UConn football hires Michelle ‘Mickey’ Grace as offensive analyst
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UConn football coach Jim Mora has hired Michelle “Mickey” Grace as an offensive analyst. Grace, 29, will work with wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator John Allen.
“Mickey has a real intellect about her, an ability to see the game in a particular way, which really impressed me,” Mora says. “But more than anything with Mickey, it was just her personality that drew me to her — woman, man, it doesn’t matter, it was just the fact that she has such an engaging personality. She’s got toughness, she’s got empathy. She’s taught me a ton already — about how things are with this generation, how to communicate with them, the ways they are thinking. She’s really an impressive person.”
Grace spent last season as an assistant defensive line coach at Dartmouth. Prior the Philadelphia native served as defensive line coach at Mastery Charter School and an assistant coach with the Philly Phantomz women’s professional team. Those positions led to working as a training camp intern with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and then to a position as a scouting apprentice with the Los Angeles Rams.
The middle child of three sisters, Grace attended Germantown High School in Philadelphia, where was a three-year captain for the softball team, center for the basketball team, editor of her school paper and president of the senior class.
Football was the only fall sport offered at Germantown, so after working as an aide in the football office, she persuaded the coach to give her a chance to come out for the team, first as a kicker, then on the defensive line.
“We never kicked, we always went for two,” Grace told UConnhuskies.com.
Grace would become the first female to earn All-Public League honors at defensive end. Grace then attended West Chester University.
Grace told uconnhuskies.com she sent Mora a résumé when he took over at UConn, then started texting him. Afterward she started reaching to mutual acquaintances in the business before finally visiting the Storrs campus and Mora’s office.
“I came to visit and kind of just rolled into his office and said ‘Hey, I just want to introduce myself,’” Grace told uconnhuskies.com “I had all this Dartmouth gear on, and he said ‘Who are you? What are you?’ I said, ‘I’m the assistant D-line coach at Dartmouth,’ and he did the face that everyone does and said, ‘You are?’”
“With certain people, the minute they walk into your life, you can sense something special about them,” Mora said. “Maybe this is a little outrageous at this point in Mickey’s career, but Dan Quinn (former Atlanta Falcons head coach and current defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys) came into my life when he was about the same age as Mickey. I was defensive coordinator for the 49ers and Dan came out for an interview for a quality control position, much like Mickey is doing, and the second I met him, I thought. ‘Yeah, there’s something special about him.’ And I have to say, I revisited the same feeling that I had with Dan when I met Mickey. Sometimes, you just get a feeling about people.”
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