Nicole Valencia - It's Not Just A Man's World

“This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world. But it would be nothing… nothing… without a woman or a girl.”

A large group of men, looking to relive their glory days, gather at Buffalo’s in Nashville, Tennessee for the annual RotoGrinders Party. They stare up at a large collection of televisions watching football players living out their glory days. They root for players more than they do teams. A touchdown from a particular player can lead to a large celebration or a collective groan. Such is the life of those who play Daily Fantasy Sports (“DFS”).

Nicole Valencia is one of the few women there. She is with her husband, Chris, but unlike the majority of the women in attendance, she is there because she is a DFS player. An employee of one of the largest, most recognizable DFS sites out there in RotoGrinders. She is a sports fan extraordinaire. The 35-year-old Colorado native looks right at home. In her comfort zone. She knows all the players. The stats. The probabilities. She’s not a professional DFS player. Far from it. But she belongs.

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The Early Years

“To break records” – the purpose of life as told by Nicole to her friend. She was 12 years old.

Nicole was born in Pueblo, Colorado and would graduate from South High School in the same city. Her mother was an occupational therapist for developmentally disabled people and her father was a veterinarian who often did house calls and also taught microbiology and anatomy for the community college. Nicole’s passion for sports started at a very young age. Her childhood friend Julie Ripperger told a story of an assignment she had in the first or second grade:

“The teacher had the class make a little football player cutout of construction paper. That wasn’t enough for Nicole. She took that assignment home and made the entire Denver Broncos football team. She would line them up by the TV every game. I think she even had them set up with who was playing at each position and so on.”

Her sister Renee fondly remembered this as well:

“One of my favorite memories of Nicole’s sports obsession was that while I played dress up with Barbies, she would make paper dolls for every single player of all the Colorado sports teams. She even laminated them. She would line them up all around the living room when that particular team played and we couldn’t sit on the furniture or else we would knock down the paper dolls. Of course, I often did anyway to fulfill my role as her amazing sister.”

“I always loved sports,” Nicole said. “Like most kids, I started out playing soccer and t-ball. My Mom comes from a really large family (13 kids with 26 cousins on one side of the family) and we’ve had lots of get togethers at my grandparents’ house and I’d play football in the backyard with my cousins. My Dad was a Larry Bird fan and he played basketball once a week with a group of guys and we had a hoop in the front yard. Basketball became the sport I gravitated to because of that. I became a huge Michael Jordan fan (I would update his statistics on a game-by-game basis) and spent most of my free time outside practicing. I think I started playing basketball in 3rd grade.”

The Star Student-Athlete

That childhood passion and dedication for sports would drive Nicole’s formative years. Renee explained the dedication her sister had:

“Nicole was the girl that would be playing football with all the guys at lunch and beating most of them. She also gave herself a strict practice routine every summer, staying outside for hours to practice her skills and shooting 100 free throws every day. She would even keep track of exactly how many she made. She’d also make me pass a football back and forth until we caught it 100 times in a row.”

“My best day was 94 or 95,” Nicole said. “My worst… somewhere in the 50s.”

Her Dad, Regis Opferman, said Nicole was always “pretty quiet and low key. She was never big into social agendas. If she wasn’t playing sports, she would be content to just stay at home. She was continually practicing and participating in sports.”

That hard work paid off. Nicole played four years on the varsity basketball team for the South Colts and the team won their league and went to the state playoffs every year. As a senior, she was the leading scorer and MVP for her school’s league.

Not only was she a top athlete, but she was also a top student. She received a Student-Athlete of the Year award at South, graduated with a 4.0 GPA, finishing 3rd in her class.

A Mountain Lion

Nicole would leave home for the first time on a basketball scholarship at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She would major in computer science using the mathematical aptitude she’d developed tracking sports statistics as a kid. “Numbers make sense to me,” Nicole explained. “I was always good at Math. It was my best and favorite subject. My interests just led me that way when I learned more things about it. I used to want to work for Pixar and always liked board games and puzzles. I used to do crossword puzzles with my Dad. So for me, Computer Science was a combination of numbers, sports, and games and it made sense.”

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As she did in high school, Nicole excelled. She would graduate with a Bachelors of Science degree with a 3.96 GPA. She was named the outstanding computer science student for her graduating class, an accomplishment to this day that Nicole says is the greatest of her life outside of her family. She also won the Thomas M. McLaughlin Award for community service as a result of her work with the Children’s Cranial Facial Association, Outdoor Colorado, YMCA, and the Special Olympics.

