Las Vegas Raiders punter AJ Cole and his wife, pro volleyball player Kylie Cole, have been together for seven years — just don’t call her a “WAG.”
“I know it’s meant to just shorten ‘wives and girlfriends’ because it’s a lot of syllables [and] I get it,” Kylie, 28, said on the Sunday, October 6, episode of the “Sunday Sports Club” podcast. “But, I can’t take it seriously, like, I’m not going to [say], like, ‘I’m a WAG.’ Just know if I’m ever using the word ‘WAG’ at all, I’m not being serious.”
Kylie was speaking about life in the NFL with podcast host Allison Kuch, whose husband Isaac Rochell played for the Raiders last season before being released in late 2023. The two women further revealed that most NFL partners throughout the league don’t ever introduce themselves as a “WAG.”
“[It] does not refer to the group of girls, like, we’re like, ‘We’re the wives and the girlfriends,’” Kylie explained, “Or, ‘We’re the women of the Raiders,’ that’s usually what I say. Yesterday we had the Raiders women’s brunch, and so that’s what I’m going to call it — not the ‘WAGs brunch.’ I just can’t. It’s just so cheesy.”
AJ, 28, and Kylie, a professional athlete herself, got married in March 2023. They have been together since 2017, initially meeting as students at North Carolina State University.
AJ has played his entire career with the Raiders, first signing with the formerly Oakland, California-based team in 2019. The next year, the team relocated to Las Vegas. During that time and beyond, Kylie became tight with the other athletes’ family members.
“We have a little group right now that’s trying to get together and figure out [a time] to watch Gilmore Girls together since it’s fall,” Kylie gushed. “Girls will go take workout classes, do dinners [and] we just went to the Pink concert altogether. The Raiders actually set that up. They put us all in a box and we went to the concert together. There’s a lot of fun stuff, and this year especially, I don’t know what about it is different but girls are constantly, like, shooting stuff out in the group chat.”
As one of the most experienced Raiders’ wives, Kylie often fields a lot of “questions” from newer members. Additionally, team dynamics are often changing as football rosters evolve throughout the season. With various cuts and moves, that means the NFL partners have to leave their friends behind.
“It’s never fun because on the women’s side of it, you make these friends, you meet their kids, you watch their kids grow up and then, all of a sudden, they’re gone for contractual reasons,” Kylie said. “Whatever the case may be, it sucks because it feels like you’ve got to start over and the older I get — which is funny, I’m only 28, but in football years I’m, like, the old woman on the team.”
