Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Beyond the Highlights: Sarah Spain On Hosting the First Daily Women's Sports Podcast, Rejecting 'Sanitized' Coverage & The Power Of Gratitude

Transcript

Beyond the Highlights: Sarah Spain On Hosting the First Daily Women's Sports Podcast, Rejecting 'Sanitized' Coverage & The Power Of Gratitude · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

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Speaker 1: Once I just was okay with what I knew I
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Speaker 1: could bring, Then I didn't worry as much about what
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Speaker 1: I couldn't.
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Speaker 2: Hello, Emily a body here. You are listening to another
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Speaker 2: episode of Hurdle, a podcast featuring the mindset, secrets, and
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Speaker 2: true stories of the most inspiring woman in sports and wellness,
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Speaker 2: empowering you to live a healthier, happier, more motivated life
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Speaker 2: and of course, conquer your own hurdles. Today's guest is
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Speaker 2: a true powerhouse in the sports media landscape, and that
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Speaker 2: is Sarah Spain and Emmy Gracie and Peabody Award winning journalist.
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Speaker 2: Sarah spent over fifteen years as a mean stay at ESPN,
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Speaker 2: becoming one of the most versatile and respected voices in
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Speaker 2: the industry. She recently made waves by joining iHeartMedia to
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Speaker 2: launch Iheartwoman's Sports, where she serves as the content director
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Speaker 2: and host of the industry's first daily woman's sports podcast,
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Speaker 2: Good Game with Sarah Spain. In our chat today, Sarah
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Speaker 2: talks about moving from a sports giant like ESPN to
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Speaker 2: building a brand new audio Behemit from the ground up.
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Speaker 2: She also chats about the one man band mentality why
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Speaker 2: she keeps her hands in every piece of production, from
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Speaker 2: scriptwriting to editing, despite her veteran status. We also chat
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Speaker 2: about her background as a heptathlete and co captain at Cornell,
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Speaker 2: which she says instilled a quote problematic level of competitiveness
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Speaker 2: that she still carries today, and among other things, we
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Speaker 2: talk about the difficulties that go hand in hand with
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Speaker 2: navigating the industry. Sarah opens up about the harsh realities
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Speaker 2: of sexual harassment and online toxicity that she has dealt
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Speaker 2: with and why, amidst it all, she refuses to stay silent.
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Speaker 2: Sarah is gosh just as witty and candid as she
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Speaker 2: is insightful. And whether you're a sports fanatic or looking
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Speaker 2: for a masterclass and professional pivot and resilience, this episode's
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Speaker 2: for you. Make sure you're following along with Hurdle over
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Speaker 2: on social It's over at Hurdle podcast. You can also
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Speaker 2: check out Iheartwoman's Sports over at iHeart Woman's Sports and
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Speaker 2: meet over at Emily Abadi. Listen to Hurdle with Emily
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Speaker 2: Abody on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you
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Speaker 2: get your podcasts. And with that, let's get to it.
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Speaker 2: Let's get to hurdling.
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Speaker 3: Today.
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Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Sarah Spain, a multi award
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Speaker 2: winning journalist host of Good Game with Sarah Spain. How
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Speaker 2: are we doing, Sarah, Welcome to Girdle.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm great. I'm in a studio. It's very fancy.
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Speaker 1: I do my show for my little radio hole at home,
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Speaker 1: and here we are in the iHeart studios.
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Speaker 3: Look in real.
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Speaker 2: Profess, looking real profession. It's fun because so much of
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Speaker 2: what you do is dedicated to telling other people's stories.
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Speaker 2: So I'm excited at least to have some time to
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Speaker 2: talk to you about yours today. Before we get into everything, though,
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Speaker 2: I'm going to rewind and ask you again, how are
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Speaker 2: you doing? Really?
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Speaker 3: Oh, that's interesting.
