Brave Enough To Be Bliss

After one year as an intern, the timing worked out perfectly for me and I was offered the assistant sports information director position. My boss recommended me, and I was selected by the US Olympic Committee to serve on the media relations staff for the 1991 US Olympic Festival. I spent two weeks in Los Angeles. On the day I arrived, I was given car keys and asked to go pick up my roommate from the airport. Remember, this was back in 1991 when there wasn’t GPS yet in vehicles or cell phones. The person who asked me to do this just said to follow the signs, it wasn’t hard. We were staying in downtown LA, so it was probably only about 20 miles to the airport, but traffic wasn’t anything like I was used to coming from small towns. Saying I was nervous would be an understatement, but I wasn’t going to let them see me sweat, so I just took off and thought I’ d figure it out. Fortunately, even though I hadn’t met my roommate and didn’t know what she looked like, we were able to find each other, and I drove her back to the hotel. She had a large suitcase, so I dropped her off at the hotel and went to park the car. I hadn’t ever been in the parking garage before, and once I managed to find the right one, I wasn’t sure how to get out of it because I had to park on one of the top floors. As I was driving in, I realized it was getting dark and I needed to hurry so I could find my way back to the hotel. When I got out of the car, I saw doors, so I went in and found myself in some sort of shopping mall. It was a Sunday, so the mall was closed and there were no lights on, just some daylight coming in from the windows at the top of the building. I wandered around trying to find an exit and was starting to panic a little when finally, a security guard saw me and asked me what I was doing in there. He didn’t seem happy, so I quickly explained I was just trying to get out to walk back to my hotel. He took me down a number of escalators to an exit but by this time, it was pretty dark. I wasn’t sure which direction the hotel was in and all I could see was tall building after tall building. I looked around and other than a few homeless people, it was just me. No cars. No people milling about. Just me and my purse. There was nothing I could do but start walking, so I took off and just hoped I was heading in the right direction. There was a meeting that evening and when I arrived late it was clear that they had been talking about me. I was completely mortified. I became the reason a rule was created that no female could drive or walk alone anywhere outside of the hotel. I had followed directions and completed the assignment, but it felt like I was getting in trouble. Now that I’ve been a parent and a business leader, I better understand the strong reaction upon my return, but needless to say, things didn’t get off to the start I wa nted. Having any attention placed on me would have been bad enough, but attention that I perceived to be negative was humiliating. Now I realize how scared I should have been, but at the time, I was just doing what was asked and expected of me and not thinking about what could happen . Pushing back, asking questions, or saying I didn’t feel comfortable doing that by myself were not options for me. I was used to doing things by myself. I was used to doing hard things. And I wasn’t going to be perceived as weak, that’s for sure. Some people may say it was stupid, but I didn’t know there was any other option. I always did what I had to do to survive, so I figured I could manage a trip to LAX and back. And I did. I can’t remember all the sports venues I worked at while I was there, but I do recall being most excited about figure skating because it was going to be at the Forum where the Lakers played. In my mind, it was going to be so amazing to be there, but when I arrived it wasn’t impressive at all. Honestly, it was pretty dumpy , which is likely why they moved seven years later. Our hubcaps were stolen from the rental van and ours was always the last vehicle in the parking lot. That’s the life of working in sports information, though : you’re almost always the last one out. But there are some amazing perks, too. I remember going to Disneyland when it was closed to the public. We went to a Dodgers game, which turned out to be much more exciting than the Forum had been. And there’s always the super talented athletes to admire and lots of nice people who become friends, even if only for a while. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’ll always be grateful for it.

Working in sports information was everything I had expected, and I loved it. I also began to exercise more frequently and between that and work, I was gaining confidence and set a goal to become the youngest Division

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