From the field to films, Jessi Sheldon is combining her loves during dream job
In her words, Jessi Sheldon is right where she’s meant to be. Early days as a youth soccer player kicked off a chain of events and experiences that have led Sheldon to a dream project — working on the production of “The 99’ers,” an upcoming Netflix film that tells the story of the U.S. Women’s National Team that claimed the 1999 World Cup.
We spoke to Sheldon about how Game Changing Films — the company she co-founded with Aimee McDaniel — is contributing to “The 99’ers,” along with a dive into her past as a youth and Division I soccer player, and her journey into TV and film.
What moments stick out from your youth soccer days?
Soccer was just so great and such a huge part of my life growing up. I was born in Tulsa and lived there until I was 12. I actually played for the Tulsa Hurricane Soccer Club in the first year it started for my U-12 year. Randy Waldrum, who is at Pitt [and a former NWSL and international manager), he was the head of the whole club. I had gone to his Tulsa soccer camp whenever I was growing up. When I was 8 years old, he told me, “You’re going to play for me one day.”
Then, I moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and was fortunate enough to join up with Sting SC and started playing for Sting at U-13. I played basically all the way up until my senior year, when I switched over to D’Feeters.
With Sting, I did that 45-minute to an hour drive for practices during rush hour. I think about that now, with my parents just loading me up and saying, “Okay, let’s go to practice.” And it’s just wild to kind of think about how much support that they gave me to try to help those dreams come true. Soccer was such a huge part of my life, and I absolutely loved it.
How successful were your teams when you played with Sting?
We won North Texas State Cup, for sure, my U-14, U-15 and U-17 years. Then, we won Regionals all those years, as well. I think, starting in U-16, you could start going to Nationals. So, my U-17 year, we went to Nationals, and that was pretty amazing.
What do you remember from going to Nationals?
For Nationals, that year we were at the Wide World of Sports at Disney. So that was pretty incredible. We did the opening ceremonies. We did it at like Animal Kingdom and walked around. It was just so cool. And it was so cool to meet the other teams, like from the other parts of the country and just to get to get to know them, knowing that eventually we’d be playing in college against each other and that kind of thing.
And you did go on to play Division I college soccer?
Yeah, I played two seasons at Mississippi State. Then, I actually wanted to major in film — in radio, TV and film, specifically — so I transferred to TCU. They had a really good film program, so then I played soccer there, too.
What was that experience like for you at both schools?
It was incredible, especially when I started at Mississippi State. I think we had nine freshmen on the team, and eight of us were starting at an SEC school. And we had a really great coach, Neil McGuire. He’s now been at Cal for years. He recruited a bunch of us, and we were from all over the country. There were four or five of us from the North Texas area. One was from Colorado, Florida, Portland. We were from all over the place, and we ended up in Starkville, Miss., together, and we had a great freshman year. We ended up winning the SEC West that year, and it was a really, really great experience.
After my freshman year — though I absolutely loved soccer — I knew that I really wanted to get into the entertainment industry. So, I felt like it was time to probably make a move somewhere else just for my career purposes. And I was fortunate that Neil gave me my full release and said, “Yeah, I’ll call any coach that you want. Just keep soccer as part of your life. Let that pay for school and keep going with that.” And I’m very grateful he did because then I was able to go to TCU and continued my career and had an incredible time. And it’s so great. I’m actually working on this project now. One of the other girls on our team — Angie Shotzberger — is part of our crew. We played together at TCU. It’s a really kind of full circle moment for us.
Pursuing your film degree was clearly a big part of your college journey. If speaking to current young players, maybe those committed to play college soccer, how important would you say it is to find a passion outside the game that can turn into a possible career option when playing days come to an end?
That’s a fantastic question because I think that a lot of soccer players — and collegiate athletes, in general, or professional athletes — they have a hard time really transitioning after their career is done and really trying to make that leap into the next thing. And it’s so important to be well-rounded because eventually you are going to play in your last game. And you don’t always get to have it end on your terms, either.
So, it’s so important that, just for mentally, emotionally, physically, everything, that you have other things that you can look to and other things that are part of your life. Yes, soccer is so important, and it’s opened up so many doors for me. But it’s also been so huge to have other avenues of my life, where I still find the skills that I love about soccer can translate into other areas. That’s something that’s really great. There are a lot of really good tools that you learn from being a youth soccer player, as far as the dedication and all these great skills that can take you in other places in your life.
Once you graduated, what was your career path like prior to your work with Game Changing Films?
I graduated and finished up in the summer. I think I had my last class on Friday, and on Monday, I was packed up in my car and drove to Los Angeles. I didn’t really have a specific job or even apartment or anything like that. It just kind of like, “All right, I’m going to take this degree, take what I’ve learned, and go figure it out.”