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Speaker 1: I nicknamed this month as I was collecting some highlights
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Speaker 1: of from my Instagram to post Cognitive Dissonance Awareness Month,
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Speaker 1: which is like, my brain is broken all the time,
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Speaker 1: trying to vacillate between life and the good things going
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Speaker 1: on in life and career and family and friends and
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Speaker 1: then everything else. Like everything is the absolute worst right now,
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Speaker 1: and I feel like it's exacerbated by the fact that
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Speaker 1: when you're on your phone, you will be scrolling through
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Speaker 1: a timeline that is like congrats on the new Baby
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Speaker 1: Wow a promotion.
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Speaker 3: Are we at war?
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Speaker 2: Right?
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Speaker 1: This is offensive and it's just like it shouldn't all
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Speaker 1: be at once, but it is all the time. And
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Speaker 1: so how am I doing? Like, honestly, if I can
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Speaker 1: for a moment disassociate and think about what's directly in
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Speaker 1: front of me, I'm a naturally super happy person. And
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Speaker 1: when I fall into a rut of looking at or
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Speaker 1: reading about the news, it is just a level of
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Speaker 1: existential dread that I don't think I've ever had in
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Speaker 1: my lifetime.
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Speaker 2: And we've been through some pretty serious ups and downs. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: we've been through some ups and downs. And what you're
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Speaker 2: saying is so relatable I think all of us. And
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Speaker 2: that's why I like to start this way. It's like, yeah,
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Speaker 2: I'm good, you know, it's like are you actually good?
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Speaker 3: Though?
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Speaker 2: Are you okay? What's going on here? But I can
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Speaker 2: relate And there's a lot going on both in the
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Speaker 2: news and then also for you professionally. Right now, we're
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Speaker 2: almost two years in now to you being the anchor
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Speaker 2: of this network here, how has everything been for you?
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Speaker 2: Over on the iHeart side of things?
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Speaker 1: It's really interesting having been at esp in full time
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Speaker 1: for thirteen years, and really that was my main real
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Speaker 1: job in my life. I did jobs before that, for sure,
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Speaker 1: but that was the company that I understood how like
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Speaker 1: companies work in jobs and promotions and all the other things.
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Speaker 1: And it's the worldwide leader, and it is massive and
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Speaker 1: it sets the tone across the sports space. But I
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Speaker 1: was always in Chicago and everyone was out of La Connecticut,
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Speaker 1: New York. So I managed to keep this really nice
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Speaker 1: balance of like sports life, work life, and then friends
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Speaker 1: who think it's cool what I do but really don't
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Speaker 1: get it or care that much, which was really nice.
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Speaker 1: But it was a sports company, so I took all
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Speaker 1: my cues and learned so much from them. And now
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Speaker 1: coming to iHeart, it's not a sports company. So on
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Speaker 1: the one hand, it's an audio podcast behemoth. But you know,
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Speaker 1: there's some funny little moments where someone suggests a sponsorship
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Speaker 1: with like gambling odds in it that'll run for three weeks,
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Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, so after that game ends, it'll
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Speaker 1: be a new game with new gambling odds, and then
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Speaker 1: another one and then so this can't run for oh yeah, okay.
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Speaker 1: Those little things where you're like interacting in a way
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Speaker 1: that I haven't for so many years in terms of
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Speaker 1: like getting the product out and finding the balance between like.
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Speaker 3: The iHeart of it all and the sports of it all.
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Speaker 1: And then also, you know, when I came on, there
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Speaker 1: was maybe six shows that were at least starting to
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Speaker 1: get into production they were going to launch after mine,
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Speaker 1: but I had a general idea.
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Speaker 3: Now we have so many more.
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Speaker 1: You know, I'm also the content director for the network,
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Speaker 1: so trying to figure out what makes sense, what draws
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Speaker 1: people in, what's missing, what are the voices and stories
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Speaker 1: that kind of separate themselves from the pack. As there
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Speaker 1: are so many more women's sports shows joining the club,
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Speaker 1: which I love, what are the ones that keep people hooked?
