Sept. 6, 2025
Beyond the Sidelines: From NFL Wife to Self-Discovery
Send us a text What happens when your entire identity becomes wrapped up in someone else's spotlight? Eileen Noyes knows this journey intimately. From college strength coach to NFL wife overnight, she experienced firsthand how quickly women can lose themselves in the shadows of their relationships. Eileen's story takes us behind the curtain of professional sports families, revealing the intense pressures, identity crises, and impossible standards that come with being "the wife of" someone fa...
What happens when your entire identity becomes wrapped up in someone else's spotlight? Eileen Noyes knows this journey intimately. From college strength coach to NFL wife overnight, she experienced firsthand how quickly women can lose themselves in the shadows of their relationships.
Eileen's story takes us behind the curtain of professional sports families, revealing the intense pressures, identity crises, and impossible standards that come with being "the wife of" someone famous. With raw honesty, she shares how her 16-year marriage to an NFL player ended when he joined an organization promoting harmful beliefs about women, forcing her to completely rebuild her life while raising eight children in the public eye.
Now remarried and part of a blended family with a staggering 15 children between them, Eileen has found unexpected connections to the motorsports world through her husband's motorcycle touring company. This surprising link bridges her past experiences with her current life, demonstrating how our journeys often come full circle in unexpected ways.
The conversation goes far beyond sports, touching on universal struggles that resonate with women from all walks of life. How do we maintain our sense of self while supporting others? What happens when we've neglected our own dreams for so long we can barely remember them? And most importantly, how do we take those first small steps back toward ourselves?
Eileen's message is both challenging and liberating: "We put oxygen masks on others while neglecting ourselves." She encourages women to make "little shifts" – carving out even 15 minutes daily for something that brings personal fulfillment, whether it's learning an instrument, taking walks, or pursuing creative outlets.
Ready to move from the sidelines back to the driver's seat of your own life? This conversation offers practical wisdom, heartfelt encouragement, and permission to reclaim the parts of yourself you may have forgotten. Your value extends far beyond your relationships to others – and it's never too late to rediscover who you truly are.
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00:00 - Welcome to Women's Motorsports Network
01:42 - Meet Eileen: Life with 15 Kids
04:36 - From NFL Wife to Starting Over
10:31 - Identity Crisis in the NFL Spotlight
18:19 - Motorsports Family Connections
38:35 - Making Time for Yourself
52:02 - Episode Closing
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, the show that puts the spotlight on the incredible women who fuel the world of motorsports, from drivers to crew members, engineers to fans and everyone in between.
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We're here to celebrate the trailblazers, dreamers and doers shaping the sport we love.
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Each episode we share inspiring stories of females of all ages, from every corner of the motorsports universe past, present and future.
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It's a journey through the seasons of life filled with heartfelt moments, laughter and a whole lot of horsepower.
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So, whether you're a lifelong fan, a racer yourself or simply curious about the extraordinary women behind the wheel, settle in, relax and enjoy a fun and uplifting ride with us.
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This is the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, connecting and celebrating women in motorsports.
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One story at a time.
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Let's hit the track.
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Hello everyone, this is Melinda Russell with the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, and my guest today is Eileen Noyes.
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And Eileen, I want to welcome you to the show.
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We've had a little bit of a back and forth trying to get connected and we're three hours apart in time, which doesn't help things, so I'm glad we finally were able to get together today and I want to share your story, not necessarily a motorsports story, but, I think, a story that will be inspiring and encouraging to other women and interesting as well, because I know you've had an interesting life so far.
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So I just want to welcome you to the show and will you start by just sharing a little bit about yourself, your family, that kind of thing.
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Yeah, so we'll just go with the present.
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So right now I am married to Michael Noyes Only four years, but between the two of us there are 15 kids total.
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So I have eight of mine, he has seven of his.
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His are a little bit older, so his youngest is 13.
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Oldest is gosh, I believe, 30.
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So he already has three grandkids.
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My youngest is seven, my oldest is 22.
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So, yeah, so, like I said, we've only been married for four years and, interestingly, it's so funny that you know the whole motorsports thing.
