Kylie Kelce is not your typical WAG. (WAG is an acronym for “wives and girlfriends” of high-profile athletes.)
You won’t often find this mom of three — with one on the way — staying out late, she wears athleisure as her daily uniform and she has been known to take a nap before an 8 p.m. football game.
On the second episode of her podcast, “Not Gonna Lie,” Kylie Kelce pulled back the curtain on the relationships among the women whose significant others play for the NFL.
“Similarly to everything else in life, we as women need to be sort of self-sufficient. Can’t rely on our husbands, and so we just got to take matters into our own hands,” she said.
Because the men, like her husband former Eagles center Jason Kelce, are “so busy and they’re trying to build their own relationships in the locker room,” she often tries to reach out to new women via some light internet sleuthing.
“We got to a point where we would almost, like, stalk people on social media,” she said to podcast guest Allison Kuch, who is married to former Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Isaac Rochell.
First, Kelce said, they would check to see if the new player posted on social media with a spouse or significant other. Next, they go directly to the significant other’s page to see if they are still together.
If it looked like they would be around for the season, Kelce said, “We’ll just slide into your DMs and be like, ‘Hey, welcome!'”
Going this route is much more efficient than trying to connect through the team players.
“If I ever went to my husband and said, ‘Hey, can you approach so-and-so and ask for his significant other’s phone number,’ it would be three years before I got that,” Kelce joked.
Kuch agreed, “You’d find the phone number in like a wad at the end of football season in a shoe or something.”
Kuch said that the WAGs aren’t necessarily cliquey, but they are divided into “Don’t have kids. Have kids.” Kelce laughed: “Have time. Don’t have time,” Kelce laughed.
Being direct was the best method of communication, Kelce discovered. She would tell newcomers that she was in town all year round and could happily provide them with advice, restaurant recommendations or directions to the family room at the stadium. Simply initiating contact was key because although “I might not be your community here, but I can help you in to then introduce you to the other women,” she said.
“And that’s God’s work,” Kuch said toward the end of the Wave Sports + Entertainment Original podcast. “On behalf of all of the girls who have traveled around to different teams, people like you make the experience so much better and so much less lonely.”
Kelce provided some additional advice for the partners of football players.