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Speaker 1: And Yeah, it's been really fun and extremely satisfying, especially
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Speaker 1: because ed ESPN my radio shows were one of thousands
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Speaker 1: a lot of people having the same conversation about like
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Speaker 1: who's the next NBA MVP or like, you know, what
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Speaker 1: do we think of this NFL trade? And my show
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Speaker 1: is the only daily women's sports show, and we're try
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Speaker 1: reading it in a way that no other show does,
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Speaker 1: and so to give people something they really want and
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Speaker 1: can't find anywhere else. It's a lot of work, but
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Speaker 1: it's also so rewarding to like hear from the stakeholders, coaches, GMS, athletes,
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Speaker 1: to fans who have been like, where have you been
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Speaker 1: my whole life?
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Speaker 3: I wish I had this?
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Speaker 2: You know, well, you bring up a good point. You're
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Speaker 2: the only one to do what it is that you're doing.
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Speaker 2: So on that note, when it comes to the pulling
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Speaker 2: the curtain back on a Daily Woman's sports podcast, give
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Speaker 2: us some insight into what that looks like.
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Speaker 3: It's a lot of work.
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Speaker 1: It's you know, we have I think at the end
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Speaker 1: of the podcast you hear all the names of people,
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Speaker 1: and they all do play a role, but it's really
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Speaker 1: three of us that are the everyday booking, writing scripts,
7:43
Speaker 1: prepping interviews, doing interviews, editing, you know, looking up statistics,
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Speaker 1: reaching out for comment because one thing we really want
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Speaker 1: to do is treat it journalistically. And having been at
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Speaker 1: ESPN and doing so many jobs I did, radio, TV, podcast, writing,
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Speaker 1: producing a US so many spaces that all functioned very differently,
8:03
Speaker 1: like being at an espnW summit and being in that
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Speaker 1: space versus being on around the horn versus Sports center
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Speaker 1: outside lines, like everything works so differently, and particularly noticing
8:12
Speaker 1: how national radio is about playing the hits and what's
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Speaker 1: the biggest story of the day for the four major
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Speaker 1: men's sports usually usually actually three, and then looking at
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Speaker 1: how women's stories were being told, often in longer form
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Speaker 1: features about individual athletes, maybe about something historical, and realizing
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Speaker 1: what was really missing was that regular, everyday repetition of teams, stats,
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Speaker 1: leagues information, what are I call it the four US's
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Speaker 1: story stake, stats and stars. We do that every day
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Speaker 1: on Sports Center at ESPN for men's sports, and we
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Speaker 1: remind people over and over who are the names they
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Speaker 1: should know and what are the storylines they should follow.
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Speaker 1: And without having that in women's sports, expecting people to
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Speaker 1: show up game after game, without providing them the information
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Speaker 1: they need to care and be hooked it, there's a
9:02
Speaker 1: reason it hasn't always clicked for everyone, or you have
9:04
Speaker 1: to go find a podcast over here, a preview over here,
9:07
Speaker 1: a streaming service over here. And so what we're trying
9:10
Speaker 1: to do is really take the journalism from a sports
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Speaker 1: center where we're getting the facts right, we're saying the
9:14
Speaker 1: names correctly, we're reaching out for common if something is controversial,
9:17
Speaker 1: and figuring out how to pare down a day's worth
9:20
Speaker 1: of info for the top of our show every day
9:22
Speaker 1: for our need to know section, so that if you
9:25
Speaker 1: just listen to that part and don't even get to
9:26
Speaker 1: the interviews in other segments, you still have a regular
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Speaker 1: repetitive Okay, now I know that the Boston Fleet in
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Speaker 1: the Montreal Victoire at the top of the standings for
9:34
Speaker 1: the PWHL, So if I turn on a game, I'm like, oh,
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Speaker 1: I think this is the team that's never been in
9:38
Speaker 1: the playoffs and is trying to make it, or I
9:40
Speaker 1: think this is the team that's won twice. Even that
9:43
Speaker 1: makes a game more enjoyable than not knowing anything when
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Speaker 1: you turn it on. So we're trying to get people
9:48
Speaker 1: as much information as possible so that when they want
9:50
Speaker 1: to go to a game, watch a game, engage with
9:53
Speaker 1: people on social media, listen to podcasts, they just have
9:56
Speaker 1: enough information to grip onto something.