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This is the first podcast that I've been on that had any sort of connection to motorsports.
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But that is so him, he's all about it.
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He has.
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We moved out here from the Midwest so we're in California to start an adventure.
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It's called a mentor multi-venture touring company, and so what he does is he takes guys out on different motorcycles, dirt bikes, through different terrain.
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So it's like a four day tour where he starts in Johnson Valley, so desert he'll take him to.
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Now this last time he went to big bear, so he'll parts of the different trips big bear, mammoth, they end in san diego, um, so all different terrain, all things that I as a woman sorry, no offense, because this is like a motorsports thing.
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I like don't care about that stuff, but when men hear about this, their eyes like get wide open and they're all about it.
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So he has definitely found his niche and it's a bunch of businessmen that go out and they're basically they have the freedom to be little boys again, and so it's been awesome.
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So that is totally the connection to motorsports and so all I do is right on the back of his motorcycle when we get the time, but outside of that, yeah, that's, that's totally his world.
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So that's just a little bit about me.
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I mean, you know, I think the story that gets out which is why, you know, I thankfully have been able to do be an, I guess on a different podcast now after doing my own is I used to be part of the, the NFL world, married to a pro athlete for 16 years, and so with him we've that's how we have our eight kids, have our eight kids.
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We used to be a very outspoken Christian couple.
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Unfortunately, the only way to really kind of say it is an organization that believes in polygamy, that women aren't created in the image of God, that we're property.
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So, you know, definitely like big time detour from the covenant that we made before God.
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And so, long story short, after 16 years of marriage, we had to have an escape plan, hoping that he would come back around.
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He just never did.
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And so that was four years of me protecting the kids in the public eye, trying to, you know, just kind of live start over.
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You know, it took a while to even acknowledge gosh, I do have to start all over, and so so that was four years of singleness and then marriage.
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So it's about, I think, the eight, nine year mark since all this stuff, you know, went down.
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But my heart, my life is, you know, wife, mom.
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I love God and I just want to, yeah, I just want to do what I'm called to do inside and outside of the home.
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So, absolutely.
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Now when you say 15 kids and I don't care how old they are, they all have they're going to be kids forever in your eyes.
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I don't care if they're 30 or they're three, yes, yeah, and oh my gosh, I can't even imagine how you manage that.
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Now do the ones that are not older and out of the house?
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They all do, they all live with you.
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I have um six of our eight um in the home?
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Um.
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My oldest is only an hour away, so he's in San Diego.
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Um.
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My second is in Nebraska, so he plays football um at a?
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Um a Lutheran school there.
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Okay, and so yeah so he's my one that's out right now, but I have extra kid from Wisconsin, so my third oldest, he has his friend live with us, so it's always a full house.
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And yes, I, you know I used to say like well, people would say I don't know how you do it.
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And for me, especially when they were younger, you know they all just followed along and, it's for sure, hard work.
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But no doubt now, when they're all doing their different things, it is a whole different beast.
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And my days I'm already driving by six, 30, excuse me, six, 30 in the morning, trying to, trying to do as much as I can while they're at school so that I can be available for them after school.
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And my I'm home gosh.
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Last five days I was driving home 930 at night or later, and so it is super taxing.
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I mean I wouldn't have it any other way.
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Well, when they drive, this is great.
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So I've got one more.
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My fourth, number four is almost driving, but I mean I, I love it Like I'm.
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So I'm honored to be, to be mom, to be stepmom, to be mother in law, like all the different dynamics, is it's a journey and it's been, yeah, it's been a privilege.
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So now, when you blend, blend that many kids, kids because lots of personalities um, that can go well and it can go bad yeah, well, thankfully, so you know.
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So my, you know my husband has different dynamics with his kids.
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Some are he's closer to than others.
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So his oldest two and his youngest two are ones that, because of his relationship with them, those are the ones that we interact with and so, great relationship with, you know, the oldest two and they're a lot older and so when my kids see them, it's like I don't know, it's just, especially with the younger ones, they're always excited to see them and then they get to see their their oh, what's the relationship?
