This is Sports Spectrum, the intersection of sports and faith, where we bring Jesus back into the conversation.

Here's your host, Jason Romano.

Hi, guys. Welcome back to Sports Spectrum. I am Jason Romano. And today on the show, we're doing something a little different. Usually we have the athletes on, the players, the former players. Well, today we're welcoming Shazad Slater to the podcast. You might recognize that last name because she is the wife of Matthew Slater, who is with the New England Patriots and of course course the nine-time pro-bowler, three-time Super Bowl champion. But today we get to shine the spotlight a little bit on Shazad and learn about her journey, but also learn about her and Matthew's passion to be a part of something bigger than just themselves, and that is with IJM. And we'll talk about IJM in a little bit. Shazad, welcome to Sports Spectrum. How are you? Great. Thank you so much. I am so honored to be here. So thank you so much for having me. This will be great. This will be a fun conversation. And first, I think before we kind of dive deep into the crux and the meat of what we're going to talk about today with IJM, why don't we learn a little bit about you, your background?

I know you wear a lot of hats in that family right now because you're the wife of Matthew and certainly the mom to multiple kids.

So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, a little background and kind of

the role that you're sort of kind of currently in, I guess, where the Lord has placed you.

Sure. So I am, as you said, the wife of Matthew Slater and we live here in New England, where he

plays for the Patriots, with our three children, Jeremiah, who's five,

Hannah is three, and Noah is 21 months. And so I have my hands very much full. My heart is full

as well, the three of them and Matthew. And actually now my mom lives with us since the pandemic.

So we have a very full and very busy household that I do my very best to kind of try and manage.

And then professionally, my background is that I'm a pathologist. So I went to medical school at Dartmouth and Brown and then did all of my training at Brown. I also got an

MPH at Dartmouth. So I have a public health degree. I'm very passionate about health. Matthew and I

just started a foundation. So I'm doing crazy work with that, which is very much exciting to us.

And yeah, I'm just chugging along here.

Sounds like you got a lot going on.

It might even be a blessing to have mom in the house, I have to imagine,

because you got a lot of things going on, Shazad.

She has 100% a blessing.

Absolutely.

Yes, absolutely.

That's good.

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