Kelli Masters overcomes critics, among few female NFL agents

By ROB MAADDI
AP Pro Football Writer

Kelli Masters remembers the feeling going to her first scouting combine in 2006, seeing no other female agents in the room and wondering if the people who told her she didn’t belong were right. But Masters went on to become the first female agent to represent a top-5 pick in the NFL draft. She went to law school at Oklahoma and began her professional career as a business litigation attorney. She became an agent because her passion for helping people with their nonprofits led her to work with athletes who wanted to start charitable foundations. There are a few more females in the agent business now. But of the 910 NFLPA-certified agents, only 67 are women. That’s just 7.3%.