned for a couple days, but quit before Hell Week was over. The price wasn't worth the prize to him.

This example is the only one I can recall of there being any drama within the team. The root of the problem left on his own and all of us learned from his mistake (Thanks, Fowler). The coach made it clear to us that the team was ours and we were responsible for everyone on it. We owned both the success and failure of each individual who was part of us (hold the rope).

Those 15 minutes of extra work conditioned the rest of our season. Nobody entertained complaints about playing time or politics. If we wanted to play, we needed to prove we deserved it. We had that opportunity every day at practice. There were no parent-coach meetings about the amount of playing time because if any of us allowed our parents to be involved we knew we would lose respect. You couldn't negotiate your role on the team. It had to be proven. The only course of action was action itself. Our commitment to this culture persisted and, as a result, we prevailed. We went undefeated that season. What was more impressive than our perfect season is that we actually liked, respected, and trusted each other. That is the Holy Grail!

Recently, I had a conversation with a very good friend and former teammate, we'll call her Josie. Josie is downtrodden and angry about the culture she is experiencing on her current team. I know Josie very well. She is a hard worker, she is selfless, and when she's not on the field she's pretty reserved. She told me about how her team has ostracized her when she, a defensive captain, yelled at someone to do their job in a game. The teammate she yelled at, we'll call her Veruca, has now declared war. Turning social interactions into a scene out of Mean Girls. Veruca has put her ego ahead of the team. Practice sessions have become more about who's on whose side of a petty argument, and less about who's on which side of the ball.

Things have gone from bad to worse for my friend and she called me to say she doesn't know if she can continue being a part of the team. She passionately explained that she loved playing football, but the tradeoff of enduring the catty behavior, the unwillingness to work, and the complacency was masking what she loved most about the game. She then asked if I had any advice. This is what I said to her (summarized): 

"Persist. Know that your commitment to making the team, and yourself, better is the virtuous path. Do not, under any circumstances, compromise your drive to accommodate their egos. Do not let them take what you love away from you. Use every practice as an opportunity to hold a mirror up to them, reminding them there is no substitute for work. It will become clear to them in a matter of time that nobody ever achieved great things bitching on the sidelines."

There are Fowlers and Verucas everywhere. The Fowlers believe they deserve respect simply for showing up. The Verucas are too weak to admit they have fallen short and create drama to distract from their shortcomings. We are all at risk of becoming these archetypes and even more at risk of giving them an environment in which they can flourish. We must ask ourselves if WE are doing everything in OUR power to be better. No organization will ever be rid of the person looking for a shortcut at the expense of the whole. It is our challenge to fight for a culture where hard work is revered, integrity supersedes image and no one is exempt from accountability.

For the ego or the honor? How shall we persist?

Many have become overtly dramatic when it comes to word choice. Absolutes and exaggerations are commonplace when referring to the mundane. “I literally can’t with my Biology class right now”, or “This yogurt is so f*cking amazing. I’m dying!” (let’s be real, no yogurt is worth dying for. NO YOGURT IS WORTH THE SACRIFICE!) 
  
Yes, dramatic wordplay can be fun when accompanying the provincial (thank you, Disney's Beauty and the Beast for teaching me this word), but how the hell I am supposed to accurately explain the weekend I just had, when yogurt is “f*cking amazing”? I assure you, this past weekend was more impressive than yogurt (yes, even more than Key Lime Pie flavor). 
  
Over the past few days  I have witnessed some astounding work in three different disciplines, at different locations, by women who are very close to my heart. The amount of motivation, pride, and inspiration in my heart right now is lethal (see what I did there?). Seriously though, let me tell you what happened. 
  
First, my very good friend Connie, who goes by stage name MILCK, released a song she has been working on for a long time. The song is called "Quiet" and grapples with some serious subject matters that are very real for so many. "Quiet" is her battle cry. The song is a beautifully composed mantra that gets stuck in your head and heart after just one listen. It takes guts to write something so revealing and even more more bravery to perform it. She went one step further. She spent the past month bringing women together from all over the country to rehearse an a cappella arrangement of her anthem to be performed at the Women's March On Washington this past Saturday. After one day of in-person rehearsals, this group of talented, passionate women (the GW Sirens) sang their hearts out and the world took notice.

 

Collectively, the video of their live performance has well over 15,000,000 views (and growing) from different video posts on various platforms. I'm sharing the video from her YouTube channel so she can get the views she deserves. Watch and share! Just before the live performance, she released an official music video with the studio version of the song, produced by AG. You can watch that video HERE. To top it all off she create the #ICANTKEEPQUIET Project, harnessing her talent to make the world a better place. The whole thing makes me want to simultaneously snuggle her face off and stand next to her in solidarity to take on the world. 

