LeBlanc Kicks off Celebration of Women in Sports

By Jake Ten Pas

Soccer Star & Leader Proclaims Sports Power as a Platform

Portland’s new WNBA team doesn’t even have a name yet, but local fans are so excited that they’ve already placed around 8,000 season ticket deposits. While official numbers for Trail Blazers season ticket holders can be tricky to nail down, that would theoretically put the unnamed new franchise in the running with the established Rip City squad.

Women’s sports are undeniably having a moment right here, right now, and the emcee of the upcoming MAC Talks: Celebration of Women in Sports is square in the middle of the action. Karina LeBlanc is the former General Manager of the Portland Thorns and recently transitioned to an exciting new role, Executive Vice President for Strategic Growth & Development at RAJ Sports, which is the first ownership group ever to have an NWSL and WNBA team. In her new capacity, LeBlanc is heavily involved with both.

Early in February, the Thorns and WNBA team even unveiled plans for a first-of-its-kind, 12-acre joint training facility that will repurpose and expand upon part of Nike’s campus in Hillsboro!

“What we’re doing is creating the epicenter of women’s sports here in Portland,” she says. “Portland is personal to me. I’ve been blessed to play in many different cities, but there was nothing like game day in Portland, walking out in Providence Park, feeling the energy. It felt like a World Cup and an Olympics to me, and it was very rare that you’d get that in a professional sense.”

When LeBlanc offers that description, it comes from experience. In addition to her time as GM, she played goalkeeper for the Thorns and Chicago Red Stars, as well as representing Canada at the Pan Am and Olympic Games, winning gold at the former and bronze at the latter. Her life is inextricably tied to the potential of women’s sports, and she’ll continue to shape their evolution just as she’s set to guide the conversation here at MAC.

“I don’t want to just moderate the panel. I want every woman and man at the MAC to understand what we’re doing here in sports,” she continues. “I have a four-year-old daughter, which if you’d been to a Thorns game, we do the lap together and thank the fans. It’s all of us, but most importantly that younger generation, who has ownership of what we can do here in Portland.”

LeBlanc is a true believer in the power of sports, not just to shape the lives of those who play them but to transform the world. “It doesn’t just apply to the person who’s kicked a ball or shot it. It applies to all women, because I think we all want to be attached to something bigger than ourselves.”

This scope of what’s possible was driven home to LeBlanc after she won the bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. “Our then head coach said to me, ‘If you think your purpose on this earth is to kick a soccer ball for a country, I failed you.’ That led me to becoming a UNICEF ambassador, and on my first trip to Honduras, when I thought I was a hot shot, I had a wakeup call.”

After taking two flights and driving deep into a remote area of the country, then appearing on CNN, LeBlanc finally got down to the coaching she had traveled so far for, only to see some of the 13- and 14-year old girls she was working with setting down their babies to participate in the clinic she was leading. That was when LeBlanc noticed that several of them were wearing tattered soccer jerseys from the very first club team she had played for as a grade-schooler after moving with her family from the Caribbean to Canada.

“It hit me that I was exactly where I was meant to be, doing exactly what I was meant to be doing,” LeBlanc recalls. “I realized then that the game was a platform. At the end of the day, we’re all here for something greater than ourselves, and sports connects you to that.”

She had come full circle, from watching athletes such as Cheryl Swoopes — someone who looked like LeBlanc — inspire her through their excellence, to instilling the same sense of what’s possible in a younger generation. Here in Portland, LeBlanc is keenly aware of the impact the athletes on the Thorns, and the forthcoming WNBA team, can have on girls who are able to get up close and personal with such inspiration on their home turf. It’s one of the reasons, she explains, why

she was always the last person signing autographs after games.

“On the weekends, somebody can take their son or their daughter, sit in the front row, and these players are accessible at Providence Park and now at the Moda Center. This is where we change things,” she says.

LeBlanc also points to last year’s exhibition game between the Thorns U23 team and Wrexham A.F.C. Women, who many Americans are familiar with through FX’s Welcome to Wrexham show, starring Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Roughly 10,000 fans showed up, and for 90 minutes after the game, the players stood on the pitch.

“The Wrexham player who is the star of the show, was like, ‘I’ll come here and be an equipment manager! Is this real life? This is what Portland does for us?’” LeBlanc remembers her saying.

Some of those Wrexham players had never even gotten on a plane, and here they were experiencing the full power of Portland’s love for women’s sports. LeBlanc sees this as indicative of the power that drives those who participate to greater heights of success,

rattling off some stats: 93% of women who are in C-class suites or above played sports at some point, and 53% played at the collegiate level.

“We’re creating leaders of the future, we’re creating the next CEOs, and not all of them will become professional athletes, because there’s only 1% that does,” LeBlanc says, and while the influence of women’s sports is international, she remains in awe of the way that movement is epitomized by Portland. “Attendances are up, sponsorships are up, TV viewership is up. There’s a momentum happening in sports, and Portland is at the heart of it. This is a city of disruptors who will fight for things that other people say are not possible.”

At MAC, LeBlanc regularly sees women who are passionate about health and athleticism, some of whom might only have had access to something like field hockey when they were growing up, rather than the steadily increasing options post-1971 and the arrival of Title IX. She wants to invite them all to be part of a conversation, a movement, and help lead the way as the Thorns did back in 2013.

“I think it will be a conversation about making our time on this earth matter, that we are women, and we all have our journey. You don’t have to be connected to sports to matter, but when an opportunity is right in front of you to paint that blank canvas of what we can do, we can all make it personal,” she asserts.

Pointing to her fellow event participants, which include winemakers, chefs, vendors, and her panel of athletes, coaches, and entrepreneurs, LeBlanc is amazed at what’s possible. “We’re redefining what heroes can be now and helping people see the world through a different lens. You can get people to come together to discuss the heaviest of things when you have a ball in hand.”