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Speaker 3: And I think.
10:01
Speaker 1: The extremes are super experts who do shows full of
10:05
Speaker 1: nicknames and everyone's like, I don't know who Teta and
10:08
Speaker 1: DD are and now I can't follow and know what
10:09
Speaker 1: you're saying about this team, all the way down to
10:12
Speaker 1: too much of the one oh one where it's like
10:14
Speaker 1: the WNBA is a basketball, Like we're trying to get.
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Speaker 3: In the middle ground and keep feeding people enough that
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Speaker 3: they want.
10:20
Speaker 2: To keep coming back right, right. And it's so interesting
10:24
Speaker 2: to hear you talk about this because you elaborated on
10:26
Speaker 2: oh there's so many names at the end, but at
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Speaker 2: the end of the day, these three people are really
10:30
Speaker 2: responsible for a lot of the content that you're hearing
10:32
Speaker 2: on the regular. And it is a little bit of
10:35
Speaker 2: a giggle for me because when you're a young journalist
10:38
Speaker 2: and you're starting out in your career, I believe the
10:40
Speaker 2: nickname they have for it these days is being a predator.
10:43
Speaker 2: You're a producer, a writer, and an editor.
10:45
Speaker 1: Right. We used to say one man band. Okay, yes, exactly,
10:47
Speaker 1: I think makes sense. In twenty twenty six, they're everywhere.
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Speaker 2: They're everywhere, And it's funny because within broadcasts, yes, one
10:55
Speaker 2: man band. So it's like you put in your time
10:58
Speaker 2: being a one man band, but it's like the work's
11:00
Speaker 2: never really done. You're still putting in and executing all
11:04
Speaker 2: of these different functions to make your daily woman's sports
11:07
Speaker 2: podcast happen. Because it's the first of its kind and
11:10
Speaker 2: that's what it requires.
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Speaker 1: Well, and that's what's fascinating is like I remember as
11:13
Speaker 1: I was unceremoniously being slightly pushed out of ESPN as
11:18
Speaker 1: a full time employee due to a certain boss who
11:20
Speaker 1: didn't want me there anymore.
11:21
Speaker 3: That's a topic for another time.
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Speaker 1: I for the first time in thirteen years, had to
11:25
Speaker 1: be like, what do I want to spend my time
11:27
Speaker 1: doing and where does it make sense to level up
11:29
Speaker 1: if I can, or at least try to stay horizontal
11:32
Speaker 1: to where I am.
11:33
Speaker 3: I'm already at the top place in the sports industry.
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Speaker 3: Where do I go from here?
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Speaker 1: And I was looking around and one of the options
11:39
Speaker 1: was to help start something new but with a big team,
11:42
Speaker 1: and I felt like, I think I'll get frustrated that
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Speaker 1: the level of professionalism will be nowhere near an ESPN
11:49
Speaker 1: after being there for thirteen years, and I will be
11:51
Speaker 1: a cog in the wheel of something where I will
11:53
Speaker 1: rely on so many people, but they will be just
11:56
Speaker 1: figuring everything out versus this is very small team again
12:02
Speaker 1: after going from big team at ESPN. But it's something
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Speaker 1: I'm so passionate about and I want to make in
12:07
Speaker 1: a very specific way with intention, using my twenty years
12:11
Speaker 1: of experience and knowing what I know about the entire industry,
12:15
Speaker 1: and that's a little bit harder to do with the
12:17
Speaker 1: big team. And so you know, even early on with
12:20
Speaker 1: my producers, it was this real give and take of
12:21
Speaker 1: like you may have been a producer on a show
12:24
Speaker 1: before where you wrote the whole script, prepped the interview,
12:26
Speaker 1: doc and then the talent showed up.
