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Ep. 22: Jen Mueller, Seattle Seahawks sideline reporter

October 06, 2021

Jen Mueller is a 20-year sports broadcasting veteran who currently serves as the sideline radio reporter for the Seattle Seahawks. She is also an Emmy-winning producer and part of the Seattle Mariners television broadcast team.

Mueller was born in 1978 and grew up in Houston. She says that it’s not just a saying but very true that in Texas “football is king.”

Mueller studied journalism and public policy at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Today, she is an award winning broadcaster who has covered college and pro sports, but is known around the Seattle area for her coverage of the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners.

She also runs her own business called Talk Sporty To Me, which is a communication strategy firm that works with businesses of all sizes.

Soon, you’ll also see and hear Jen Mueller at the side of the ice, once Seattle’s new expansion franchise called the Seattle Kraken drops the puck later this October.

Fighting her way to the locker room

Mueller wasn’t knee deep in football until college but always had a love for the sport. At the same time she was ramping up her sports journalism career Mueller took on a role as a football official in Texas in order to obsorb every aspect of the game she loves.

Her first NFL experience involved covering the Dallas Cowboys during her college internship. After she moved to the Pacific Northwest, she worked her way to covering the Seahawks, and says that dedication and “showing up” to everything helped establish her reputation as a regular.

“I was there every day, every presser, every practice and team event. I didn’t show up in jeans and flip flops like some of the guys (in the press),” Mueller says.

She adds that being “ready to go” and 100% professional all the time help her establish herself as a journalist close to the game.

NFL stars are human, relationships are everything

I asked Mueller what she thought about the ever-changing national conversation in sports. She thinks that in 2021 sports fans and media have come to a different place. We see athletes not just as stars but as people too.

“When you are the best in the world at what you do and you get put on a pedestal,” Mueller says of NFL stars and pro athletes, “it’s easy to think that your life is easy.”

But Mueller says that when you spend as much time as she does around football pros, you realize that they’re human too. That’s “how you build relationships with them, and dig deep,” she says.

Mueller also thinks that the last 18 months of a global pandemic, in which play stopped and fans were kept away from the game, has possibly put sports in a more human and forgiving place.

The NFL and Seahawks 101

Living and breathing Seattle Seahawks football, Jen Mueller has a ton of great stories about players and the stuff that fans don’t get to see.

She says that “innovation” is a great way to describe head coach Pete Carroll and the organization as a whole. And she shed some light on why Russell Wilson, through smart play and a Coll demeanor, has become not just a good quarterback but a likely Hall of Fame quarterback.

Mueller also shares her thoughts on Seattle’s “Legion of Boom” defense, and what legendary players like Bobby Wagner, Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch are like as people.

What about Tom Brady… and Cam Newton?

She also explains why Tom Brady is still so good, what’s going on in Jacksonville with Trevor Lawrence, what what’s next for Cam Newton.

In Episode 22 of the podcast, you can hear Jen Mueller talk about working in football, as well as where she thinks the game is going, and what’s in store for NFL fans in 2021.

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