WOMEN WHO INSPIRE
Being in the public eye can, Ashley admits,
take its toll on you.
“Physiologically, it was hard for me to stay in
shape with the amount of stress of working
close to 12-hour days and then going to
three hours of practice at night,” she said.
“You’re constantly comparing yourself to
other girls. They had trainers come in and
do workouts before practice and then we’d
dance for three hours and sweat our butts
off.” Though there was never a weight goal
or requirement, the women did always have
to look “in shape.” “Yes, that’s what you
sign up for, but that still doesn’t make it any
easier,” Ashley said.
If it hadn’t been for the demands of her
work, Ashley might have continued living
out her dreams. “I would leave early to go
to a practice, or I would leave early to do
these trips, and that put a lot of pressure on
my co-workers, so I had to make a choice,”
she said of working full-time with her father
in his practice. “As I got a little bit older toward the end - I was in a different place of
my life.”
Looking back, she wishes that she would
have had more confidence in herself - and
her body. “I wish I would have stuck with
what I knew was right for my body and
not try to yo-yo diet because that ended
up putting a lot of stress on me and had a
negative impact.”
But she can’t imagine what life would have
been like without the experience. “I would
have missed out on so much. I grew as a
person and as a woman. Putting on that
uniform made me feel extremely confident...
it was really unbelievable to get to represent
an organization like the St. Louis Rams.
The most humbling experiences were all
the charity events that we did. That really
shaped me as the woman that I am today.”
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SAVVY I SOPHISTICATED I SASSY