Second, I watched my longtime friend and former Team USA teammate, Katie Sowers, celebrate a Super Bowl berth alongside the Atlanta Falcons, after beating the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night. Katie began working with the Falcons this year as a coaching intern. There is something truly magical about watching your friend's dreams come true right before your eyes. Especially, when those friends are doing it for the right reasons. She's not trying to make a point, she's doing it because she's passionate about football. Katie was a fantastic player and student of the game. She is now sharing her love and knowledge of football with some of the greatest players in the world. The best part? They respect her, as they should. There is no, "for a girl", tagged at the end of complimentary statements made about Katie and that is a giant step in the right direction for women in football. 

Lastly, as many of you know I was down in Orlando, FL this weekend for the Team USA Women's Tackle Football tryout. I was surrounded by women who all share a passion for what we believe is the greatest sport on Earth. A lot of these athletes have been playing football for over a decade and it showed. While millions of women were marching on every continent, we were marching in our own way on the fields of ESPN's Wide World of Sports. I was privileged to play alongside brilliant athletes, many of which, have achieved great heights in both football and other sports.



I threw to Wide Receivers Jeannette Gray, a Division I college basketball standout and top-tier multi-sport high school coach, and JJ Javelet, the talk of the Women's U.S. Rugby team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. I watched as Vicky Eddy, one of the smartest, most physical linebackers in the game, dismantled everything that came through the box. Stacey Tiamfook, an elite running back and the epitome of poised, wowed us all as she made jump cuts and followed blocks as impressive as anything you would see on a Sportscenter highlight reel. Offensive and defensive linewomen displayed gap control with finely-tuned, intricate mechanics. DB's made reads, not guesses, and squashed the assumption that secondary players have poor tackling technique. There were 64 women at the first session of tryouts and another 101 at the second session. If I had time, I could write a book with the accomplishments of each of the athletes who showed up.

It was clear that this was not a developmental camp. To anyone who might've thought otherwise, it was quickly proven that this was a collection of some of the best Women's Tackle Football players in the world. I was proud to be a part of this intelligent and vetted group of athletes. As someone who is entering their 15th as a football player, I am inspired by the performance and knowledge of the athletes who "balled out" this past weekend. 

I'm uncertain if I will make Team USA for a third time. I felt good about my performance on the field and that's all I can control, but the decision is out of my hands. Either way, I am confident that the women who have the honor of representing the U.S. in the upcoming Women's World Tackle Football Tournament, will make America proud. We'll find out who they are in mid-February. 

I want to thank all of the brilliant women who inspire me and others to strive to be the best version of ourselves. Your passion, tenacity, and talent illuminates the potential in all of us for greatness. For the athletes who play WTF, it's no longer a matter of development, it's a matter of visibility. 

As you can see, I am fortunate to be surrounded by so many intelligent, badass women. It's been said, you are only as good as who you surround yourself with. I believe that, because each of these women continue to push me to be better. I encourage you to embrace and be inspired by the women in your life. It's invigorating!

I'm sure you can now understand how difficult it was to find the appropriate words to describe such an epic weekend. This, my friends, is so much bigger than yogurt!

With Grit and Grace,

Sami Grisafe #15

  
 

​ 

My best friend, Linsea, asked me 10 months ago if I would be interested in climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro  with her and a small team of people  to raise money for the African Alliance of YMCA's  through YMCA of the USA World Service . I of course said, "YES!" 

During that time I also made a big move from Chicago to Los Angeles to reach greater heights in my music career. I have made nice progress , but unfortunately the monetary payout has yet to roll in. 

I knew I had to keep good on my promise to my bestie, so I have been putting away the little extra money I have earned from odd jobs here and there into my Kilimanjaro fund. I have reached $2,500. 

I still have $2,500 to go to cover the cost of the trip, which includes a few days in Nairobi where will do some volunteer work with the kids at a local YMCA. 

The money will be used for the following: my trek, flight, transportation in Africa, hiking gear, camping gear rentals, lodging, food, vaccines and my visa. 

I am a firm believer in giving back. I have donated performances to several different causes , written songs for movements , given money when I've had the means and volunteered in my free time. 

This trek means a lot to me, not only for the young adults it will benefit, but also for my best friend who has put in so much time to give back to the world, asking nothing in return. It will be a challenge, but I would love nothing more than to keep good on my promise and summit Kilimanjaro by her side, knowing we not only climbed the tallest mountain in Africa together, but we also helped some fantastic young people. 

