Brent Jones, former 49er and three-time Super Bowl winning tight end, visited CSU East Bay to encourage parents to involve their daughters in sports.

“I really started caring about girls sports when I had my own two daughters,” Jones jokingly admitted.

The Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative partnered with the San Francisco 49ers Foundation in order to hold the event for their Dad and Daughter program.

The initiative encourages fathers to engage their daughters in women’s sports through activities such as attending women’s sporting events, physical group activity and community building through sports.

In a small classroom in the Physical Education building, Jones spoke to an intimate group of excited fans about the importance of women’s sports, saying he remembered a time when women’s athletics were quite different.

“When I grew up, it wasn’t as cool for girls to like sports.” Jones said. “It didn’t seem like there was a real emphasis on women’s sports.”

But now Jones sees a very different landscape in women’s sports. “I think there were a lot of brave, strong women that paved the way that allowed for today’s females to have it pretty darn good,” he said.

The Bay Area resident recognizes women’s commitment to their sport, despite the lack of a loyalty from fans and questions whether men would have the same mentality if put in the same situation.

According to Experian, a marketing research service, people are three times more likely to watch a men’s basketball tournament than women’s.

Jones explained he started advocating for his daughters to watch women’s sports early on.

“I started thinking maybe it’s because they don’t really care who Tom Brady is,” he said. “We would go watch the big girls play, whether it was softball, or volleyball, or basketball, or soccer. The greatest thing about being a dad and bringing your daughters to the game: it let’s them see older girls that play, that were focused on sports.”

He emphasized the importance of spending time with family and said it allowed his relationship with his daughters, to grow stronger. The Jones’ still get together on a regular basis to watch sports together.

His daughters started playing soccer and softball when they were young with Jones serving as assistant coach for their softball teams.

His elder daughter, Courtney Jones, moved on to play for University of North Carolina’s soccer team and was recognized on the Women’s National Top 100 list of College Soccer Players by Top Drawer Soccer.

His younger daughter, Rachel Jones went to Cal Poly University where she played as goalkeeper for their soccer team.

CSUEB was chosen to host the event because of its rich legacy of female athletes, explained BAWSI Co-founder Marlene Bjornsrud, who coordinated the event with CSUEB.

“We have done some great work with the female athletes here at Cal State East Bay,” she said. “And because of how impressed we were with their willingness to take all their leadership skills and use those skills to make a difference in their community.”

The respect and admiration between BAWSI and the CSUEB athletic department is mutual.

“The Pioneers are thankful to be part of the BAWSI network in the Bay Area,” Dawn Ellerbe, CSUEB Assistant Athletics Director, told the East Bay Express.

“Hosting the Dads and Daughters event means so much to our campus,” she explained. “Cal State East Bay strives to be a consistent and active member of our local community and to provide our student-athletes with opportunities to be positive role models.”