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Speaker 3: That's not this show.
12:29
Speaker 1: I'm going to have my hands in every little piece
12:31
Speaker 1: of it because I'm here for a reason, doing this
12:33
Speaker 1: and taking on this work for a reason, and I
12:35
Speaker 1: want it to be elevated and different and have so
12:39
Speaker 1: much intention behind it. And I do think that not
12:43
Speaker 1: to pat ourselves on the back, but that's why it
12:45
Speaker 1: took just mere weeks of the show being on for
12:47
Speaker 1: people to be like, where's the merch, when are we
12:49
Speaker 1: having meetups?
12:50
Speaker 3: What's our name? What do we called?
12:52
Speaker 1: Like there was a community formed so instantly because people
12:55
Speaker 1: were like, oh, this is like legit. They're not turning
12:57
Speaker 1: on the mic and dicking around and talk. They're coming
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Speaker 1: with great intention of.
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Speaker 3: How they want to like change the space.
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Speaker 1: And I do take pride in the number of people
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Speaker 1: coming up in the women's sports space that are like,
13:09
Speaker 1: I listen to your show every day and I like
13:10
Speaker 1: try to figure out how you're doing it to see
13:12
Speaker 1: how I can do what I want to do. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean it is also there's an agility to three
13:19
Speaker 1: where it's like can one of you show up for this?
13:22
Speaker 3: If not, I'll record it.
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Speaker 1: On my own, I'll take notes of where I had
13:24
Speaker 1: like fixes, I'll send it to you and then you'll
13:26
Speaker 1: do this and can you know, can one of you
13:29
Speaker 1: hop on? I'm going to do a quick fix because
13:30
Speaker 1: there was a trade that just happened and I want
13:32
Speaker 1: to get it in before tomorrow runs. Like So you
13:34
Speaker 1: also need great producers who care a ton about the
13:37
Speaker 1: work and aren't like five pm, I'm done for the day.
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Speaker 2: And it's a testament to your work ethic, right because
13:42
Speaker 2: not only are you capable of what you're doing because
13:46
Speaker 2: you've been in the sauce for so long now, but
13:49
Speaker 2: you have the care, concern, passion about the subject area,
13:54
Speaker 2: about growing the coverage of women's sports across the board.
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Speaker 2: So that is what people here when they tune into
14:01
Speaker 2: the show. You talked about how you wanted to really
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Speaker 2: get to a place when you were making this pivot
14:07
Speaker 2: from ESPN that you were doing the things that you
14:09
Speaker 2: really wanted to do. What's your favorite thing about what
14:12
Speaker 2: you do?
14:15
Speaker 1: I love evangelizing for things I care about, Like one
14:18
Speaker 1: of my best skill sets is sort of like synthesizing
14:21
Speaker 1: ideas and things and putting them together so that they're
14:24
Speaker 1: either more digestible for people who aren't as informed and
14:27
Speaker 1: educated haven't spent as much time researching, or more interesting
14:31
Speaker 1: and entertaining and they want to grab onto it. And
14:33
Speaker 1: so this show first of all allows me to evangelize
14:36
Speaker 1: for women's sports and women athletes and tell their stories
14:39
Speaker 1: in a way that's entertaining and funny and smart and
14:42
Speaker 1: has an edge. Like one of the things I thought
14:44
Speaker 1: was missing from women's sports coverage for a long time
14:47
Speaker 1: was it was either infantilizing or over sexualizing.
14:50
Speaker 3: Women had to either be the girl.