Perhaps her most significant achievement, however, was meeting her future husband Chris Valencia, who explains it didn’t start out as a typical fairy-tale romance:

“Nicole’s friends asked me to join their group for a class project. I joined the group and basically her friends expected me to code the project. Nicole was always there when I worked in it and constantly asking questions to learn more. She was then like she is now… a no-nonsense, caring and loving person. When I first joined the group she was guarded and indifferent to me. After about two weeks of working on the project, she was willing to “deal with” my cocky, arrogant nature in order to learn more about engineering. I asked her out for a date in front of my friends after those first two weeks. She looked me straight in the face and said no. I told my best friend (and eventual best man at our wedding) that “normally I would just move on, but I am going to marry her someday.”

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“My friends didn’t like him,” Nicole explained. “He was a little cocky. Still is. I was playing basketball and didn’t like him at first probably. We had classes together and worked together on a project and that opinion changed as I got to know him better.” They married in 2008.

Welcome to the Real World

While in college, Nicole spent 12 weeks over the summer in St. Louis as a software engineering intern. While there she worked on simulators developing a training application for flight simulators with a large group of interns that all lived in the same complex. She was offered a job with them upon graduating from college, but she didn’t want to live in St. Louis or be away from her beloved Colorado.

She started working as a Firmware and Software Test Engineer for Seagate (which would become X-IO Technologies) instead. Then came the birth of her son, Ethan, in 2010 and a few years later in 2013, a daughter Reagan would join the Valencia household. She would continue working until 2016 but then as the company scaled back, Nicole decided she wanted to stop working full-time and devote more of her time and energy on her family.

It’s not a decision she regrets. “The thing that makes me smile the most is conversations that my kids have with one another. They are hilarious.” She has coached Ethan’s basketball team at the YMCA and shares her love of sports with both of them by going to the park to throw a baseball, kick a soccer ball, ride bikes, hike, or swim. Her dedication and perseverance have rubbed off on her children. “Her son, Ethan, is just like her,” Nicole’s friend Julie said. “When he was learning to ride a bike, he would tell me “well I am not good at riding bikes yet, so I need to practice to get better.” He would practice all the time until he eventually got it. Just the way he said it and his dedication to it reminded me of Nicole.”

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The Fantasy Life

The dream of the WNBA faded and Nicole turned to fantasy sports to get her competitive fix in. “I started playing fantasy football in a family league back in high school. It was touchdown only back when you had to get all the stats out of a newspaper,” Nicole said. “I did that through college and then started dabbling in online leagues. I drafted a big IDP league in college for a friend. During the 2012 NFL season, I saw an ad for DraftStreet. I started playing like $10-$20 a week. I thought DFS was fun and different.”

It became an everyday part of her life and her friends and family are acutely aware of it. “When she is not doing something for the kids, she is researching something for fantasy sports,” Julie said. Her sister explained: “It’s common for Nicole to be the last person to go to bed, and the first one to get up so that she can sneak in some extra time doing research, writing, and making picks.” Her Dad also notices and doesn’t mind, but he’s not so sure about Nicole’s mom… “I think it is great that she can use her analytical ability and knowledge in an area she loves and is proficient. However, her mother thinks some of that analysis time could be better spent on domestic chores.”

When she heard that comment Nicole laughed. “My Mom likes to tease me. She always thinks my house isn’t clean enough. She can have this victory. When I buy her a trip somewhere, she’ll think it’s ok then.”

Funny Girl

One of the things people close to Nicole all say is how funny she is. “She has a witty comeback for pretty much anything,” her sister said. When asked what her biggest failure in life was she said “rostering Alfred Blue in a live final.” The goal she most wants to achieve in life?

To field a baseball like Nolan Arenado, drop dimes like Nikola Jokic, and dance like Von Miller. Let’s be real though… I want to learn how to surf.

While in college, she would send a newsletter to friends and family called the NO News (as in no news is good news). Chris said he knew he had made it when he started getting it sent to him.

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Finding Balance

After leaving her full-time career as a Software Engineer, Nicole found a role with RotoGrinders on their development team. She works on many projects for the company but is perhaps best known for the RotoGrinders extensions for DraftKings and FanDuel that provide a wide range of useful functions and integration with RotoGrinders to the DFS player.

Her typical day revolves around her children, whether it be getting them ready for school, picking them up from school, or taking part in their extracurricular activities. In between those times, she is hard at work for RotoGrinders before making time for the family in the early evening. After putting her kids to bed, she’ll spend some time with Chris and then call it a night. During NFL season she’ll often stay up late doing NFL research and always tries and watch as much of the NFL games as she can on Sundays.

