Interview
49ers GC Hannah Gordon on the power of sport to bring people together, and how her new book helps bring mentoring to a wider audience.
My journey into football really started with watching Hannah Storm host the NBA playoffs. Growing up in Oakland I’d always been a huge sports fan, so seeing a woman lead coverage of a huge sporting event captivated me. At University of California, Los Angeles I became the first woman ever to cover football for [UCLA newspaper] the Daily Bruin. Covering football led me into internships at the Oakland Raiders and the NFL Players Association, and from there into media relations.
When I later went to law school, I knew wanted to keep my focus on sports, and in my early years as a lawyer [at Latham & Watkins’ San Francisco and New York offices] I worked primarily on player contracts and collective bargaining in the NFL. I was recruited to the San Francisco 49ers in 2011, right as the lockout was ending, and we were entering what was the last collective bargaining agreement. That was really a thrill for me, because I was from the Bay Area and it was a wonderful opportunity to go into a newly-created role where I would build out a day to day legal affairs practice there.
