This week's WAG Feature Wednesday is of the sweet and beautiful Sarah Losasso Brown. Sarah and I connected through the NFL Praying Women Groupme chat. I saw Sarah's plea for help when she told the group her husband had been a victim of identity theft. I wanted to know more about how that experience was for their family and was able to connect with her a couple weeks later. We discussed life in the NFL, interracial relationships, and motherhood. Read our conversation below...
NFL WAG Stats
Name: Sarah Losasso Brown
Husband: Chykie Brown Husband is Rookie or Veteran: Veteran. This is his 5th year (Ravens, Giants)
Children: Jada (2) and Dakota (1 month)
NFLWAG: 5 years
Places You've Lived in with NFL: Baltimore and New Jersey
Off Season Home: Texas
Favorite Food: Chicken Fingers
Music on your iTunes: Kanye west “Only One”, James Bay, Ed Sheeran
Hobbies: Working out (I used to teach BARR)
Interesting Facts: Majored in Dance and Journalism; Taught dance at an elementary school (ballet and hip hop)
He came home one day and said, 'They released me. We’ll find out in 24 hours where we’ll be.'” - Sarah Losasso Brown
Q&A
LM: You recently moved from Baltimore. How’s life treating you in NY?
SLB: We’re currently right outside the city and it’s been pretty good. It was a weird transition from Baltimore to New Jersey because last year was his contract year and six weeks out from the season they released him. He was picked up by the Giants within 24 hours. Oh, and I was pregnant! They put us in this two-bedroom apartment where all the players stayed. I didn’t go to any of the events or try to meet anyone. I was in my own bubble during this pregnancy. Looking back on last season, I wish I would’ve talked to the girls more. I’ve met a few of the ladies here though. Another Giants wife is my personal trainer.
LM: Where are you from originally and how did you get to where you are now?
SLB: I’m from Boston and I attended Arizona State for college. My friend was dating one of Chykie’s teammates, Aaron Williams (Buffalo Bills); they played football at the time for the University of Texas. My friend said, “Oh, you have to meet Aaron’s friend [my husband],” and I was like, “No. I’m not dating an athlete. They have such a bad stigma.” Chykie continued to pursue me and I eventually started to hang out with him. I didn’t think it would go anywhere because he was on his way to the NFL Combine, but it ended up going somewhere! We just never left each other. It’s funny because Aaron and my friend broke up about a month after they introduced Chykie and I. She always says she was the match maker.
LM: How long have you and your husband been married?
SLB: We are getting married in April but we are legally married in Texas (Common law).
LM: I’m excited for you two! Tell me about the wedding.
SLB: We’re having a decent sized wedding of 130 guests at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin. I didn’t know anything about weddings until I started to plan. I love our venue because they take care of the food, cake, and set up. When I found that out I said “I’m in!” I went to Kleinfeld’s recently to look at dresses.
LM: How did you decide on the venue?
SLB: My husband is friends with Aaron Ross and attended his wedding. Aaron and his wife [Sanya Richards-Ross] were on the show Million Dollar Wedding. Chykie said it was the best wedding he’d been to and he loved the venue so he was set on having our wedding the same place. I agreed but I will say weddings are ridiculous! Since having my kids, I don’t even see the point of spending so much on a wedding.
LM: I hear ya. We spent a year planning our wedding and I’m happy it’s over! You recently reached out to the Praying Women NFL group about a fraudulent account of your husband. Tell me more about that.
SLB: That was really crazy! My husband is not a social media person at all and when he had a Facebook page, he never posted. We were headed to the Superbowl and I was pregnant with our first child. My brother was with me and all of a sudden he said, “It’s so weird that Chykie’s posting on Facebook right now. Shouldn’t he be in game mode?” I asked my brother what Chykie posted and he said, “He’s working on his victory dance in the locker room.” I thought that was strange because my husband wouldn’t even say anything like that or be on social media during the Super Bowl. My brother showed me the Facebook account which had hundreds of followers and multiple posts. I was angry walking into the Super Bowl!
This fraudulent Facebook account had photos of our family and all this activity. I said to Chykie after the game, “You have this Facebook account I didn’t know about?”and he responded: “What are you talking about? That is not me.” I kind of just blew it off and decided to enjoy Super Bowl weekend. The account was disturbing. There were photos of my entire family, his extended family, and people from our church. My husband swore up and down the account wasn’t his and I believed him. When Jada was born, the account had a photo of her with the caption “Welcome to the world, Jada Brown” and included her weight. The guy had stolen a photo from my profile immediately after I posted it.
