Babes 'n' Sports Podcast
Welcome to Babes n Sports, hosted by sports media pros and besties Jamie Hersch and Tory Zawacki Roy. It blends motherhood, marriage, and unfiltered career stories from inside the male-dominated world of sports. With guest appearances from athletes, media figures, and parenting experts, we're here to entertain, connect, and empower listeners who are juggling professional ambition and family life - because we're still figuring it all out ourselves. The best thing we can do is learn, and laugh about it. Join us!
Babes 'n' Sports Podcast
Family Planning on a Sports Timeline; Mom-barrasing Moments of the Week
Welcome to Babes n Sports — where accomplished sports professionals Jamie Hersch and Tory Zawacki Roy pull back the curtain on what it’s really like to juggle motherhood with high-pressure careers in the male-dominated world of sports.
This week, Tory reflects on how—six years ago—her family planning revolved around NFL kickoff and the US Open, and the lessons that followed through childbirth, maternity leave, and miscarriage.
Jamie highlights why equal parental leave matters for both moms and dads, and how that policy made all the difference when her family welcomed their first baby.
Plus, don’t miss the debut a new Babes segment: Mom-barrassing Moment of the Week. From rookie mistakes in youth sports planning, to the kids crashing work meetings with Super Bowl Champions… yeah, it’s as chaotic (and hilarious) as it sounds.
Subscribe now for real conversations about chasing big career goals while raising families, and connect with Jamie (@JamieHersch), Tory (@Tzawacki), and the show (@babensportspodcast) on social media.
Follow the conversation on instagram @babesnsportspodcast
Hello and welcome to the Babes in Sports podcast. I'm Jamie Hirsch. I'm
SPEAKER_01:Tori Z. Roy. We're two friends navigating being moms, wives, and successful women in the demanding male-dominated world
SPEAKER_00:of sports. Sports! Woohoo! We're back. A quick overview for anyone who may be new to the pod. I have been a longtime host in the studio and reporter, and now I'm trying to delve into the world of play-by-play, both in hockey and soccer. And so what I'm working on right now is mostly focusing on the NWSL. There's kind of playoff push time, National Women's Soccer League, So we've got a couple games coming up that I'm really focused on. What are you working on, Tori?
SPEAKER_01:I am coming to you live from Foxborough, Massachusetts, where tomorrow I'll be filming with the Patriots and their head coach, Mike Rabel. Stay tuned. This is going to be a really cool piece coming to you for the start of the NFL season. It's that time of year. And yeah, I have been in the storytelling game for ESPN for about 15 years, dabble in a little writing for ESPN.com, sometimes reporting. Really, we're just covering everything for you guys, which by the way, like, do you ever find yourself caught in that in between of mom life and sports life because like I'm trying to like prepare for my day tomorrow and I'm just like you know I'm lost in the woods like from Frozen 2 just like in my head like and I can't get it out and like I need to go for a walk or something are you ever there like
SPEAKER_00:yes always I'm just impressed that that song has still withstood the test of time. That's years old. But for me, it's K-pop Demon Hunters right now. My gosh. The kids haven't even seen the movie. They're too young. I don't want them to see it yet. But the soundtrack is lit and they are obsessed. We listen to it almost every day on the ride to school.
SPEAKER_01:That sounds cooler than Frozen 2. No offense to Frozen 2. I know it's a great film, but that's what I'm battling today.
SPEAKER_00:For anyone who, again, is new or even people who have listened, I hope you've enjoyed getting to know Tori and me, but we're hoping to start having some episode three. Let's go.