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Their nephews and nieces, yeah, um, so there's that.
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And then their youngest two, 13 and 16.
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They actually get along super well with my kids and they talk.
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So they're, they're in chicago, but they talk and text all the time with my other ones.
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So when they come because they're the ones the youngest who come down most often during like break, spring break, Christmas break, things like that and uh, it's one big happy family.
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And and when I say that, of course it's not always, it's like it's the irritations of siblings, so it's almost like they're real siblings, but it's like, yeah, it's, it's to hear actually, my, my, uh, my stepdaughter said this, so she's a 16 year old.
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She says you know what you know of all scenarios.
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She's like I would not.
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She goes.
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This is like the best case scenario is.
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She's like she goes you were.
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You were the only one that my dad you know looked at.
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That was like wife material.
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So funny to hear that.
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But then she said, yeah, like I love to come out here knowing that I'm not just seeing dad, that I get to spend time with you guys, and that to hear that from a six-year-old was just like wow, that's really cool yeah, and, and a stepdaughter, because sometimes stepdaughters don't always, you know, appreciate the new wife, or the new stepmother, and so the fact that she said that really had to mean a lot to you.
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Oh, completely.
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And I've heard the stories.
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I've, you know, I've heard the stories of how they would put water in the girls in their girls shoes, and different stories of how they did not like certain ones.
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And so, yeah, I don't know what it is, but I mean when, when we first started dating, Michael would say they like you.
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So that was that, that's definitely a good thing, definitely a good thing.
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Yeah, so when you you on your podcast and on your other podcast, on your podcast and on your other podcasts, what is your, what is your main goal of sharing your story?
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You know a lot of people are like, oh, that's kind of private, you know they wouldn't be able to share about.
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You know, being married and all the kids and everything.
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So tell me, you know, kind of, why you do this and what.
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What are you willing, what are you wanting us to learn from you that we can take away?
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Sure, well, gosh.
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I I know I mean one.
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I've always had a heart for women, seeing their value, and I've always had this like kind of coach mentality, started as a strength coach at a college, and so not only would I help them physically, but when I got closer to God, then that's, that was what I did.
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I just saw these women because I was like that in college who were looking at guys for validation and worth and all that, and so my heart went out to them because they're beautiful young women that were just I'm like guys.
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They're looking at you as objects and and also looking at the guys, as you know, like um.
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When I got closer to God, I started looking at them as as my kids before I even had kids and so my heart had changed for that.
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But when I came to that place of um the the biggest turmoil when I was going through my divorce and going through that I remember really praying and saying God, if I have to do this, like let it not be in vain, like get glory from this, like let this be for a purpose, and so, in a nutshell, I look at the unsideline life which is obviously just this correlation of sports.
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It has evolved for me to see not only am I talking to the pro athlete wives who, who are looked at as a stereotype of oh, these are all gold digging women who are just looking to kind of win the lottery.
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I, as a whole, as I'm looking at these women, the women I know, the women who I've, you know, lived life with so many, if not gosh 95, 97%, probably more than that all strong women who have already had things going, whether they're in, you know, school.
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They have their jobs, they we have all laid things down to be the support, to be the help, and so, through that, whether it's identity issues, it's putting things down, because of the moves and the pressure and the injuries and the trades and all that stuff, their lives, our lives, have been sidelined, and so that's where it stemmed from.
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But now, as things evolve, as I'm on year two of my podcast God has shown me so much of there's different things that sideline us.
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It could be that we're you know that we're thinking like gosh, my marriage isn't good, and so you know.
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So they're stuck on that.
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There's like blind spots because of different wounds.
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It could be your fitness.
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It could be, you know, it could be that you don't know that you're so far removed from the dreams that you had, that you're you know cause.
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I'm kind of looking at the forties and fifties.
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It's like, wait, can I do this?
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Should I be okay?
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Should I feel bad, thinking, hey, I want to do other things outside of just, you know, taking care of everybody else, because I think we struggle with that, and so so I'm seeing how many women just kind of let themselves go in so many different ways and it is the justification by saying I can't do that, I have to be this, I have to go here, I have to help there, and so it's just kind of a self denial and a self neglect and kind of like a martyr place where it's like, hey, you know, that's not, that's not what your purpose is.
