Some people see a void and complain. Others see an opportunity to fill that void and make it happen. Angela Davis and Marcelle English, partners in Jersey Girl Sports (JGS), an Atlanta-based media and lifestyle company serving women sports enthusiasts and aspiring fans, chose the latter path, and plan to make it happen in a big way at the 2012 Black Enterprise Pepsi Golf & Tennis Challenge at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami over Labor Day Weekend. After hosting one of the most popular events on the agenda at the 2011 Golf and Tennis Challenge, Davis and English are going for a “two-peat.” JGS will be back to bring their sports expertise to GT2012 via their “First and Flirty” Football 101 clinic, one of the many live event programs produced by Davis and English.
In 2009 Davis and English started JGS in 2009, with focus on helping women to become fully educated and engaged as fans of any sport. To many women’s elation, JGS breaks down the games and speak to them about the events and happenings of their favorite players and teams. Having evolved from a conversation to a corporation, JGS is helping women join the sports conversation, once seen as the near-exclusive domain of men, one clinic at a time. Black Enterprise spoke with the “lady bosses” of JGS about the genesis of their enterprise and their return to the Golf & Tennis Challenge
BE: How did you two meet?
English: I used to be a producer of a morning radio show in Atlanta and Angela was coming on our show to talk about relationships. She was kind of like our “Single Woman on the Street.” I called Angela to give her directions to the radio station while she was driving to Augusta on business. We ended up being on the phone for the entire two hours she was on the road! It went from there, to hanging out, to taking road trips together and so here we are almost nine years later.
BE: How did you launch Jersey Girl Sports?
Davis: I do not know if we saw this being the company it is today in the beginning. We were actually at a sports bar having cocktails watching the pregame coverage. They showed T.O. (Terrell Owens) warming up in a cat suit and we were just loving his body. We were just commenting and talking about all of this stuff and Marcel said “All these commentators are not speaking to us [women]. We are listening to all these sports analysts and they are talking about everything but the fact that this man’s body is just amazing.” We looked around the bar and there were other women around who were “Amen’ing” us and we were like we should do a sports show for women.
Four months later, actually I believe it was during NBA All-Star Weekend, we were at her house and we ended up planning the company…
Read more: Alfred Edmond Jr, Black Enterprise
