7 years ago when I made the biggest, most gut-wrenching decision of my life and boarded a plane from Helsinki, Finland to St. Louis, MO, I had one goal in mind. Land a job with an NFL-team or DI FBS -program. Seven years flew by while I succeeded and failed, while I lived and learned, while I said ‘yes’ to every opportunity thrown my way and moved from city to another. I look at my resume with immense pride and think about all the experiences I have had with gratitude. But in the end of it all, I fell short of my goal – on the anniversary of me coming to America, I’ll board a plane from Houston, TX towards the other side of Atlantic.
Getting a job in sports is never easy and I know that now. I wholeheartedly blame myself for some of it; Instead of building relationships and focusing on networking, I used all my time and effort on building my resume. Working several jobs at the same time while in school, and believing that the lengthier the resume, the better my chances would be to get hired. Wrong. I failed to network effectively and keep up with those relationships. I also didn’t focus on just one thing. I worked in team operations, S&C coaching, youth football, athlete development and so forth. I strongly believed that any experience is good experience, but in reality I should have narrowed my focus early on, instead of giving my time to variety of roles.
All this aside, the biggest hurdle I faced in my search for employment was the fact that I am not American. To some of my connections this comes as a surprise; I speak English with an American accent, I always pronounce my name ‘Maryann’ for Americans and often claim some US city as my home. But some of you know me for who I am, and have reached out to me throughout my search for employment trying to help me – unfortunately it is a little trickier in my case than many understand. To answer the questions of why I’m leaving the country and ‘giving up’, I wanted to explain myself. My student visa has expired and I need to vacate the country. I was unable to stay as foreigners looking for a job in the US have pretty much 3 options and I wasn’t successful in any of them:
I have had my job interviews cut short mid-sentence when I’ve told about my immigration status. I have had many application systems toss my resume before it got to the hiring managers table because I clicked on the “need sponsorship now or in the future” box. Instead of applying, I’ve started to call HR managers directly and ask if they consider sponsoring qualified applicants. Even though my suitcase is already packed in order to leave, here is why I hope it gets easier in the future:
This is the second time in my life I’m faced with a big, gut-wrenching decision; whether to keep pursuing the football dream from European soil or to just count my losses and move on? No matter what ends up happening, I am incredibly thankful for the past 7 years of life – from Detroit to DC, from working in football to making friends across the country, from the tears to the laughs, thank you.