Editor’s note: Sally Roberts is a U.S. Sports Envoy, Army veteran, and co-founder and CEO of Wrestle Like a Girl, a national nonprofit dedicated to the advancement of women’s leadership and opportunity through sport. A featured speaker at the Global Ties U.S. 2026 National Meeting: America at 250, we reconnected with Sally to discuss the power of sports as a pillar of U.S. public diplomacy, and how U.S. citizen engagement through sports provides an opportunity to showcase American excellence and entrepreneurship, and advance U.S. strategic interests.
The U.S. Department of State’s Sports Envoy Program is a pillar of our public diplomacy. When did you personally first come to understand the power of sports as a diplomatic tool and what drew you to serve as a sports envoy?
I recognized the power of sports as a diplomatic tool when I was an athlete. While we were traveling across the globe for competitions, we were able to engage with our fellow athletes in a very different way than what the news was portraying was happening between communities and societies.
Then, as a leader and the founder and CEO of Wrestle Like a Girl, I took that opportunity to ask myself: if diplomacy was impactful as an athlete, and now you are a leader who has the background of an athlete, doesn’t it make sense to bring those worlds together and really see what kind of magic can be made on behalf of girls and women in sport while advancing America’s values, interests, freedom, democracy, and human rights? And with a courageous leap I saw that was the path forward I wanted to take.
You are a U.S. Army veteran as well as a Sports Envoy. What impact do you think your military experience had on your vision of sports diplomacy?
My first true love is the United States of America. I have been proud to wear the uniform both as a service member and as an elite athlete. For me, needing a strong foundation – that is what the American flag embodies. Being a service member, pulling in sport diplomacy, and starting to weave those worlds together, it was a beautiful and quite natural fit in recognizing the power of sport to empower girls and women worldwide.
My wrestling has benefited from my military service. My business life has benefited from my military service. Every aspect of who I am has benefited from military service because it taught me, first and foremost, that you must have courage and character in every situation, even when no one is looking. Especially when no one is looking. As a leader, embodying those character attributes, day in and day out, is truly something that helps to show the world what women are and what they are not. I think it is important for girls and women across the globe to see other strong women standing up for them, advocating for them, knowing that we can participate in sport, that we can participate in diplomacy. And we can do all that while still maintaining our strength and the compassion that we need for our communities.
Wrestle Like a Girl has played a major role in advancing opportunities for women and girls across the world. Can you describe your purpose and the impact you have seen?
My purpose with Wrestle Like a Girl has evolved. I was an athlete and a service member on a Sunday, and on a Monday, I became a founder and a CEO. One of the most beautiful journeys that I have been able to participate in has been the journey of entrepreneurship. It has been personal and professional development set at supersonic speed. My journey at Wrestle Like a Girl is to shepherd girls and women along using the sport of wrestling to teach them to become leaders in life. The strength and power that they are able to harness within themselves while participating in the sport of wrestling is the same power that they are going to harness when they are studying for exams, when they are looking at their futures, and when they are understanding their capabilities.
As a U.S. Sports Envoy, you use wrestling to bridge cultural divides and create opportunities for young athletes. What have been some of the most meaningful moments or outcomes? How do those international exchanges strengthen U.S. relationships abroad?
Some of the most meaningful work that I have done has been in the Middle East; looking at what countries absolutely love – wrestling – and the challenges they may have diplomatically or sporting-wise with the United States of America.
In Jordan, I was able to collaborate with the girls and women in Jerash, which is a conservative part of the country. It was really beautiful because before we got started, I had to get permission from the elders that lived in that town for me to be able to talk to the girls and team them any sport. This was their very first time participating in organized sport.
After we got their blessing, we took to the mats, and the girls were wearing their traditional uniforms and headscarves. It wasn’t the wrestling practice that I may have thought we were going into, but it is the one that we entered. Because it was the first time they were doing physical activity, we had to teach the girls how to do a forward roll – how to tuck their chins to their chest and how to get the arch in their spine so that they could roll out of it – and the nature and notion of proprioception – where your body is in space and learning who you are. That engagement was profound for those athletes. They were grateful that we could honor their cultures and customs. That has flourished into an ongoing relationship that has been really beautiful.
This summer the nation will come together to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States. How are you looking forward to engaging Wrestle Like a Girl in this milestone celebration? And how can our nationwide Global Ties Network, whom you met at our Global Ties U.S. 2026 National Meeting in February, get involved with your organization’s important work with sports and sports opportunities more broadly?
Wrestle Like a Girl is hosting a girls and women’s wrestling clinic at American University and we would love anyone, any girls that are in the DMV area, to come by and attend. We are going to be teaching them wrestling, but we are also going to have an opportunity to engage the girls that are in attendance about what does it mean to be a wrestler, what does it mean to be a citizen, and what does it mean to be a global citizen. For anyone around the country that may want to get involved with Wrestle Like a Girl, we have a website wrestlelikeagirl.org. You can sign up and join our email list and stay abreast of the information as we continue to develop it.
Any final thoughts or advice that you wish to share that we have not covered yet today?
It has been beyond my wildest dreams to live the life that I get to live, and it is because I never let anyone tell me I was not good enough. I did not ever listen to the people that said I did not belong there. And I kept enduring regardless of the challenges or circumstances into a future that I just knew could happen. I want to just encourage everyone to continue to shoot for their dreams because it is only through living that we get to see what it is that we really love and how do we really want to work and serve the world and create a more prosperous future.