He had every photo I had ever posted on social media. His captions didn’t even sound like anything my husband would say. He wrote: “Held my baby girl for the first time. Her eyes are so beautiful” . I messaged the fraud and said: “I know this isn’t Chykie. You’re stalking us. We would appreciate it if you didn’t post about our kids.” The guy responded, “I’m sorry Mrs. Brown. I’m your #1 fan. I’ve been following your husband since high school. I just love you guys so much. I didn’t mean any harm by it.” He blocked me after that so I thought he took the page down. Chykie’s not one to overreact about anything so we left it alone.
Well, two years later my brother wrote me during the whole Caitlyn Jenner media coverage. He said, “This stuff can’t be posted. It’ll be on ESPN and make Chykie look bad.” The fraud still had the Facebook account and had commented on Caitlyn Jenner saying, “I don’t believe in Bruce Jenner. God doesn’t make gays.” It was clearly a hate post. Chykie would never say anything like that. He was posting really ignorant stuff. I logged on this year and he had photos of me pregnant and Easter photos of our family. The guy had been messaging people asking for money for “charity”. He was interacting with others pretending to be Chykie. A security guard who worked at the football facility had been talking with this guy via Facebook to try to give him Jada’s sock that had fallen off at one of the games [thinking he was Chykie]. We told Chykie’s agent and he supposedly contacted Facebook but they didn’t respond. We reported it probably 60 times on Facebook between us and our family members but the page remained active.
I was finally fed up when I learned the guy was writing things like, “Why is this b**** asking me for money in my inbox? Me and my wife think it’s ridiculous.” I wrote the Praying Women NFL chat group about the situation and the fake page was taken down the same day! Now I know the power of women coming together. The Giants had an open practice that day and one of the ladies who worked for the team came up to me and said, “Are you Sarah? A wife from a different team called me and we had that page taken down immediately.” I was so thankful for these ladies because I don’t know how else it would’ve been resolved. Facebook just didn’t care. I felt like all of our privacy was taken from us. I’m fine with sharing photos to the public but I want to do it myself. I didn’t like not knowing who was looking at my daughter. This is not the life she chose. She was put in a vulnerable state. When he put up a photo of my newborn I was livid. So glad that’s over!
LM: How scary! That sounds awful. Thank you for sharing that experience because some people may be unaware of what can happen. I’m so happy that NFL women were such a powerful force. Don’t mess with us!
I am the result of an interracial relationship. My parents had it tough 20 odd years ago but I’ve always wondered what it looks like these days and inside the NFL? What has been your experience being with someone of a different race?
SLB: Umm…I think that being in the position that we’re in, it’s not as difficult as if he wasn’t a football player. My parents are extremely traditional and Italian. Growing up, there was one black person in my entire school and he was adopted. When I had a mixed [biracial] child my mom said, “Do you know how hard it’s going to be for you to raise these kids?” I was confused and didn’t understand. I’ve never received any hate or anything. My daughter Jada has a super light complexion so some people can’t tell that she’s mixed but they know she looks different and will ask, “Is that your daughter?”.
I remember a time we went to Dave n Busters as a family and an Asian man was staring at us. Finally, Chykie said “What’s your problem?” The guy responded, “Does this thing really happen in America?” We asked the man what he was referring to and he said, “You two together.” Crazy! I did have another experience within the NFL. One of the other girls on the team made a comment like, “Does Sarah think she’s black because she has black babies?” Unfortunately, she said it to a group of girls I was close with and it got back to me. Most of my friends on the team are black. They all laughed at the comment like “Sarah is the whitest person alive.” I’ve never tried to act like something I’m not. The funny part about that story is that she wasn’t even black herself. That situation caught me off guard. Some people ask me if I know how to do my daughter’s hair. When I bring my kids to my hometown they look different from everyone else (my town is like 100% white). When I bring Chykie to my hometown he feels uncomfortable. I took Jada to a daycare there once and they asked me, “How do you do her hair?” Thankfully, we want to settle down in the diverse city of Houston. My daughter’s daycare here in New Jersey is really diverse as well.
