NFL front offices are littered with people who never played the game, but there's only one native Canadian who spent her formative years as a model and had no familiarity with the game of football at all until she reached college.
Thus is the story of Kirsten Grohs.
Grohs grew up in rural Ontario, spending her free time modeling in Toronto. When the reality that Toronto was not New York or Paris presented itself to her, Grohs went to college, where she stumbled into an unpaid position assisting the football team's operations. A match was lit, and then thrown into a barrel of gasoline.
"It exposed me to the team dynamic,” Grohs told the Florida Times-Union. “Here we all were, from all different walks of life but we were together and working for a common goal."
Grohs worked through college, interned and then worked her way into a job with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, then pursued her master's degree in sports administration at Ohio University. That experienced stoked the fire she had for football, but it also put her in line with thousands of other people who wanted the exact same thing she did.
With no leads and even less money, Grohs visited Hamilton head coach Marcel Bellefeuille, who told her to send her resume to all 32 NFL teams, with a $5 Starbucks gift card attached. Grohs took his advice, but downgraded the expenditure to $3 a piece -- $64 is a lot when you're broke -- and the ploy worked. In the beg, borrow and steal world of those trying to break into the NFL, it takes a certain level of desperation to get there and an even higher level of determination to stay there.
Grohs had both.
She received three callbacks and an offer from the Jaguars. A job as executive assistant has morphed into a catch-all title as manager of football administration, where she handles a number of tasks split between the Jags' operations and personnel departments.
"Every little bit of time, we’ve added more and more to her plate," director of football administration Tim Walsh said. "She’s very sharp and very intelligent and what’s important for working on the football operations and the salary cap is being detail-oriented."
Added GM Dave Caldwell: "She’s really involved and in touch with things in each department," Caldwell says. "She has a great attention to detail."
The Starbucks gift card helped Kirsten Grohs get in the NFL. Everything else about her helped her stay there.