Within the male-dominated world of CEOs, there are few jobs less likely to be filled by a woman than CEO of a professional football team. Yet Amy Trask JD ‘85 has been just that for more than a decade.

The USC Gould School of Law grad is CEO of the Oakland Raiders – the only woman to head a football team in the NFL, and one of the youngest ever to rise to chief executive.

Landing there was no accident. “A lot of people think I developed an interest in football after I joined the Raiders,” says Trask. “That’s a very big misperception.”

Her love of football (“It’s an amazing game that combines strength, speed, power and a strong intellectual component,” she says) began in high school, when Trask religiously cheered on her Pacific Palisades Dolphins. She also periodically took her dad to Rams games.

It was as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley that Trask first fell in love with the Raiders. She was drawn to the team’s unconventional, maverick quality. “The Raiders is an organization with a renegade feel to it,” she says. As luck would have it, when Trask went on to USC Law, the Raiders followed her to Los Angeles, playing at the nearby Coliseum.

In her second year as a law student, Trask contacted the club’s El Segundo headquarters, offering her services as an unpaid intern. “They didn’t know what to say, other than to explain that they never had interns,” Trask recalls. “But they let me come over and work.”

The Raiders had no openings when Trask graduated from USC Law, so she joined a Los Angeles law firm, practicing transactional law. Then a call came from the Raiders’ general counsel, Jeff Birren, who had hired her as an intern. He was looking for a young person to help with transactional matters.

“I told him I could be there in 20 minutes,” Trask recalls. “I just had to give notice.”

She joined the Raiders in 1987, and team owner Al Davis named her chief executive a decade later. “I don’t think there’s another sports organization that would have given me – or any young woman – an opportunity 21 years ago,” Trask says. “Al Davis and this organization are blind to race, religion, gender and age. There’s a track record of diversity and inclusiveness here. Al hired the first Hispanic head coach and the first modern-era black head coach, and the first woman chief executive. He doesn’t do it for the recognition. He simply hires whomever he thinks is right for the job without regard to race, religion, gender, ethnicity or age.”

As CEO, Trask oversees the Raiders’ dynamic business operation, which employs about 100 people, not including the players and coaches. She directs all aspects of the Raiders corporation – finance, marketing, ticket sales, Internet operations, broadcasting, and multi-cultural and youth initiatives. She travels extensively to NFL meetings, where she deals with fellow executives and team employees. Despite her reputation as a tough-as-nails football executive, Trask also is the ultimate team player. “When things are busy, it’s all hands on deck,” she says.

Trask doesn’t dwell much on her role as the only female chief executive in the NFL. “The Raiders environment encourages young people to grow,” she says. “That’s the culture of the organization. As far as my gender, I don’t think about it for one minute. If you don’t want gender to be an issue, don’t make it an issue. It’s as simple as that.”

There’s speculation that Trask one day may be recruited to the top football job – NFL commissioner – a position openly coveted by many, including Condoleezza Rice. But Trask isn’t preoccupied with that either. “Our business is football,” she says. “I don’t look at what’s next, other than the next football season.”

– Gilien Silsby