14:51
Speaker 1: Next door, low role model for your kids, or they
14:54
Speaker 1: were over sexualized. And there was also a cheerleader kind
14:58
Speaker 1: of vibe, which I understood because it was trying to
15:02
Speaker 1: fight against the toxicity of the space, but it also
15:05
Speaker 1: made everything feel childish. And my natural sense of humor
15:09
Speaker 1: and way of being is very edgy and snarky and
15:12
Speaker 1: sometimes blue, and to have nowhere to put that in
15:15
Speaker 1: women's sports and to be on the men's side and
15:17
Speaker 1: see there were a million different kinds of blogs and
15:19
Speaker 1: podcasts where you could make funny quips and you could
15:22
Speaker 1: refer to nasty jokes and you could do that as
15:25
Speaker 1: part of it, and then to come to the women's
15:26
Speaker 1: side and feel like it had to be sanitized. I
15:29
Speaker 1: wanted to offer a space that was for adults. Some
15:31
Speaker 1: people listen with their kids and they tell me they're
15:33
Speaker 1: in the car and they're like, sorry about all the
15:34
Speaker 1: you know, we only bleep the F bomb, We keep
15:36
Speaker 1: the other swears. But I wanted to bring that to
15:39
Speaker 1: it in a way that felt authentic to me and
15:41
Speaker 1: so many of my friends that want to watch women's
15:44
Speaker 1: sports but be respected as like adults with a good
15:47
Speaker 1: sense of humor, and so that I really love is
15:49
Speaker 1: like using my sense of humor and my interest in
15:53
Speaker 1: so many different topics to bring it all together into
15:56
Speaker 1: one place where hopefully you're learning a lot, but you're
15:58
Speaker 1: also like entertained, and it's a daily show. You need
16:00
Speaker 1: that like no one wants some people do. A lot
16:03
Speaker 1: of people don't want to tune in every day to
16:04
Speaker 1: something that's a downer. They'll pick and choose their moments
16:07
Speaker 1: for like news podcasts or things that are darker, but
16:10
Speaker 1: on an everyday basis, it's like, what's gonna have good
16:13
Speaker 1: energy and be fun and enlightening. And so we're trying
16:16
Speaker 1: to do that with our show as often as we
16:17
Speaker 1: can and still you know, tackle the tough stuff when needed.
16:20
Speaker 2: We're even seeing that on the most popular daily regular
16:23
Speaker 2: news podcasts, right like even on Up First, they have
16:27
Speaker 2: a little bit of personality now, whereas back when UP
16:30
Speaker 2: First started, I mean, I don't know the dateline, but
16:32
Speaker 2: I remember during the pandemic when I would listen, it
16:35
Speaker 2: was very no personality. You didn't know anyone's names aside
16:39
Speaker 2: from when they said at the beginning and that was it.
16:40
Speaker 2: And now like they have a little blip where they
16:42
Speaker 2: talk about their weekend, and you're getting to know who's
16:44
Speaker 2: giving you the news, which I think is really important.
16:46
Speaker 2: You talked about the importance of comedy and personality. Comedy
16:49
Speaker 2: also in your background. Many people may not know that
16:53
Speaker 2: about you. You definitely thought about leaning in that direction
16:57
Speaker 2: for some time. Do you ever wish you went that way? Specifically?
17:01
Speaker 1: I think about it because I didn't give it as
17:03
Speaker 1: much time as I needed to, and also I was
17:05
Speaker 1: a lot more.
17:07
Speaker 3: It was that kind of just immature for my age.
17:10
Speaker 1: When I when I left college and went to LA
17:12
Speaker 1: to try to do like acting in comedy stuff, I'd
17:14
Speaker 1: had not a lot of life experience and I was
17:17
Speaker 1: just a complete kiss ass overachiever. So all through my
17:20
Speaker 1: life it was like put a challenge in front of
17:22
Speaker 1: me and then I'll do what you assigned and crushed it.
