Kim Ng’s Perseverance Overcomes The Depressing Indictment Of Men’s Pro Sports

On Monday the Miami Marlins introduced Kim Ng as their new general manager. It is cause for celebration, not just for Major League Baseball but for all men’s major pro sports as she becomes the first woman to assume the GM position. Women and little girls will now have another figure to look up to. When asked what she would say to little girls, Ng replied, “Anything is possible.”

Universally, the hire by Marlins owners Derek Jeter and Bruce Sherman is being lauded as forward-thinking and cause for celebration. So, why should we also be depressed?

Ng might be one of – I not the — most qualified person in MLB to finally assume the general manager’s position. She’s worked in baseball for 30 years.  She has a combined 21 years of experience in the front offices for the Chicago White Sox (1990-96), New York Yankees (1998-2001), and Los Angeles Dodgers (2002-11). She also has worked in the league’s central office. She first applied for a GM position 15 years ago and has been more than capable of assuming the role.

No matter the celebration for Ng, it is an indictment on the major men’s professional sports that a woman has not been in position until now. Why did it take so long? Why does gender, and race continue to be barriers to hires in men’s sports?

Ng understands what she now has become: one of the trailblazers that have broken the glass ceiling for women. “If you can’t see it,” a reference to a woman in the high-profile position in a male-dominated world of pro sports, “you can’t feel it,” she says. “Now, you can see it.”

Her ascension is a portrait of sheer perseverance. Time and time again, she has been a candidate for a GM position, only to be passed on. The Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Anaheim Angels, and San Francisco Giants were all clubs where she was a candidate.

“After so many times, you might feel deflated,” she said of not getting the job. “Even if it didn’t happen, I was always going to feel good about my career. I wasn’t going to see it as a failure. You pick yourself up and go back at it.”

She’s anything but bitter about the trajectory and prior setbacks. In true form as an example to other women, she saw how some interviews were not serious, and more a matter of checking a box that said, “We’re trying to be more diverse.”

“I felt like there were some interviews that weren’t on the up-and-up, “Ng said. “You do them because it is for others. It was about doing it so that other owners might see it more open to women and minorities. It was for those behind me. It was for me, but it was also for others.”

Ng has looked and leaned on others before her as inspiration. Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova are two that she cited in her introduction on Monday. She also understands the pressure that comes with her breaking the barrier.

Now the question becomes, will Ng be an outlier, or will she open the door for other clubs and leagues to do the same? It is a slow process that has improved for women but is far from idyllic. Many feel Becky Hammon will one day be a head coach in the NBA. There continues to be women doing outstanding work in media. But there will always remain a group of men that will see these more than qualified women as “virtue signaling” hires, and not on their merits. In that, Ng’s perseverance and focus on what has driven her from an early age will need to be what others behind her embrace.

“I was always going to be the kid that wanted to do what I wanted to do, and not worrying about what about what others else said.”

“When Derek told me I had the job, a 10,000-pound weight was lifted off my shoulders. And shortly thereafter I realized it was more like shifting the weight from one shoulder to the other.”