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She graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a French degree, moved to Philadelphia, and told her new boss she'd stay exactly one year. Thirty-plus years in the NFL later, Leslie Stephenson Matz is the woman who built the Carolina Panthers' TopCats cheerleading program from scratch, and is now being considered for the NFL's first-ever cheerleading Hall of Fame. In this deeply personal episode of Bench to Bold, Marnie sits down with her longtime family friend to trace the whole arc: working under Susan Fletcher, the first female GM in the NFL, during the Eagles' transformation from hobby operation to real business; surviving three ownership transitions including returning from maternity leave with a three-week-old; arriving in Charlotte in 1994 to build an expansion team with no players, no coaches, and no stadium yet built; and what it means to have spent a career doing something so subtle it's easy to miss — building friendships that last decades and showing the next generation of women what it looks like to be built up instead of torn down.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
00:07 — Introduction — Family, the Eagles, and a French Major Who Changed Everything
01:15 — Fresh Out of Chapel Hill — The Job She Didn't Want Leslie
03:46 — What It Was Like to Work for Susan Fletcher
06:26 — Women Supporting Women
09:29 — The NFL as a Startup
12:41 — Ownership Transitions
15:56 — Coming to Charlotte — Building the Panthers From Scratch
17:37 — How Sir Purr and the TopCats Got Their Names
18:52 — The NFCAA Nomination
23:37 — Legacy

ABOUT LESLIE STEPHENSON MATZ:
Leslie Stephenson Matz is a 30-year NFL veteran who served as Director of Special Events and Entertainment for the Carolina Panthers and, before that, spent 12 years with the Philadelphia Eagles under Susan Fletcher, the first female GM in NFL history. At the Panthers, Leslie founded the TopCats cheerleading program in 1996 and oversaw the mascot, cheerleading, pregame, halftime, and major organizational events for the franchise's first decade. A native North Carolinian and UNC Chapel Hill graduate, she is a member of the Carolina Professional Football Cheerleader Alumni Association and has been nominated for national recognition by the National Football Cheerleaders Alumni Organization (NFCAA), which is working toward establishing a dedicated Hall of Fame in Canton for cheerleader directors, coaches, and choreographers.

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