17:25
Speaker 1: And getting out of that, especially as an athlete, so
17:27
Speaker 1: no coach to tell me what to do, no teachers
17:30
Speaker 1: to assign things. Just suddenly being like what do you
17:33
Speaker 1: want to do and how a you're going to get
17:34
Speaker 1: there was a little bit more challenging to me. I
17:37
Speaker 1: didn't there's no real easy path for something like acting
17:40
Speaker 1: in comedy, compared to my friends from Cornell that we're
17:42
Speaker 1: going to like I'm going to a three year GE
17:44
Speaker 1: program that then after that you go to business school
17:46
Speaker 1: and then you do you know, that's a very specific case.
17:49
Speaker 1: My friend went and worked for GE in Cleveland on
17:51
Speaker 1: like a three year program, and I was like, that's
17:52
Speaker 1: nice that you have all that planned out for you.
17:54
Speaker 1: I'm going to move to LA and like work in
17:55
Speaker 1: a restaurant and figure it out. So I think because
17:59
Speaker 1: I'm such an overt. After a couple of years, I
18:01
Speaker 1: was like, well that didn't work out. What should I
18:03
Speaker 1: do as opposed to had I really understood that, like
18:06
Speaker 1: I did the whole Second City Conservatory, but after that
18:08
Speaker 1: audition for a touring group, try to get in with
18:11
Speaker 1: people that are regularly doing comedy. Find yourself in the
18:13
Speaker 1: space is where you're going to keep working. And you
18:14
Speaker 1: know I didn't do that. I took a class in
18:17
Speaker 1: TV hosting. The teacher said, oh, you're you want to
18:20
Speaker 1: do sports. You're hosting a fake Chicago Bears show in
18:22
Speaker 1: this class. And I was like, no, there's no women.
18:24
Speaker 1: They don't get to be funny. She was like, it
18:25
Speaker 1: just seems natural. You could try it.
18:27
Speaker 3: So I went and took a class.
18:28
Speaker 1: At used in TV sports reporting and I was like, oh,
18:31
Speaker 1: this is all my things. English major extemporaneous talking and
18:35
Speaker 1: thinking from Second City three sport athlete, Division one athlete,
18:39
Speaker 1: Like this makes sense. So then it was like, here's
18:41
Speaker 1: something I can apply all of my overachiever energy to
18:45
Speaker 1: and like study and research and learn all the things.
18:48
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad I did. I love this life
18:51
Speaker 1: in this world. But there are parts of me that
18:53
Speaker 1: are like the little sliding doors of like what if
18:55
Speaker 1: I had just stuck with that because I do love
18:57
Speaker 1: comedy so much and I love being in a room
19:00
Speaker 1: with like funny people in playing.
19:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what, candidly, it doesn't surprise me that
19:05
Speaker 2: it didn't work out, not because you're not funny, but
19:07
Speaker 2: knowing your background as an athlete and having to deal
19:12
Speaker 2: with so much diligence in your routine and ultimately probably
19:15
Speaker 2: by the time you graduated and went through your injuries,
19:18
Speaker 2: decision fatigue, it's like, how much do I really need
19:21
Speaker 2: to show up for myself right now? Like everything's already
19:23
Speaker 2: different than I had anticipated.
19:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's part of it. I also think,
19:27
Speaker 1: like I have a lot of friends in music. I
19:30
Speaker 1: love music, and it's fascinating how because athletes need to
19:37
Speaker 1: be on time for practice, in shape and ready, not
19:42
Speaker 1: too hungover all these things in order to do their job.
19:45
Speaker 1: It's a very different world than working with musicians or comedians.
19:48
Speaker 2: Because you can be hug you can be on drapt.
19:52
Speaker 1: It can be yeah, hours late, and people will I
19:54
Speaker 1: went to a print show in Chicago and he was
19:56
Speaker 1: four hours late, and we all just stood there and
19:58
Speaker 1: waited and we were like, we will wait for you, Prince.
20:00
Speaker 3: It will be worth it. But you get be four
20:02
Speaker 3: hours late for your game.