I did a lot of the normal LA jobs. I waited tables. I worked at Starbucks. I even coached a private high school girls soccer team for a couple seasons. And then I did a commercial, as well. I was able to do some special ability background work. I got to play a basketball player on the TV show Monk. I thought that was cool, and it was super fun.
Eventually, I met up with some people that did sports in movies and TV shows. And I was like, “Well, I didn’t even know something like this existed. This is absolutely perfect. How did I not know about this?” Then, I met my business partner, Aimee, in 2008. She played basketball at Pepperdine. We started working together and continued to do so. And in 2012, we launched Game Changing Films. The rest is history after that.
What does Game Changing Films do, and what is your role?
I tend to try to be a little bit more behind the scenes. I love the casting aspect of it and the logistics of trying to help make sure everybody’s where they’re supposed to be. I do some of the on-field stuff, but a lot of my duties are more of the behind the scenes. And we also have a company called Game Changing Gear, where we do uniforms and equipment for movies and TV shows. That’s a big part of my job, as well, to help with the uniforms and making sure that they’re accurate and that we’re helping make those.
For this soccer project, I found myself kind of helping out on the field a lot more than what I normally do, which has been fun. It’s different for me. And my husband also works with us, and he does a lot of the on-field coordination, football coordination and basketball coordination, and baseball and all kinds of that stuff.
Every project is different, but for this one particular, we started training with the actors and that’s been a big part of it — really kind of helping them, teaching them not only some of the basic soccer skills, but also then teaching the choreography for the actual plays we’re trying to recreate.
We’ve also held a big casting call, like a big on-field tryout. We saw probably almost 200 female soccer players and put them through drills and identified them as like, “Okay, this person could be a great opponent player. This person could be great for the 99 team. She could play Tiffany Milbrett.” Just different things and trying help identify who these players could be.
And then we get them all together and teach them the choreography. So, once we go to actual filming and cameras are ready to roll… Let’s just say it is the Denmark game of 1999, and we’re going to Play 1, and everybody knows exactly where they’re supposed to go. They know that the ball comes around here and it goes around the back, and then we go back up to the left mid and then we cross it over. So, everybody knows exactly what they’re doing because we’ve rehearsed it and we’ve practiced it over and over again. So, it looks like it’s real when we actually get to film it. Then the camera also knows where the ball is going to go, and we know exactly how to help shoot the action, as well.
We’ve seen some of our other former players pop up on social media in photos with the actors in The 99’ers cast. How important are those college athletes or recent graduates with their role in the production?
In our opinion, they’re invaluable. It’s such a huge part of the production. Some people may refer to them as background, but they’re not, they’re so much more than that. And we’re fortunate that this project has really dove in and really like appreciates the level of play that they’re bringing and how important it is to the movie. These women have just been so great to work with.
For a lot of them who have just finished college and maybe they’re not continuing on with their career, it’s just a great way to get back out on the field and get back in the locker room and get back with teammates and friends. And it’s something that you don’t realize how much you missed until you’re back with it. And I think for them, that’s been a huge part in being in something really special that they’ll never forget. It really kind of becomes a once-in-a-lifetime thing. They’ll make friends from this movie, and they’ll be lifelong friends because they’ve experienced something really special together.
What other shows or movies has Game Changing Films worked on?
I’m always so bad at remembering what all we’ve done. Running Point is about to premiere Season 2 on Netflix. That one’s super fun. We just finished up Chad Powers, and that’s another really fun one with Glen Powell and football. The premise is so ridiculous, but we have a good time with that one. And we did about seven seasons of All American, so that was some more football we shot out in LA.
A long time ago, I did Uncle Drew, where we had a bunch of former or current NBA players, like Kyrie Irving and Shaquille O’Neal. Trying to find a basketball double for Shaquille O’Neal was a little tough.
I haven’t traveled as much overseas. Aimee has gone all over the place. She did Pelé in Brazil. She did Invictus in South Africa with Matt Damon. She’s done a couple movies in India and just kind of been all over the place. I’ve got a 5-year-old and 7-year-old, so I don’t travel as much overseas anymore. But we’re very fortunate that we’ve been able to do a lot of different projects and a lot of different sports. It’s not just been focused on the sports we’ve played, but a lot of the ones that we know well and continue to learn about.
Are there any actors that stick out as being natural athletes when you worked with them?