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You know there's, there's you helping, but you also putting the oxygen mask on so that you can be the you that's healed, whole, so that you can be better for them.
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But you also have dreams that fulfill you and you know you're to me.
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I'm just thinking like, yeah, I, you know what.
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My kids are getting older.
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I'm not doing diapers for my whole life.
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I mean, and honestly, I was told that, like my, my purpose in life is was to cook, clean and have babies.
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Well, if that time gets done, which will eventually get done does that mean my value and my worth is gone?
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No, and so I really had to do a lot of reflection too, and so that's that's what I want to do is like reach out to um all, all family devoted women who have.
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They just need that nudge and the the permission say, hey, I can look beyond my house and my home and my family and my husband and say, hey, is there more?
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Is there more for me?
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that I'm not.
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So, oh, that's, that's so powerful what you just shared.
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You know, as someone who has had a little bit of contact with how the NFL works, had a player from Colorado that was part of my sister's family.
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She lives in Colorado and they helped him with college and different things and he was drafted and then you know, didn't go far, you know was on different things, and he was drafted and and and then you know, didn't, didn't go far, you know was on different things, and then now he's completely out of that.
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But we saw enough to know how that works and it's like baseball and anything else, it all kind of works the same.
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My son-in-law is a baseball, he was a pitcher and he trains pitchers and so um, he's also, you know, shared, and we've seen how it's brutal.
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It's brutal for the, the players and their families, because you could go in one day and they're saying we're trading you to timbuktu and you, either you go or you quit, right, yes, yeah, and, and that affects the family, the kids, everybody you know or you quit, right, yes, and that affects the family, the kids, everybody you know unless you have a base home and he travels, and so that's hard too.
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And so do you want to share a little bit about how, being an NFL wife, you know what that's like.
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I mean is that you want to share about?
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Sure, think people would be interested in knowing a little behind the scenes.
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Yeah, definitely so.
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So, like I said, I was a, I was a strength coach for the college that he used to go to.
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Actually, so he was.
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It was a player coach relationship before it was a marriage.
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And so, gosh, that was like in the early, the late, you know, 19, 19, it was about 2000,.
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Actually, 2001 was when we got married.
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But you know, so I went from days where I interacted with hundreds of people, hundreds of athletes.
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I knew my purpose.
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I had my family close by, obviously, my work, my church, just everything, and I literally got on a plane to go to Green Bay, a one way ticket, and the day that I flew in was the day that we got married.
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So it was a super small wedding.
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It was at a side chapel of a church where it was two players and their significant others and this pastor that I didn't know, and so I mean that was just like kind of a.
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Actually, even on the plane, when people had seen all the green and gold and stepping off the plane going, it felt like I was in a black and white movie, but it wasn't black and white, it was literally green and gold, like it was.
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It's a whole other.
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They're diehard fans.
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Yes, they are.
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Yeah, so I, I just was, I just remember thinking I almost braced myself like okay, this is, this is different, this is going to be new.
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And so even then, um, because you know, we got married in the middle, see, we got married in in October, um, and he was, it was his breakout year, and so so many different angles of kind of feeling, scrutiny, feeling that all eyes were looking at me.
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So as soon as they hear oh you're, oh you're a wife of, they look at you different.
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You feel the stairs, you know you're, you know that you're.
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There's the competition of other women.
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So you see, when they're autograph signings, there's the women, there's also the fans that you're competing with as a wife, and so you.
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I just remember the first time around having this identity crisis.
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It's like wait, I, my days went from fully knowing a whole bunch of people talking to a bunch of people, to now knowing just my husband and slowly getting into the mix of these women who you can't.
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You know you're picking from the litter.
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It's not like you're.
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You know you have options, or or you know you're just there.
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Like that's just your, your network, that's your connection.
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And I struggled for a long time because I had so much time on my hands.
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There was, there, was that piece.
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There was just feeling like, ok, what is an NFL wife supposed to look like?
