Mariners air Women in Sports panel

SEATTLE -- Kim Ng, a Major League Baseball executive, and Heather Tarr, head softball coach at the University of Washington, headlined a six-person “Women in Sports” panel alongside other familiar Seattle faces that the Mariners debuted on Wednesday.

The panel discussion focused on the paths available to women in sports as well as the challenges each of the six faced, the advances made in 48 years since the passage of Title IX and the progress still to be achieved. The program is available for viewing on the Mariners' YouTube channel.

Ng currently is serving as MLB’s senior vice president of baseball operations after previously working as an assistant general manager with the Dodgers. Tarr, who grew up in Redmond, Wash., and is a product of the Washington softball program, has been the head coach for the Huskies since 2005, and she is also the coach of the U.S. National U-19 team.

Also on the panel are Amanda Lee, who was an athletic trainer with the Mariners’ Class A Everett club last year; Jessamyn McIntyre, a radio reporter and producer for 710 ESPN Seattle; Ingrid Russell-Narcisse, the Mariners' senior director of corporate partnerships; and Angie Mentink, a former Husky softball standout and current reporter and anchor for ROOT Sports Northwest, who moderated the discussion.

While the jobs of the panelists are ranging, there is a common theme.

“You have to be thoroughly prepared,” said Ng, who is the highest-ranking female executive in MLB. “We’re still at a point where we’re going to have to outshine the guys to get noticed, to get promoted. You have to have a voice. At many points in your career, you’re going to have to stand up for yourself, make a case for yourself or a case for whatever it is you are trying to get across. And lastly, you need thick skin.”

Russell-Narcisse, one of the few Black women working in an MLB front office, said getting more women role models in sports would be beneficial.

“It would help if we had more women in leadership positions at Major League Baseball and other areas,” she said. “There’s something to be said about seeing yourself in someone else’s shoes that’s ahead of you. So opening up that pipeline to the executive level, getting more women in there, encouraging each other and bringing others along would also help.”