A long time ago, we did a cross-country movie with Kevin Costner called McFarland, USA. It’s one of my favorite movies that we’ve done. He was a coach in it, but because he is an athlete — and because he is so athletic and obviously he’s been in so many iconic sports movies, as well — it was really special to see how he interacted with the actors and athletes. He just kind of came by it very naturally. And I think that showed on screen, too. It was really great to see that and to work with somebody who understood sports and was a fan of other athletes, as well.
Thinking back to 1999, do you remember watching the World Cup as a teenager?
I know exactly where I was. I was at Region III ODP camp, and we were watching it. I was 16 and just looked up to these women so much. And so the fact that I get to now work on this movie with my heroes from growing up, it’s incredible. I’m just so incredibly thankful for this opportunity because I know what it meant to me as a 16-year-old watching that and how I felt at that point. I’m like, “I can do anything. Look at these women, look at these amazing women, and look at what they just did, and look how many people are supporting them and cheering them on.”
And I think it was incredibly moving and it was something that I knew right then was going to change things. It was going to be different for women’s sports and kind of shined a light on a really big moment.
With your background in film and as a soccer player, including what you just mentioned from watching these women, does working on The 99’ers film feel like everything aligning perfectly?
Yeah, this is what I was meant to do, absolutely. I didn’t even know back when I was watching this in 1999 that something like this would even be possible. And to now sit here and being able to work on this movie, it’s all of my loves combined. It’s hard work, and it’s great work.
And it’s just such a positive set. It’s so infectious, the energy. And every person that is working on this is doing their absolute best to try to make it as real, as authentic, as moving, all the things that we want just to make it as good of a movie as we can possibly can.
What has the process or timeline been like for working with the actors? Does it start with soccer skills and then move to choreography?
We try to combine both. The first week that we were with them, we mainly just focused on training and were with the cast. And then we started bringing in just the U.S. team and the rest of their teammates, and we started focusing on some specific drills and stuff that we would see on camera.
By the third week, we started bringing in opponents. But we would still be focusing on skills and working on that. We would do an hour-and-a-half just with them working on skillsets and then bring in the opponents a little bit later and start getting into choreography and then still finishing out.
We’ve been doing fitness. We’ve been doing all kinds of stuff. Their quads hurt, their hamstrings hurt, their calves hurt, their feet hurt, just in the same way that all soccer players’ do. We were telling them, “Yeah, soccer hurts sometimes, but in the best way.” You have a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day, too.
We always say, too, it’s like — you play a game or you have a long practice, we’re talking about maybe three hours. We’re filming for 12 or 13 hours. Nobody’s used to playing soccer or any sport for that long, each day, in and out. The crew and producers and everybody have been really helpful in trying to keep everybody as healthy as possible and give as many breaks as we can. We know, especially as we get a little bit closer into filming and it starts getting hotter and all that stuff, we’ve got a big road ahead of us — just in the same way that those 99’ers played in that 101-degree heat. I think we’re going to try to rival that, as well. It’ll be a good time.
The girls have really been working really hard and they’ve really bought in and it’s been fun to work with them.
Instagram: Behind-the-scenes look at how The 99’ers comes to life
Which actor on The 99’ers came in with the best soccer skills from the start?
I’m not sure if I should answer that, but I think that they would all probably tell you Emily Bader, who is playing Mia Hamm. She’s a legit soccer player. We were really impressed with her.
It’s something we talked about because she was getting a little frustrated one day during practice, and we’re like, “Look, girl. You can tell you’re a gamer. Like, there are some people that are practice players and there are some people that are game players, and you’re a game player.” I was like, “Our game is filming, and whenever you step on that field and you’re ready to film, we know you’re going to bring it.” And so far the first couple of days, she has done really, really well on the soccer field. So, it’s been exciting to watch.
When you see some of the actors posting photos and videos on social media, it has the feel of a real bunch of teammates. Do you sense that chemistry?
Yeah, and they built it and it’s been very natural. I don’t think many of them knew each other beforehand. So, it really has been fun to watch them kind of come together as a team and come together with the rest of the girls on the team. It’s been really special to watch.
The cast went to a USWNT game a couple months ago, and Crystal Dunn recently visited the cast. What has the interaction been like with past or current members of the USWNT?
Going to the game was super cool. The real 1999 players were already in this room that we were in, and I was in there whenever the cast arrived. So, to see them meet their counterpart in real time was really cool. A lot of them had already had conversations and had been able to text and ask questions and that kind of stuff, but to see the actual live meeting — hugs everywhere and big smiles — that was something really cool to watch. To see 1999 players in person and see them in their element was super special and feels a little surreal. I know that they’re probably going to come out and visit set, as well. And they’re just rock stars in our mind. They’re amazing and they’re the reason we’re all here and doing this job. We’re just hoping to make them proud and doing everything we can every day to make sure that happens.
