Knichel isn’t trying to blaze trail
In male-dominated baseball world, Knichel thriving
WALDORF, Md. — Courtney Knichel stood on the concourse along the third base line, right behind the season-ticket holders, her favorite place to watch the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. In 10 years working for the team, she has come to love these moments: the scent of popcorn and fried dough, the howls of the crowd, twilight encroaching with the opening innings on a Friday night. She wore what she calls her game outfit: a blue polo, red khakis, loafers and a walkie-talkie on her right hip labeled, “BOSS LADY.”
Earlier, she had consoled the Blue Crabs' field manager, satisfied a disgruntled fan, rejiggered the Atlantic League all-star team, corralled a fussy pack of balloons and picked up stray trash. The day's fires had been put out, so Knichel let herself think this might be the rare night she would be in bed before 10 and would see her husband and 3-month-old daughter, Kennedy, somewhere other than the custom calendar tacked to her office wall.
Knichel checked the weather app on her phone and saw a new obstacle: a blob of green and yellow, inching toward Regency Furniture Stadium. She would have one more decision to make.
“We got to see what happens,” Knichel said.
As the general manager of the Blue Crabs, Knichel often relies on that sentiment. She inherited the position late in 2015, a decade after joining the team at its inception as an intern. The manager, John Harris, makes personnel decisions, as is standard in the eight-team, independent Atlantic League. She does not evaluate players beyond checking Baseball-Reference.com and has no aspiration to scout.
But Knichel approves and executes every move, negotiates contracts and oversees every department: ticket sales, marketing, sponsorships, operations, all of it. When Harris wants to add a player, she signs off. When she wants to refurbish the paddleboat pool behind the left field wall, she cuts a deal with a local pool company. When she sees stray trash on the concourse, she picks it up.
Knichel's gender makes her position notable, but she will not allow it to dictate how she views or performs her job. “Literally the only difference is having to answer that kind of question,” she said. But in small moments, she can sense how those around her are accustomed to working exclusively with men.
“I'll get on those GM calls, and our league president will be like, 'Hey, fellas. Hey men,' “Knichel said. “He'll email and say sorry. I'm like, 'Dude, I know.' It's okay. I know I'm playing ball with the boys. I know I'm in a male-dominated industry. You don't have to say, 'Hey fellas and lady.' I'm used to it.” --In 1998, New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman hired Kim Ng, a contractual expert, as an assistant general manager. Twenty years later, having held several front-office positions, Ng works in the commissioner's office. She interviewed five times for GM jobs without breaking through, and the number of women in front-office baseball operations roles has remained near zero. Jean Afterman, who replaced Ng with the Yankees, is the only female assistant general manager in the majors. A study the Blue Crabs performed last year turned up two female general managers in the affiliated minor leagues, in which GMs have no say over the roster.
“Certainly, there are more women in a variety of positions now than ever before,” said Amy Trask, who served as the Oakland Raiders' chief executive for more than two decades. She pointed specifically to Jeanne Bonk, Hannah Gordon and Katie Blackburn, who hold high-ranking, business-side titles with the Chargers, 49ers and Bengals.
But women work in sports in small proportion compared with men, especially when it comes to personnel. As major league sports teams seek out executives with analytical expertise and business backgrounds, playing experience - and, therefore, gender - matters less than ever. The shift is not represented in hiring practices. The online program for the 2017 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston - which included executives, players, coaches, media members and marketers from across all sports - listed 36 women among 236 speakers, about 15 percent.
So Knichel, even on the periphery of professional sports, is a rare figure. She still views herself as a diligent lifer in a job she loves, not a trailblazer or torch carrier.
“I'm not really a feminist,” Knichel said. “I was a hard worker, but I know nothing else. I love this life. I came in in 2008. I had nothing else. I always tell my husband, 'This was my first love.' Do I want to see them hire more women? I just want the hardest worker to get the chance. . . . Maybe the story would be better if I was, like, so pro-hire women. But I'm not. Hire the hardest work- er. That's what I think.”
— Knichel's career path started with an accident. She had grown up in Benedict, Md., watching the Orioles and tagging along to her brothers' baseball games but never envisioned working in sports. At Muskingum University in Ohio, Knichel studied marketing and communications and planned to be a news anchor.
Late in her senior year, her mother, Tina Wagner, applied her for an internship at the new ballpark being built in Waldorf. Knichel was at a sorority party when she learned she got the job. She wrote the details down on a napkin.
Knichel showed up for her first day in stilettos and dress pants. She learned she would be changing out trash bags. When the cleaning crew quit one night, interns rushed to the park at 2 a.m. to pick up trash. But she fell in love with baseball, with the tightknit feel of the staff, with the community the team created.
The Blue Crabs became entwined with her life. The salary wasn't much, so she cashed in savings bonds and scooped ice cream to pay her rent. She moved to assistant marketing director, then marketing director. She met her husband in the front office. The old general manager left after the 2015 season, and Knichel took over. In April, she went into labor while finishing the yearbook. In the delivery room, she thrust pages at Wagner and yelled, “Edit this!”
“There was speculation she would give birth to their child in her office because she worked right up to the last minute,” league President Rick White said. “She was back on the job within two weeks. The way she handled it was a great testimony to her drive and perseverance.”
Jack Lavoie, a Virginia lawyer, bought the majority share of the Blue Crabs this winter and met with Knichel.
“She could answer every question from dollars and cents to who's in the Pinch costume,” Lavoie said. “In some respects, it was totally coincidental she was a woman. We just came in and said, 'Wow, she's impressive.' She was invaluable to