She admits finding balance is the biggest struggle of her life. “I try to be constantly aware of the different responsibilities I have to my family and to make sure my time is managed well. The great thing about working from home and playing DFS is the flexibility. If we want to go camping for a weekend, I can just skip a few days of DFS. If I can’t get my work done in the morning, I can do it late at night instead. I’d love to be able to get to the gym and work out for an hour, but most days I can’t seem to find the time to make it happen.”

Her Dad says one of Nicole’s innate strengths is her ability to remain calm under pressure. However, even Nicole can get a little annoyed. “When it gets to be 5:30 or 6:00 and the kids are hyper and running around the house, especially if it’s cold outside and they can’t do activities like swimming or soccer, then it can get to me. I will also start cleaning the house and pacing if I have a legitimate DFS sweat.”

Women in DFS

The great thing about DFS is that women can compete on an equal playing field with men. Sex isn’t a barrier. There really shouldn’t be such a discrepancy in how many women play DFS as compared to season-long fantasy sports.

There aren’t many women in Daily Fantasy Sports. It only takes one RotoGrinders party or DraftKings or FanDuel live final to see how obvious that is. It’s a male dominated industry despite studies showing that a significant number of women do play season long fantasy sports. This is something that matters a lot to Nicole and she explained why she thinks there is a difference between seasonal and daily fantasy.

“The thing with season long is it’s more of a social thing. Daily can be very isolated. In season long, you’re playing someone that you usually know. The sites doing some of this leagues stuff could be a step in the right direction if they market it correctly. It could also be a risk tolerance thing. In season long, you pay just one entry fee. In daily, you have to pay every time you want to play. It’s not really an acceptance thing in my opinion. Most people in DFS have been nice to me. That said the social media aspect of the forums and Twitter can be overwhelming to those unfamiliar with it.”

She went on to explain that it can also be intimidating for women. “Math, science, and engineering fields are still somewhat male dominated. There’s a lot of math in daily fantasy. Even for someone like me that is so into sports it’s still just a hobby… just for fun.”

So what can be done? Marketing and education is the big thing she thinks.

“The sites missed a big opportunity when pmiles (Pam Miles) won a live final. They should have marketed that. There needs to be a different kind of marketing approach. There is potential there, but the approach being used isn’t working. I don’t necessarily think I’m the normal type of woman DFS sites should be marketing to. I’m very competitive, into sports, and have the time and ability to devote to DFS. There’s plenty of ways for the sites to make it a more social game. Have meet ups and community get togethers. Educate. Just knowing that somebody else plays is the way you get introduced to something new. I really think a big part of it is the math. The risk-reward part. How do we get them from seasonal to daily? There are different formats. Snake drafts. Salary cap. Beginner’s contests. It’s easier to be a new DFS player more now than ever before. There’s plenty of content available to teach women how to play. I’m happy to help with that however I can. I am fine being the face. Of showing other women that if I can do it, they can do it.”

Destiny Miller echoed many of Nicole’s sentiments:

“Like Nicole, I am very passionate about sports and DFS. As a woman, I have always felt welcomed in the DFS community, but I would certainly like to see more of us in the forefront. Individuals like Renee Miller and Stephania Bell demonstrate that woman can be successful in a generally male-dominated field. My hope for the future of DFS and women in DFS is that content providers would showcase us more regularly and that we would be confident enough in our abilities to strive to be major contributors in the industry. I am really confident there are some women with great DFS minds who have a lot to offer the community if given the opportunity. I hope in the future we become a bigger piece of the community and that the community welcomes and respects our opinions and contributions as much as our male counterparts.”

A Better Place

“Nicole is the most amazing person I have ever come across. She is the best friend you could ever imagine. She makes everyone around her better because she doesn’t accept excuses, but will forgive you for your faults. Whatever she chooses to do, she will be successful. She is truly that very rare person that if more people were like her, the world would be a better place.” – Chris Valencia

“I really just want my kids to get to experience lots of different things and places. See the ocean, climb a mountain, and make fun memories. Those are the dreams and ambitions I have for my future.” – Nicole Valencia

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About the Author

thehazyone
Aaron Hendrix (thehazyone)

Aaron Hendrix is a former professional poker player who made the transition from season long fantasy sports to DFS in October of 2014. He used to cover poker tournaments for a living until stepping into his current role at RotoGrinders. He can be found on Twitter at @aaronhendrix