SPEAKER_01:So today, ladies and gents, we're going to be talking about planning your life, aka marriage kids, around sports. Let's time travel back to 2019, shall we? We had decided to have a baby in the spring so that by time I got through my maternity leave, I'd be back for football season, which as I talked about earlier, is kind of like the crazy time. It's been like my priority for about 10 years. And at that point, yeah, professionally, socially sometimes, but most And as I read that. going through with my life. And look, April is a beautiful time to have a baby. Am I right, James? You are right. Our boys are two weeks apart, by the way, so that's what that's about. But looking back, I just... There are so many more important things to account for in life than the schedule of the National Football League. Like, I don't know, sometimes... We've touched on this in the last two episodes, but it's like, I don't know where it comes from, but it's almost implanted into us when we start working in the industry, this work, work, work mentality, and then life stuff, life stuff, but work, work, work. I'm so grateful that now at least I'm out of that mode. And I think being a mom has gotten me to that point, but. not to mention like kind of an arrogant attitude to be like, oh yeah, poof, I'll have a baby and poof, everything will be easy and fine. And then I'll be back in September and no problem. Like things don't happen like that. As you become a mom and a parent, you see that like, shit is hard. Like you have no idea like how things are going to go to plan or not. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful that things did fit on that timeline, but that's not always the case, even for me later in life. But I don't know. Things just started to shift for me at that point. I was able to finally put, I think, the right priorities in line instead of, you know, making all about the schedule. Like we had talked about the US Open and tennis is a big priority for me professionally as well. And I was planning to work that after I got back for football and was recovered from maternity leave. But the problem was where I happened to be stationed during the event, up in Arthur Ashe Stadium, broadcast row, there wasn't a space where I could pump privately and store the breast milk. No one's fault it's a tiny ass space up there and anyone who works in tv knows all too well that Cramped space is life. So it wasn't anyone's fault. I just, I wasn't about to sit there with my pump and it just, it wasn't comfortable. So I couldn't do it. And I hope things have changed in six years that it's a little more accessible for moms, but that was a deal breaker. So, Jayme, what do you remember about your decisions back in 2019 and beyond coming back to work that, would you do anything different?
SPEAKER_00:It's hard to say if I do anything different, but I definitely was right there with you in terms of like planning it around the season. And so for me, you know, it may not sound like it makes sense for hockey, but hockey is the longest season out there because by the time the cup's over, it's almost July and then you're back at training camp in September. So there's no real good time to have a baby if you're going to try to be there for everything. But I also, like you, was like, you know, spring sounds like a good time because then, you know, yes, I will miss the Stanley Cup final but I'll come back to work quote unquote in a very like in an off season mindset and so it'd be nice to just ease back into it and then By the time I am like full go October start of the season, he'll be almost six months old. So to your point, so arrogant. And knowing what I know now about the rates of miscarriage and the complications and infertility struggles and all of that, I'm almost embarrassed to talk about trying to play God and plan when my baby should be born. It did work out that way for me. But anytime I hear someone say that now, I just cringe because... How lucky are we that we get to even have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, let alone trying to plan it around our sports schedules? Again, like you, thankful that it worked out. But if I were to ever have another baby, I think I would just be thrilled to have that healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, no matter what. Like work should not matter. So that's kind of my thinking about it. Same thing for round two. I mean, I definitely planned it a little less and didn't know if it would take a long time to get pregnant the second time, whatever. We ended up having a summer baby. And so it was a little bit shorter of a maternity leave before I was like four. I'm a mom. If I have to miss that, then it is okay. So yeah, I'm with you, girl. Same. And mat leave is also a tricky subject. Have you had young moms or people who are thinking about being a mom talk to you about the pressures of maternity leave while working in sports?
