She’s going the whole 9 yards. Kalen Jackson is a vice-chair and co-owner of the Indianapolis Colts—or as she calls it, the family business, since the team’s been under their ownership since the ‘70s. Instead of sitting back and channeling her inner Lyla Garrity, Kalen is using her NFL network to shed light on mental health in the league and broader community through the Colts’ Kicking the Stigma initiative.

Ahead of the Super Bowl, we spoke with the Indiana native about growing up in a football family, how her fame fueled awkward childhood run-ins, and why we should speak up about wellness.

What do you do in the Colts organization?
I’m involved in general operations, so I have my hand in every department, whether it be ticketing, marketing, you name it. But my main role is overseeing our community relations department.

What was it like being born into a sports empire? We imagine your teen years were like Friday Night Lights.
I wouldn’t say it was like that [laughing]. Football obviously took precedent in our social calendars, but my parents wanted to give us a normal life. There’d be special occasions where my dad might pull us into the locker room, but we didn’t even go to away games until we were middle-school age. We are a 100% family-owned team, so people definitely knew our last name. In that case, you grow up with people yelling at you because you had a losing season when you’re 6 years old. That can be a little confusing, but for the most part, it’s true what they say about Hoosier hospitality in Indiana.

When you got older, was it a no-brainer to join the business?
Growing up, I actually said my dream was to be a screenwriter. When I was getting ready for college, I wanted to go to California—somewhere I could blend into the crowd because it felt like I never did that here. I didn’t get into where I wanted to go, but that was the best thing for me. I went to Indiana University, and by the time I was going to college, joining the Colts was what I thought I wanted to do. I didn’t truly know until after school. It sounds funny now that I look back on it, because I don’t know what I would have done instead. It ended up being something I loved and found a really big purpose in.

What encouraged you to launch the Kicking the Stigma initiative?
We’ve always been focused on affecting our community and we’ve worked with nonprofits, but we’ve never had our own initiative. Before the pandemic, we challenged ourselves to think, “If we were to focus on what connects with us as a family and individuals, what would that be?” We landed on mental health for a number of reasons. My dad has openly struggled with substance use disorder for years and is doing really well in recovery. Then, I have struggled with anxiety my whole life. And with the number of family members or friends that have dealt with mental health issues throughout our lives, it made the most sense.

What impact has the initiative made so far?
The pandemic hit a couple of months after we started our work, and it was affecting everybody that much more in the mental health space, so we were motivated to get started. Last season, we used the My Cause My Cleats initiative to showcase that this is an area of commitment for us. From there, we’ve had at least four national PSAs, and raised a little bit over $4.5 million. We started a grant program for mainly local recipients, but also picked a few national ones… A lot of times you’ll see families or teams step up for certain things, then it dwindles away. This is a cause where we’re keeping our foot on the gas and plan to hopefully talk about it for decades.

Do you think there’s hesitancy in the NFL to talk about mental health?
I would say there’s been that everywhere. The main point of the campaign is to take away the shame that’s often associated with any kind of mental health struggle. We’ve definitely seen players who are role models—seen as these gladiator-types—being vulnerable, and it makes a big impact on adults and kids. As you’ve seen in other sports like the Olympics, I feel like every day there’s somebody else talking about mental health. The more people that come out and share, the more it becomes normalized, which is what we’re trying to be part of.