Jen Paulett’s passion for sports was sparked at Fay, where she played soccer, basketball, tennis, and softball. In fact, her love for softball ran so deep that when her high school didn’t have a team, she convinced Fay’s Athletics Department to let her return in the afternoons and help coach their softball team. At St. Mark’s, she continued soccer, joined the boys golf team, and took up ice hockey. “Those were the beginnings of my love for sports, and I have carried it all through my career,” Jen reflects. 

Twenty years later, as a parent and youth sports coach, Jen returned to the world of youth athletics, only to find it drastically changed. The joy she experienced playing multiple sports has been replaced by a culture of intense specialization. The demands of travel teams, club tryouts, and tournaments now consume the time kids once spent in pickup games with friends. Although Jen sees a youth sports culture in need of repair, her role as the Director of Corporate Citizenship at ESPN puts her in a unique position to drive that change.

After graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder, Jen built a career in corporate communications, working for the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C., the agriculture industry, and then landing at Symetra, a financial services company in Seattle. Increasingly, she was drawn to work in community relations and corporate social responsibility, particularly enjoying the partnerships she built with local sports teams like the Seattle Seahawks and the Atlanta Falcons. When the opportunity to lead corporate citizenship programs at ESPN in Connecticut came along in 2014, Jen found it irresistible. “It combined two of my passions–sports and giving back to the community. I couldn’t say no!”

The mission of corporate citizenship at ESPN is to highlight and expand the power of sports to inspire social good, she explains. “We look at how we can use our platform and this big voice we have to show how sports can create change.” Jen is a producer of the Sports Humanitarian Awards at the ESPYS, which highlights teams and individuals on the national and local level who are giving back to their communities. Her team also provides grants to nonprofits and amplifies the stories of all the good work being done across the sports industry on ESPN. 

With sports participation in the U.S. on the decline, a big area of focus for Jen’s team is expanding access to youth sports. They offer grant programs to organizations like the Women’s Sports Foundation, founded by Billie Jean King, to get more Black, Hispanic, and Native American girls involved in sports. Then, they use the ESPN platform to share their story. “We show that not only are these girls enjoying sports, but they’re also increasing their confidence and leadership skills and seeing all these wonderful outcomes.” ESPN is also the official broadcasting partner and a supporter of Special Olympics Unified Sports, highlighting the abilities and talents of their athletes.

In addition to expanding access, one of the challenges Jen’s team is working on is keeping kids in youth sports. A high-pressure sports culture, early specialization, burnout, and overuse injuries are leading kids to quit sports at an alarming rate. A 2024 American Academy of Pediatrics study found that 70% of kids drop out of youth sports by age 13. In 2019, Jen’s team launched an initiative called “Don’t Retire, Kid,” with a powerful PSA in which a young boy, worn down by the relentless pressure, calls a press conference to announce he’s retiring from sports. Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, Sue Bird, and Mookie Betts joined the campaign. The campaign got a lot of attention. Kershaw even received a letter from a young player who had been inspired by his message to stay in sports. “It was one very tangible act, but hopefully it was indicative of many more,” says Jen. “It showed the power of storytelling and that when we know there’s an issue, we can help fix it.”

Jen’s next initiative is her most personal, a campaign to help parents navigate the youth sports climate, and she knows the issues well. One of Jen’s sons gave up sports at age nine because he wasn’t having fun anymore, and she currently coaches her seven-year-old son’s soccer team alongside her husband. The campaign will promote the benefits of being a multisport athlete, support parent volunteer coaches with training, and emphasize affordable team options like recreation leagues and Boys & Girls Clubs. However, the biggest goal is to bring fun back to sports for kids, and Jen will be doing that important work in the office and on her local soccer field. “It’s really rewarding that I get to apply what I am learning at a national level and also at the grassroots level as a youth coach and a sports parent.”