SPEAKER_01:Not that specifically, but they have. I don't think I can do this and be a mom. So that absolutely breaks my heart every time. So that's honestly what was my inspiration to text you that day and say, hey, do you want to do a podcast with me? Mm-hmm. No one should make you feel that way. You should be doing things on your own timeline because you earned that. You deserve that like anyone else. I wish that I had that, but that doesn't mean it's not meant to be in the future that we can take what we learned, especially from what we just said, the schedule of things. I think we learned that the hardest. We took away from it the blessings, right? So we can take that and say, hey, Take your time. IVF needs to happen. Fucking needs to happen. You know, like whatever it takes, it's not anyone's schedule, but yours. Yeah, that's the question I get the most. And then once they get through that step, then the mat leave questions come. But, you know, we're lucky in that, you know, we get more time than I think our husbands did. So at least we can lean on that for the time being.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I mean, I actually didn't. My husband got more time with both kids, which is a whole other thing that I do want to touch on. But just starting with the whole idea of maternity leave, you know... It is, unfortunately, I feel like it's a bit controversial in our industry, especially because there's this idea that you are replaceable, that there's a thousand other women specifically that would in a heartbeat snatch up your job and do it well. And then you might be left high and dry and everything you worked for goes away because you decided to have a baby. And I really would encourage women who are thinking about that or thinking that way, having those thoughts creep in to silence those thoughts and realize that they're Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to knock that entirely, but I will say that if I ever am asked the question, like, what do you think? How much time did you take? I always try to tell moms, especially first-time moms, take as much time as you can legally. wise whatever it is like whatever you're getting like take as much time as you can because you can always work more you can always make more money but you can never get that time back and any parent will tell you that you know I felt very blessed to be able to have a salaried position at the time right so like I did get most of my salary and that is something that is not a convenience afforded to a lot of women right a lot of people in our industry are freelance so if they take 12 weeks Like maybe they get some money from the state, but it's not going to be much. And so they feel that financial pressure to go back. But if you're able to take the time, you won't regret it. That would be my biggest piece of advice to anyone. And then kind of, I know I'm rambling, but hey, it's a podcast. That's what we do, right? We ramble.
SPEAKER_01:That's why we're here.
SPEAKER_00:That's why we're here. I wanted to touch on parental leave because my husband did get more time than I had. He had 20 weeks with each of our children. And that was because he worked for a tech company that was a little more kind of progressive in their policies and employee benefits. And it was called parental leave. So male or female, if you gave birth, if you adopted, it did not matter. You as a parent got 20 weeks and you had a year to take it whenever you wanted. And that is just so helpful because especially for women in any industry, but especially in ours, like I think our company changed my previous company. I think they used to have like two weeks that dads would take or something, which is just terrible thinking about having to have your partner go back to work and leave you at home alone. Like I cried my eyes out when my husband had to go back after three weeks or chose to go back. Cause then he saved the rest of his leave till after I went back full time. But that lightens the load so much on a woman when you know that a man who is going to expect a baby as well is going to take that time too. So if your husband, if your partner, or if you're a man listening and you have that policy, take the leave because it's so important for men to also have that time with a baby. And it's also important for society to expect both men and women to take time when they have a baby. Cheer that on for any company to promote that policy. Great.
SPEAKER_01:Could not agree more. And the This is the stuff that, yeah, we're still learning along the way, right? Like we didn't know any of that. And we were just like, as we went along, we're like, my husband didn't get that much time. That sucks.
SPEAKER_00:No. How much time did Jay get? Did he get like,
SPEAKER_01:how much time did he take? We, he was able to get a family leave when Braxton was born because Braxton was born with a heart condition that needed intervention pretty early. So for that reason, he got more time, which, you know, obviously needed. But when Sydney was born, I think it was about three weeks. So. Wow. Yeah. You just, you just roll with it. Right. But I, I completely agree. Child bonding time. It's for both parents. It's not just the moms, you know, like they, they need both of us there. And so do the dads, like they're missing out on all that awesome stuff. So it's such an important point. And yeah, just don't, don't doubt yourself out there. You know,
