McGovern ’26 Attends Invite-Only NFL Women's Forum

Delainey McGovern ’26 has been around the game of football her entire life. 

Her father was an assistant coach in college and the NFL for nearly 40 years, giving her an uncommon behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the sport. She has been a recruiting assistant with the UNH football program during all four of her years on campus, and last summer she completed an internship in the scouting and player personnel department with the Buffalo Bills.

Delainey McGovern ’26 at the NFL Women's Forum in Indianapolis.

Her latest opportunity in the game came in February, when she was chosen as one of only 40 women to be invited to the 10th annual NFL Women’s Forum in Indianapolis. 

Given her background, exposure to the world of high-level football wasn’t a new experience for McGovern. But having the opportunity to network with 39 other women carving out careers in a male-dominated field certainly was.

“This was only the 10th forum, and there are now women as full-time coaches on the field or on headsets, or in athletic training or other jobs. It’s really cool to see all these women opening doors for all of us,” McGovern says. “This year’s theme was ‘forward progress,’ and it’s amazing to see how much progress has been made just through this event.”

Indeed, McGovern hopes to pursue a career in football, either in recruiting at the college level or in operations at the professional level. The sports management and leadership major has always been most intrigued by the “behind the scenes” aspects of the game, she says.

The forum in Indianapolis gave her access to a host of women who have been successful in various football roles. One of her favorite roundtables during the event featured Madilyn Johnson, who is in coaching operations with the New York Jets, and Sarah Evans, senior manager of coaching operations for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

She also had the chance to hear two sisters who have made history in the NFL address the forum attendees in Carlie Irsay-Gordon and Kalen Jackson, two of three sisters who make up the leadership group for the Indianapolis Colts (along with sister Casey Foyt, who was unable to attend) after last year’s passing of their father, Jim Irsay.

Irsay-Gordon is serving as the team's CEO, with Foyt in the executive vice president role and Jackson serving as chief brand officer. They are the only sister trio to ever own an NFL team.

“It was unbelievable to see,” McGovern says of the chance to be in the room for those presentations.

There were chances to rub elbows with some major names in the game – McGovern met NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and shook hands with Mike McDonald, head coach of the Super Bowl-winning Seattle Seahawks – but just as valuable was the time she spent with the other forum invitees, a group made up entirely of women peers. McGovern was the second-youngest invitee to the event, she says, and she soaked up the opportunity to network with so many women with similar professional interests.

“I think the most rewarding thing was just meeting all the other women. A lot of them have been very successful in this business, but there were also a lot of young students like me still in college,” McGovern says. “There were so many incredible women in the room.” 

McGovern was first exposed to football through her father, Bill McGovern, who spent decades as a defensive coach in college and the NFL before passing away in 2023. McGovern fondly recalls her and her sister, Mackenzie, helping out with equipment while Bill was working with the Chicago Bears.

“I fell in love with football because I got to see the behind-the-scenes stuff. I had a different point of view than the average person,” McGovern says. “I loved just being around the sport of football, and because of my dad I had huge access to it.”

Delainey isn’t the only of Bill’s daughters who was influenced by those environments. Mackenzie now works for the Indiana University football program – which just won the national championship this winter.

McGovern looks back fondly on her years working within the UNH football program, crediting former coach Rick Santos – who recently departed to become head coach at the University of Pennsylvania – for creating a welcoming environment. She is hoping to use that work experience, as well as her lifelong exposure to the game through her father, to shape her professional career.

In the meantime, though, having the chance to attend the women’s forum – and to represent UNH among a lot of other titans in the sport of college football – is an experience she’ll remember for a long time.

“It was so cool to represent UNH, because there were a lot of bigger schools there. There were maybe two or three other girls there from the FCS division, so it was kind of cool to see that,” McGovern says. “I can’t say enough about the whole experience. They do a fantastic job putting this event on, it was really unbelievable to be there.”