Any money that exceeds my goal of $2,500 will be put in our team donation fund and given to the African Alliance of YMCA's. 

If you help me reach this goal, I will be grateful beyond belief AND will send you a signed picture of us, WHEN we summit. I will also write a personal email to all who donate detailing our experience on the trek and in Nairobi so you can know all of the good your money did. No amount is too small! For donations of $500 or more, I will record a personalized video atop the largest mountain in Africa (I may be out of breath, but I'm gonna bet it'll still be pretty cool!) 

I know asking for money has become commonplace in our world, but I promise I will do good work with it. Whaddaya say? Give this retired female Quarterback, Singer/Songwriter, Activist, an opportunity to give back in the most challenging way. 

DONATE HERE

For more info on our trek and what inspired it, check out this blog  my bestie set up for our journey. 

Thank you for your time. Here's to the summit!

REACTION TO "ALL-UN-AMERICAN"

Sami's new song and music video, "All-Un-American," is receiving a range of responses from support to anger and rants, especially by Trump Supporter. As of today, the music video has over 25,000 views on Facebook and has received a ton of comments. Many of which express the fear and anger of Trump supporters. And, many are taking stabs at Sami personally, rather than the content of the lyrics or quality of the music (although there's some of that too). 

HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES FROM SOME OF THE RESPONSES:
 

Wow! Like a bad bourbon, the burn is just as harsh the second time.

And some aren't even comments or original thoughts, they're just recycled memes making their rounds in cyber space. 

SAMI'S DECISION TO WRITE "ALL-UN-AMERICAN"

Sami knew what she was getting into writing a political/social song. "I welcome all points of view and that's why I'm not going to delete or hide any of the posts from my page, even the ones that are difficult for me to read and just plain offensive. Because, this is America and freedom of speech is foundational to our democracy." (Sami)
 
In writing "All-Un-American," Sami set out to express my views and start a conversation. Sami says the song is less about Donald Trump and more about us coming together and asking the question, "what does it mean to be an American?." "At the end of the day, I believe we all want this country to thrive and that will be difficult if we are divided." (Sami)

It's interesting that many of the comments attack Hillary or Sami as an assumed Hillary supporter, especially when there is no mention of her in the lyrics or the posts.

Sami actually started out as a huge Bernie supporter.

via GIPHY

"I love his passion for the people and I was disappointed that he did not receive the nomination. However,  I am now one of the Bernie supporters who will follow his endorsement and proudly support Hillary." (Sami)


A LIFE OF SPORTS HAS PREPARED SAMI

Sami is no stranger to controversy or even negative comments. She's tough and resilient. When she was 14 years old, she received a lot of criticism when she tried out for her High School's all men's football team. There was even an article written about it in paper with coaches discouraging her from trying out for the team.  She went on to charter new territory as the first female in California to play quarterback in a variety, Division I football game; was the quarterback for the Chicago Force Football Team and Team USA, winning the World MVP award at the World Championship in 2013. Sami was inducted into her High School Hall of Fame in 2014, one of the first and only female athletes to be inducted into a high school hall of fame for football. 






A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL 

There is a surprising outcome from one of the posts that started from a place of anger and frustration. 

After writing a couple of posts, he returned with this. 

And, later this. 

You can view Sami's reply to him and all of the comments here. 


Some people took the high road, even if they didn't agree with Sami's views in the song. They still acknowledged her as an artist.

And, of course, there are positive and supportive comments too.  

To see the full post and all of the comments, click here.  

or go directly to the YouTube video below.

Sami sums up her feelings about the comments she's received, "I find myself feeling proud. As difficult as it may be to read many of the comments, I'm proud to contribute to the discussion and know that I've sparked something. I'm also proud of people like Raymond, who I may never meet face to face, but believe we stepped out of the arena for a moment, listened to each other and shook hands, like adults."

Sami says she will continue to write songs that express herself as an artist and that includes songs that spark, difficult, but necessary conversations. And, don't worry, she will also continue to write fun, crazy songs like "Shower Beer" and "Johnny Castle," which will be on her upcoming album in 2017.  

SAMI GRISAFE'S "ALL-UN-AMERICAN" MAY BE FOUND ON ALL MAJOR DOWNLOAD AND STREAMING SITES INCLUDING:
 

Website: http://samigrisafe.com 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SamiGrisafeMusic 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/samigrisafe 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/samigrisafe