SPEAKER_00:it will benefit you in the end. Yes. There are also companies too. I mean, there is still this mindset. I think that in, in a company, whether you're a person in a position of power or just a colleague of someone that's going to take time off like you have that thought if you have a woman right you're like oh well she's of childbearing age like she might she might miss like six months or something like that thought should not even enter in like so if we have more men who are taking that whole parental leave then it makes it easier for women to get jobs keep jobs not have to worry about having a baby and maintaining their jobs I mean I know there are some legal protections but there There's a lot of work that can still be done to protect moms in the workplace and the idea behind, you know, supporting moms as they decide to, to grow their family. So anyway, soapbox. Yeah, whatever. Again, this is our podcast. We can talk about what we want, but I am very passionate about it. And that's why we're here. This week we thought we'd do a segment called the mom-barrassing moment of the week and somewhat related to our sports life. So we have so many of them, but this one specifically related to sports. I don't know if in my head I just felt like my husband being athletic, me being athletic, me loving sports, working in baseball, having baseball on TV, whatever, would just like sort of just funnel baseballism into our children without any work. But that's, that's apparently not the case. There's work that needs to be put in for a six year
SPEAKER_01:old.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Good to know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So my moment really is that we decided to sign my son up for Little League and it's really exciting because we live in Summerlin, which is a suburb of Las Vegas and the Little League team just won the national championship part of the Little League World Series. So it was a super fun time. We were, you know, got watch parties. There was a parade here in town for the team, like the best possible scenario to get your kid excited about Little League, right? And to be fair, I want to point out that This was Brooks's decision. He played soccer in the spring. I let him decide soccer or baseball. Cause every time we come home from soccer, he'd be out there in the back swinging the bat. And it's the big, you know, wiffle ball that basically, but he liked, he liked the idea of baseball. So I said, all right, let's do it. And he had done T-ball, but let's be real. Tori, you, our sons went through the same program. It was glorified tag and like they'd hit off a T for the last 10 minutes, but it was not real T-ball. So I, I guess I kind of missed a step in his development. from going to that to what is actually taken very seriously here in Summerlin. And this is the first level of machine pitch. So somehow we skipped right past coach pitch. And now he's in machine pitch. We went to the batting cages for the first time yesterday. He made contact once in 10 minutes in the cage. And I was thrilled that he even did that because the guy doesn't know how to hold a bat because mom didn't teach him. Dad didn't teach him really. So this was just a really big, like mom embarrassing moment where I'm like, of course he knows baseball. Of course. Like, what do you mean? We always have baseball on TV. We talk about baseball. I work in baseball. No dummy, just because you work in baseball doesn't mean your kid just absorbed that knowledge. Like, so I felt a little bit like a failure to, or not like literally sitting down and teaching him the game of baseball. He knows the bases, but like literally the fundamentals. Yeah. We've got quite a steep learning curve ahead of us. and like that's the one thing my husband and I said we're leaving last night we're like hey we've got work to do not him I mean obviously he does too but we need to help him be in a bit more position to have success but it's okay you know part of me is like that's what the coaches are for right these poor coaches are probably like hello this kid has no idea what anything is what's happening anywhere on the field but you know he's a really smart kid and I think he's gonna do great I can't wait to revisit this conversation in a couple months and hopefully he's not miserable and just enjoys being part of the team and you know what if he gets a hit great and if not if he just runs the bases because maybe he'll get a walk or something I don't even know if that happens in machine pitch so it'll be an educational process for all of us
SPEAKER_01:exactly this is how we learn so congratulations Summerlin Little League great examples to have for Brooks to you know be around so that'll be fun it'll just naturally happen yes Yeah, I mean, mine is kind of like what we have touched on of, you know, work calls and things like that. And it's just more, it wasn't, it was kind of mom-barrassing, but it was also just like, what am I going to do about it? At this point, it's almost like it's just, it is what it is. But Jamie and I, we both get to work with former athletes that now work in TV. And it's really cool to call these people colleagues and almost friends most of the time. So because I'm in New England working on this story, I just got an unexpected call from Teddy Bruschi yesterday. And, you know, because we're collaborating on the Pats and, yeah, former linebacker from the Pats, and he's really good friends with Coach Braybill. So I, like, didn't expect the call, and I was with the kids, and I ran into the bathroom because that's usually the bathroom's off limits. So relatable. And he just had like a sweet chuckle and was like, is that is that your boy? And I was like, yeah, no, honey, not dad, just a three time Super Bowl champ. I know it's easy to get them confused. So you have to handle it. Just roll with it. Right. I mean, most people understand most most people get it. And if not, they're monsters. No, I'm just kidding. But again, we handled both our stories with with grace. And we're just hoping that you guys can learn from us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, there's plenty of moments in our everyday life that we can all relate to and laugh about later. So feel free to share yours in the comments. Be sure to check us out on Instagram. If you don't already follow babes in sports podcast, and we really hope that you spread the word and continue to make this a really fun, evolving experiment where we try to figure out podcasting. We try to figure out momming and we try to figure out the idea of doing it all in the world of sports. So we've had a blast so far and hopefully we'll have some awesome guests coming on very soon, but tour. Thanks so much for joining me as always. Have a great week.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks, Jayme. Love
SPEAKER_02:you, babes.
