Lacie Litz DeCosta ‘98 uses her platform to spread positivity to the NFL team’s fan base.

On Twitter, things started out simply enough for Lacie Litz DeCosta ’98, who had a handful of followers and used the platform to keep up with news and sports. She shared a picture that her cousin had drawn of Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. Once Jackson retweeted it himself, fans of the NFL franchise started to put together that DeCosta is the wife of the Ravens’ executive vice president and general manager, Eric DeCosta.

A few years later, DeCosta has over 21,000 followers and is the unofficial leader of the “#RavensFlock” on Twitter, sending out daily messages of positivity and fostering community within the fanbase.

“It really started to gain momentum during COVID because people were in lockdown and, I think, just wanted so much to be connected with people,” DeCosta said.

DeCosta engaged these new followers far beyond football, using her platform to help fans battling cancer, assist teachers looking for supplies for their classrooms, and raise awareness about missing people in the city of Baltimore. She receives dozens of messages and requests, and regularly sends both public and private good wishes to fans. She has made connections far beyond her hometown, even checking on one active member of the #RavensFlock who lives in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.

A Baltimore native, DeCosta attended Randolph-Macon on the heels of her sister, Laurie, who also graduated from the College in 1994. “It felt like home to me,” DeCosta said. “When I got in, there was really no other place I wanted to be.”

DeCosta played lacrosse all four years at RMC and was an All-American as a senior in 1998. She was also an active member of Phi Mu. She still talks with friends and former teammates, counting them as “some of the best friends I’ll ever have.” After attending a small all-girls Catholic high school, she also credits RMC for fostering a sense of independence that prepared her for life after college.

“I would never trade those four years, I just loved it,” DeCosta said. “It was one of the best liberal arts college experiences you could offer. They give you a little bit of everything: sports, academics, and social life.”

DeCosta, who was a sociology major, left college with the goal of becoming a social worker. Instead, her first job out of college was in the marketing department for her hometown Ravens, where she found herself naturally gravitating towards the team’s community relations efforts.

“Every time they would need volunteers to go hand out turkeys or build playgrounds, I was the first one raising my hand,” DeCosta said.

Lacie and Eric met when he was an area scout for Baltimore in the late 90s. They married in 2001 and have three children, Jane, Michael, and Jackson, who they are raising in Baltimore. In a league where front office personnel often jump from team to team, Eric staying with the Ravens for over two decades is almost unheard of. It also speaks to the couple’s commitment to the city and the organization that has become a family.

While Lacie no longer works for the team, her social media role and public platform as the spouse of an NFL general manager puts her in a unique position to have the impact on her community that she has always strived for.

Even when the high-profile nature of Eric’s job draws some inevitable negative attention on social media when things go poorly for the team, Lacie is committed to being a positive influence.

“Social media is changing the world and it’s not going to slow down anytime,” DeCosta said. “By using it as a platform [for the community], you show the generations behind us that we can use it in a more positive way.”

What happens?