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Like, am I supposed to dress?
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A certain way you could see the evolution of every woman, especially some in somewhere like Green Bay.
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If your husband is good, so he played for nine years, and so when I first got there, you know you have to dress warm.
00:19:48.297 --> 00:19:59.013
You're dressing as I hate being cold, and so I'm wearing parkas from college and camouflage, any gear that I could get to just stay warm.
00:19:59.013 --> 00:20:01.865
And then, as you get better, you know you're invited.
00:20:01.865 --> 00:20:02.938
Either you purchase your own suite or you for me, we were invited to a.
00:20:02.938 --> 00:20:03.017
You get better.
00:20:03.017 --> 00:20:03.484
You know you're invited.
00:20:03.484 --> 00:20:06.540
Either you purchase your own suite or you for me, we were invited to a suite.
00:20:06.540 --> 00:20:09.782
Sorry, my, yeah, my son's blending.
00:20:10.566 --> 00:20:11.146
Can you hear that?
00:20:11.507 --> 00:20:14.112
Okay, just barely, it's fine, okay, cool.
00:20:14.112 --> 00:20:25.747
And so, yeah, so we were invited to I was invited to a suite, and so you know, like all of a sudden, my attire's changing into a suite.
00:20:25.747 --> 00:20:30.096
And so you know, like all of a sudden, my attire strange changing and at the same time thinking, okay, am I, should I dress like this?
00:20:30.096 --> 00:20:30.477
Should I?
00:20:30.477 --> 00:20:33.246
You know, it's like I felt.
00:20:33.246 --> 00:20:39.757
I felt like I started being molded by my environment.
00:20:39.757 --> 00:20:43.730
Like we went to a simple church and so I was looking going.
00:20:44.092 --> 00:20:45.527
Do they think that I'm gaudy?
00:20:45.527 --> 00:20:46.830
You know, it was so funny.
00:20:46.830 --> 00:20:48.836
I got to tell you about this purse party, right?
00:20:48.836 --> 00:20:53.535
So there was this purse party that I was invited to and they were fake.
00:20:53.535 --> 00:21:10.093
So it's like fake Chanel, fake Gucci, and they're like 200 bucks each or whatever, and I remember wanting to buy one, but then I go wait, if people think it's real, then they're gonna think that I'm spending all this money on a purse.
00:21:10.093 --> 00:21:18.597
And so it's like those little weird games and those little things of why am I so consumed with what everybody else thinks?
00:21:18.597 --> 00:21:21.008
That there's that.
00:21:21.288 --> 00:21:29.734
There's also because I didn't know my identity, because, because I had time on my hands, I didn't have, like I, outside of my kids.
00:21:29.734 --> 00:21:31.721
I just felt like I wasn't.
00:21:31.721 --> 00:21:38.196
You know, it took a while to understand my purpose, and so I would never, I told myself.
00:21:38.196 --> 00:21:41.491
I would never spend this much on a expensive purse.
00:21:41.491 --> 00:21:47.528
Well then I started finding 200 $300 purses that I just found.
00:21:47.528 --> 00:21:50.555
Well, I'm not spending 1000s, but I'll spend a whole lot of.
00:21:50.555 --> 00:21:54.049
You know, I'll buy a whole lot of purses at 200.
00:21:54.049 --> 00:21:55.674
And so still it was.
00:21:55.674 --> 00:22:01.188
It was like me kind of just you know, just kind of justifying things to where I did.
00:22:01.188 --> 00:22:12.006
I had a shopping addiction, so so a lot of different things, but it all had to do with just kind of just losing who I was in this process.
00:22:12.006 --> 00:22:14.431
You just you know, peer pressure.
00:22:15.031 --> 00:22:18.338
Yeah, we talk about kids having peer pressure.
00:22:18.338 --> 00:22:30.635
Adults have it too, and you definitely went from knowing who you were enjoying you know what you did and then trying to figure out where do I fit in?
00:22:31.218 --> 00:22:32.622
yes, yeah, yeah.
