Woman from Fairfax Co. blazes her own path on the baseball diamond
Only a few colleges nationwide have elected to have a baseball general manager on staff. Now, a 25-year-old woman from Fairfax County, Virginia, is stepping up to the plate.
Sam Gjormand became the first general manager of the baseball team at the College of Charleston in South Carolina earlier this year.
She’s believed to be the first woman to join a college baseball coaching staff.
The Virginia native has been around baseball diamonds her entire life. Well, at least since she was two days old.
Her dad, Mark, was the head varsity baseball coach at James Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia, since well before she was born. As such, she’s always grown up around the game.
Sure, she tried softball when she had to give up baseball, but it wasn’t something she was passionate about. Gjormand admitted she always found herself wandering back to her dad’s field every chance she got.
Gjormand served as a team manager of the baseball team at James Madison University while she was a student there.
That’s how she got on the radar of College of Charleston’s head baseball coach, Chad Holbrook, who quickly hired her upon graduation.
The college announced her promotion to general manager late last month.
Even though college sports are becoming more professionalized, a GM at the collegiate level still carries different responsibilities compared to what you see from a GM in Major League Baseball.
“I’m helping out with our support staff, making sure everybody has what they need, kind of as a liaison between our coaching staff and them,” Gjormand said. “I’m overseeing equipment, travel. I’m overseeing, basically, everyday team needs, making sure everybody is taken care of, from the baseball staff outward.”
Those are the same responsibilities she had in years past. But as times change in college sports, her ability to help discern talent gives her added responsibilities.
“With this new GM title, I’m going to take over some of the ‘NIL’ (name, image and likeness payments) responsibilities, working with our collective, the Charleston Edge, to get our players taken care of, and working with some of our donors to make sure we’re bringing it in on that end as well,” she added.
Working behind the scenes with the Northern Virginia College League, as well as the prestigious Cape Cod League, gave her a lot of practice handling administrative roles.
“I really like being the cog that makes the motor turn, is how I put it to people,” Gjormand said. “I like being behind the scenes. I don’t need to be the face of a program, but I like knowing that when I show up every day, I have the opportunity to really make something special happen with this program.”
‘Get your foot in the door’: Breaking new ground on college baseball diamonds
It’s an opportunity that’s much more common in professional baseball, especially at the minor league level, though more and more women have been hired for front office roles in the major league, too.
In fact, Gjormand always figured if she was going to work in baseball, it might have to be on the pro ball side of things. She certainly hadn’t imagined a career in college baseball before she was offered one.
She said other women are now seeing there are footsteps they can follow as well.
“When I get to hear from young women trying to break through the game or seeing what I’m doing on the college side of things, and saying, ‘I didn’t know there was a spot for me in college baseball. I just thought it was big league or bust,'” Gjormand said. “That is cool for me to hear.”
Only one other college program has its own general manager. When Gjormand’s new position was announced, Coach Holbrook offered the kind of praise anyone would want to hear from their boss, regardless of their job or gender.
“Sam has proven to be invaluable to our baseball program,” Holbrook said in a February statement. “She is much more than an administrator; she has an incredible and vast knowledge of the game and provides our coaches incredible baseball insight to all things Cougar Baseball. She is simply great at her job and these new responsibilities will only make our program much better. We are lucky to have her at The College.”
Asked what advice she’s given other women who are trying to work their way into college baseball, Gjormand said, “Just get your foot in the door, and then that’s your opportunity to start running.”
“Once you start running, nobody’s telling you when you have to stop or how far you’re allowed to go. You just keep on going,” she added.
And while the overall number of women involved in baseball is minimal, the bond and sisterhood that exists between them is strong.
“I think the cool part about it is seeing how different all of our stories are,” Gjormand said. “But the one common theme is … our ambition and just knowing that there’s a place for us, and not taking no for an answer.”