Natalie Winkelfoos is in her 12th year as the director of Oberlin Athletics. During her time at Oberlin, Winkelfoos has been named the Division III Administrator of the Year by Women Leaders in College Sports in 2015 and the Under Armour Athletic Director of the Year in 2018.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about your athletic journey before becoming director of Oberlin Athletics.

Sports was always a big part of my family. I’m the youngest of five kids, and the Winkelfoos family, we’re athletes. I was outside all the time when I was young. We had a neighborhood full of kids, and our house tended to be the meeting spot. We played basketball, baseball, football — I was typically the only girl out there with the boys. I love sports, and it’s given me so much. That’s why I do this job, because I want to give back to the people that helped me grow and go.

I played travel softball. Softball was really my jam, but I just fell in love with the game of basketball. I could have gone on to be a Division I softball player, but I just loved and still love basketball. It’s now my favorite sport to watch. I played softball and basketball in high school. I would have loved to play lacrosse, if that had been an option in my day, but it was not. So, I watch Oberlin’s women’s lacrosse games, and I get so jacked up.

In college, I really stuck with basketball. I went to a small Division III school, Baldwin Wallace University, whose women’s team is doing great right now. I’m cheering for them, and my college coach is still coaching there. We are still connected, and she’s been a huge advocate and champion for me.

Women are in roughly 33 percent of AD roles in D3 and around 25 percent in collegiate athletics as a whole. How important is it for you to be visible and outspoken in your position, both here on campus and in your conversations with other schools and athletics directors?

Visibility does matter, right? If you can see it, you can be it. So, I look at some pictures in my office, and they’re all of women I’ve looked up to and am inspired to be like. Being a female athletics director is a real privilege that can also feel like a weight, sometimes. But I love that. I love a challenge. 

I belong to the nonprofit Women Leaders in Sports. I’ve sat on their board, and I think it was being there that really heightened the purpose and the importance and significance of having women in positions of leadership. I’m very fortunate that here, I report directly to President Carmen Twillie Ambar, and at that table, Vice President for Finance and Administration Rebecca Vazquez-Skillings is a woman, Vice President and Dean of Students Karen Goff is a woman, Executive Director of the Center for DEI Innovation and Leadership JeffriAnne Wilder is a woman. So there’s female leadership. I see it here, the value of having a female voice at the table. It’s a different experience. It’s not better. It’s just different. And I think the more diverse opinions and feelings and experiences you can have at a table, the better we are as a community.

As a queer woman, what does it mean for you to be the driving force behind Oberlin being named the 2023 NCAA LGBTQ Institution of the Year? 

I don’t know if I’ve really let that sink in, truly. You know, students now are growing up in a whole different generation, and I can’t say that I have always been as open as I am. I am trying to be open so that others can be too, and so that they can see that you can have a successful career, you can have a family, you can have it all, right? I would hope that we can change minds and help people evolve. I didn’t have a lot of people to look to when I was growing up, and so it felt scary, right? So, now to be working here and to have our institution named the LGBTQ Institution of the Year, it’s significant to go from the closet to, “Here we are.”

How do you bring the different facets of your identity — as someone who loves sports, as a queer person, as a woman — to these conversations you’re having with other athletics directors in areas that might not be as open-minded as Oberlin?

I don’t think about it a lot, honestly, because I’m just me. But I also know that me being me could also be helping someone else, so it’s important to me. Being queer is a piece of my identity, but it’s not all of it. I just bring myself to a space, and it’s up to the other person to consume it or not. I’m just trying to be authentically me, and so I’m not someone who will say, “She’s my friend,” when talking about my wife. She’s my wife!

I think the more genuine and authentic that we can be about who we are and all of our identities, the better. I don’t hesitate in that space to speak and share the experiences that I’ve had. And I think people look to Oberlin to see, “How are you managing this situation? How are you guys leading?” I was talking to an athletics director recently, and they’re like, “Well, Oberlin’s always 18 months ahead of us, so how do we manage this?” 

Tell me your thoughts on the rapid growth of women’s sports and leagues, including women’s rugby, the WNBA, and the NWSL. Do you think that this growth can be mirrored throughout athletics and stretch into managerial and coaching positions at a similar rate?

Absolutely, I hope so. It is no surprise to me as a lifelong athlete that people are enjoying watching women’s sports, but it also goes to show that you need the exposure. Is it perfect yet? Absolutely not. We need more resources. We need more women in coaching and administrative positions, but women’s sports are growing, and that’s exciting. We can’t miss the moment, and it is incredible to see. 

I do think with Name, Image, and Likeness, we’re certainly seeing women getting their payday as well. We’ll see what happens with the WNBA if those salaries can continue to increase. They’re being very smart about how they’re managing their contracts and what that means for them as women. I love seeing some of our most notable female athletes stepping away from sports to become a parent but then also coming back to the sport. That, for me, is really cool. So I just hope that those mothers can get the support and resources they need, because it is a lot being a mom, you know? So, I just hope that momentum can keep going.

How does your experience as a mother translate into the work that you do here? What are some lessons that you’ve learned from parenting that you apply to your job?

Patience and giving people grace. I will say that my son is my greatest teacher. He’s 12 years old and when he was born, he was diagnosed with Down syndrome. I have become such a better person and better leader because of him. I think I understand the root of inclusion because this world isn’t built for him either, right? And so that only amplifies how I want to be for others. I think everybody’s learning at their own pace, and you have to meet people where they are. He’s a beautiful kid, and you have to look for the beautiful in everyone.

To quote Ted Lasso, “Be curious, not judgmental.” That’s what I try to do, to give grace and lean in and be curious. Any kind of challenge that approaches you, you have a choice in how you manage it. I have a wonderful family that I can lean on who help me through, and sometimes I just have to look into the eyes of my kid and ask him a question, because the only thing that matters to him is that I’m showing up in a compassionate way.

What are your favorite parts of being at Oberlin?

I love being here. I think I have fallen in love with my job again. I love having connections with our students. I am very fortunate that I have really great teammates that help me accomplish a lot for Oberlin. It’s easy to get sucked into the administrative work, the paperwork, the meetings, and all those things, so I asked my administrative team to help me connect more because I don’t want to lose focus of what our mission is, and that is to guide our students. And I wouldn’t be a great athletics director if I didn’t say I’m trying to win more games, too.