00:22:32.622 --> 00:22:41.695
And then I mean I remember, um, I saw this one beautiful woman at a pro bowl and, uh, she was.
00:22:41.695 --> 00:22:45.500
So her husband played the same position as mine at the time.
00:22:45.500 --> 00:22:47.752
They, they were so much alike.
00:22:47.752 --> 00:22:50.526
And I remember looking at her and the way that she presented herself.
00:22:50.526 --> 00:22:58.460
She was from Dallas and just beautiful, just like gold, you know, like gold, hair, bronze.
00:22:58.460 --> 00:23:06.057
The way she carried herself, the way she walked, the way she talked, and I just thought, gosh, that's, that's how you're supposed to look.
00:23:06.577 --> 00:23:15.727
And I remember, like we, we had our kid, and somehow I found out that she had a kid at the same time, and she was a reporter.
00:23:15.727 --> 00:23:21.659
She was like she was some sort of like model, and I don't know how I knew.
00:23:21.659 --> 00:23:24.932
But every time she had a kid, I had a kid.
00:23:24.932 --> 00:23:36.752
And so, even more, I just felt like there was this thing where I'm like supposed to compare myself to her and then all of a sudden, I'm pregnant with number four and something just pricked in me, like I want to see if she's pregnant with number four.
00:23:36.752 --> 00:23:45.789
I look and all of a sudden I find these articles that and they're pretty big they're divorcing, and so it was just.
00:23:45.789 --> 00:23:47.675
It hit me like, oh my gosh.
00:23:47.675 --> 00:23:53.270
From the outside, looking in, I thought they were this perfect couple who had everything put together.
00:23:53.270 --> 00:23:57.047
And it was kind of this reality check, like gosh, you never know.
00:23:57.047 --> 00:24:00.490
No, right, you never know, never know.
00:24:00.490 --> 00:24:03.255
Well then, of course, that was.
00:24:03.914 --> 00:24:08.401
I'm eight kids later and I'm going through the same thing and it's different.
00:24:08.401 --> 00:24:14.258
It's like you know, it's just I had to learn to stop.
00:24:14.258 --> 00:24:23.121
I had to put blinders on to everything else, especially when we were going through my, when I was going through my hardest point, there was so many voices saying you got to leave, you got to stay, hey, this.
00:24:23.121 --> 00:24:25.547
Saying you got to leave, you got to stay, hey, this is you know.
00:24:25.907 --> 00:24:45.086
All these different things, and I can't deny that, like my faith in God is everything that I had to silence all those voices to hear him, and that's and that's what has gotten me through to this point, and so I mean anything that I can give your listeners is one you have a God who loves you.
00:24:45.086 --> 00:24:48.674
He's a father who loves you, who who speaks to you.
00:24:48.674 --> 00:24:52.049
It's just a matter of us positioning ourselves to hear his voice.
00:24:52.049 --> 00:25:02.294
But yeah, I mean, I know that you know, just like this whole thing, I know that women just need to know who they are.
00:25:02.294 --> 00:25:04.817
It's, there's, there's always.
00:25:04.817 --> 00:25:05.819
I don't know.
00:25:05.819 --> 00:25:13.298
There's just something about us just not seeing our value and we put it on so much.
00:25:13.298 --> 00:25:23.010
We're the wife of, we're the mom of, and we just lose ourselves in the process, which means someone else is losing out on the best view.
00:25:23.633 --> 00:25:27.991
So you know it's interesting as you're speaking about.
00:25:27.991 --> 00:25:28.854
You know they were.
00:25:28.854 --> 00:25:29.776
They were famous.
00:25:29.776 --> 00:25:34.053
I'm sure if they were he played for Dallas and and Green Bay.
00:25:34.053 --> 00:25:36.298
I'm sure you know the names would be famous.
00:25:37.266 --> 00:26:03.377
And and I look at, for instance, there's a couple ladies that are reporters in the motorsports industry that just recently talked about their divorces and how people are so nosy, you know, and like, like fans and stuff say things and I would never say anything like what I've read about these two gals.
00:26:03.377 --> 00:26:04.859
And they're wonderful women.
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