****UPDATE 9/16/15***
Ironically, the day before I was scheduled to post this feature, Sarah contacted me and said that her and Chykie's photo had just been posted on the popular gossip site BallerAlert. Unfortunately, one innocent photo of them turned into a rather nasty discussion in the comments involving race. Here, I have only included a select number of comments that I felt were appropriate for the mission of this site. The others were simply too nasty to post. I am choosing to report on this, with Sarah's permission, to display the fact that race is still relevant in 2015. Read more after the break
A simple photo and caption elicited unwanted responses on race:
Unfortunately, there were hundreds of comments and most were negative and revolved around race. After situations such as this, it's clear to me that there is so much hate in the world and much work to be done. The judgment of Sarah and Chykie yesterday was disheartening Thankfully, the two are in good spirits. She just found it funny that we were just discussing her interracial relationship and she previously mentioned never really having a big issue with it. God is love, people! On another note, kudos to Sarah and Chykie for an awesome date night! Moving on...
LM: Let's talk about something positive like your beautiful daughters.
SLB: Well, Jada’s two and she’s in her terrible twos. She’s extremely active and loves her baby sister. We have no problems with jealousy or anything. She loves football. They’re very much daddy’s girls.
LM: How has motherhood changed you? Has it had an impact on your relationship with your husband?
SLB: Having two young children has been an adjustment. When I was 5 months pregnant, I worked as a boutique manager. I was tired often because I would close the store and get home late. Motherhood changed everything I thought I was going to be. I was so attached to Jada when I had her. I was terrified of leaving her. We just recently put her in daycare because I needed a break and really want to go back to work. As far as Chykie and I, it was tough at first because I had never even held a baby before. I didn’t know what to expect! Jada had really bad baby colic and was really fussy and challenging to take care of; she would projectile vomit on everything. It was difficult in the beginning because it had been just the two of us for so long. All of a sudden we couldn’t have alone time, watch a movie, or go to sleep together. By the time Jada was 9 months, we started to go out on date night. We told ourselves we would make it a point to put our relationship first. We made necessary changes and it’s been easier with Dakota. Now I know it’s okay to leave her with a sitter.
LM: What’s a typical day look like for you?
SLB: I usually wake up at all hours of the night. This morning I was up at 5:00 a.m. and got my daughter Jada ready. I drive her to school and stay with our newborn all day. In the evenings, I cook dinner and Chykie and I attempt to have some alone time. I usually go to bed at 8 o’clock. I’m trying to fit exercise into my schedule to get in shape for this wedding. Chykie’s hurt right now and he’s never been injured before so this is new to us. He slightly tore his LCL so he’s been at home rehabbing and helping me with the girls more.
I sold our entire house on Craigslist in two days.
LM: In your opinion, what are the challenges of being married to an NFL player?
SLB: I think moving is the biggest con for sure. And losing friends. I was so close to all the girls on the Ravens. I got here [with the Giants] and everyone has all their friends. Having children, it’s harder for me to meet people and tough to find sitters you can trust. We had a nanny in Baltimore we developed a great relationship with. She’s like part of our family and we had to leave her. I have to start that process over now and interview people here in New Jersey. When Chykie was released, it was seemingly out of nowhere. He was starting on the team and doing pretty well. He came home one day and said, “They released me. We’ll find out in 24 hours where we’ll be.” Sure enough, he got a call the same day and had to leave for the new team the same day. I was left at home being pregnant and had a toddler. Many of the Ravens ladies came over to help me pack. I sold our entire house on Craigslist in two days. My friends on the Ravens would come to our house and wait for the person to pick up whatever item they purchased off Craigslist. I’ll never forget one of the wives, Angie Forsett, prayed over me and we got a call from the Giants an hour after that prayer.
LM: What is your love advice to all women and women inside the NFL? Is there a difference?
SLB: Keep your relationship first and never compare your relationship to others. I had to learn never to compare my husband with the other players who are married. That was our biggest issue. If I knew that another wife’s husband came home earlier I might say “so and so’s guy came home at 8 and you came home at 9.” My husband would have to defend himself by explaining that he stayed to do hot tub/cold tub or a massage and that the other guy didn’t need to do those things. Also, don’t worry about a ring. Your relationship is yours and no one else’s.
LM: What do you think are the common misconceptions about NFL WAGS?
SLB: I think the show WAGS is pretty much exactly what most of the girls aren’t. We don’t just fly in private jets all day and have black cards. We manage our money just like everyone else if not more because of the nature of the NFL career. My dad is on us because he’s a doctor; he says he can practice until he’s 80 years old and make the same amount of money until retirement. In the NFL, you may get to play until your 32 or 35.
**UPDATE: Chykie is currently a free agent with the NFL. My prayers are with The Browns as they embark on the next chapter!**-LM
