Nicole Lynn knows she probably shouldn't be here.
Here is a place of dreams turning to reality, Lynn an NFL agent on the rise _ one who just happens to be both female and African-American. There? That would've been a much different place, entrenched in the life of poverty and misfortune that engulfed others close to her.
In Tulsa, Okla., Lynn grew up below the poverty line _ and not just by a little. The surrounding neighborhood threatened to lure you to the streets. Lynn and family bounced from home to home, juggling eviction notices, living in a car, wondering when utilities would work, where the next meal would come from.
Her father wasn't in the picture, her mother not prepared to be a parent. "I didn't have a dime," Lynn's mother, Rachel, says bluntly now. " ... I didn't know how to be a parent. I really had no clue at all." So Lynn, now 29, took on the role of mom for her younger brother and others as barely a teenager.
If her upbringing is any indication, Lynn shouldn't be anywhere near an NFL contract negotiation these days. Nowhere near field level of an NFL stadium, either, if alive at all. Her father brought three children from his first wife to the marriage with Lynn's mother. One died with Lynn too young to remember, one drowned when Lynn was 11 and one was murdered five years ago at 21 years old in gang-related gun violence.
"That was extremely traumatic," Lynn said. "It was a couple weeks after my first law school final. That was a difficult, very difficult situation.
"He grew up the same life I did but took a different path, the path I probably could've taken. I should've been a statistic and I wasn't, so it could've gone one of two ways. Luckily it went the latter."
The latter has included stops on Wall Street, law school, the NFLPA and now an agency owned by one of the most famous rappers of all time. Lil Wayne's Young Money APAA Sports & Entertainment recently acquired PlayersRep, the agency Lynn joined in 2015. She represents Raiders wide receiver Seth Roberts and special teamer Erik Harris, among several other NFL players on Denver, Cincinnati and Washington.
Of around 900 certified NFL agents, Lynn is one of fewer than 50 women. Of that group, she says, she's one of fewer than 10 women who carry multiple clients and have handled actual contract negotiations.
The life she escaped still surrounds some she's close to. She's balanced her new life with still helping those who couldn't make the same strides, leaning on her past to fuel a career that once seemed impossible.