20:03
Speaker 1: So even though athletes can be divas and all these
20:05
Speaker 1: other things, the world operates on a very specific timeline
20:09
Speaker 1: and there are expectations that everybody meets, and as a
20:12
Speaker 1: type a control freak over achiever, I would rather be
20:15
Speaker 1: in that world. And also the work matters. Like when
20:18
Speaker 1: I was in La trying to do the acting comedy stuff,
20:20
Speaker 1: one of the things that stood out to me was
20:21
Speaker 1: how much it was who you know? And are you
20:23
Speaker 1: kissing someone's ass even if they don't deserve it? And
20:25
Speaker 1: do you look this certain way? And there's a lot
20:28
Speaker 1: of bs in the sports world for women, but when
20:30
Speaker 1: it comes down to it, do you know your stuff?
20:32
Speaker 3: Are you good at the job?
20:33
Speaker 1: And I really liked the idea of applying myself and
20:36
Speaker 1: proving myself and then earning wherever I got based on
20:40
Speaker 1: that as opposed to you know, did you go to
20:42
Speaker 1: dinner with the right dude who's producing the right thing
20:45
Speaker 1: and make him feel good about himself? And yeah, that
20:49
Speaker 1: time in my life I was just like, this is
20:50
Speaker 1: not for me. I want to just go out there
20:52
Speaker 1: and work really hard and earn it. And that's easier
20:54
Speaker 1: to do in this sports world where every day is
20:56
Speaker 1: a new test. Oh no, that person got traded today.
20:58
Speaker 1: Oh no, that person actually had a bad game today.
21:00
Speaker 1: So when you say they've been great, everyone knows that
21:01
Speaker 1: they just went over eighteen. Why don't you know that already?
21:04
Speaker 1: So it's constant and I like that speed because I
21:08
Speaker 1: can do.
21:09
Speaker 2: And that constant work ethic. Again, coming from your upbringing
21:12
Speaker 2: being a multi sport athlete doing heptathlon at Coronel, talk
21:17
Speaker 2: to me a little bit about how that experience has
21:20
Speaker 2: really instilled in you this desire to want to work
21:24
Speaker 2: hard and keep going at it.
21:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a basic life fomo. I figured it out.
21:28
Speaker 1: Like I always joke that the heptathlon's just a microcosm
21:31
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life because it's the jack
21:32
Speaker 1: of all trades, master of none. Like doing all the things,
21:35
Speaker 1: and that's what I wanted to do ever since I
21:37
Speaker 1: was a kid. I was all stay in band, chorus,
21:39
Speaker 1: I did track, field, hockey, basketball.
21:41
Speaker 3: Talent show.
21:42
Speaker 1: Like all the things I want to do, all the
21:44
Speaker 1: things I want to see, all the places I want
21:45
Speaker 1: to read, all the book that I want to listen
21:46
Speaker 1: to all the music, I want to meet all the people.
21:47
Speaker 1: I want to learn everything I could possibly learn. Like
21:49
Speaker 1: it's just a constant. Just efficient sounds cold. It's not that,
21:56
Speaker 1: it's just I don't like wasting time. I like I'm
21:58
Speaker 1: here on this earth once. I want to do all
22:00
Speaker 1: the things, and in order to do that, you have
22:02
Speaker 1: to have incredible time management.
22:03
Speaker 3: So the thing that I.
22:04
Speaker 1: Learned most from high school and then into college was
22:07
Speaker 1: if I want to be apt athlete and graduate Cornell
22:09
Speaker 1: and hang out with my friends, I can't really mess around.
22:12
Speaker 1: Like I can't leave class and sit at a table
22:15
Speaker 1: with my friends for three hours and just talk. I
22:17
Speaker 1: need to buy pass the table in our kitchen. I
22:19
Speaker 1: lived with fourteen other girls my junior and senior year
22:22
Speaker 1: in this big house with a basement three stories, and
22:24
Speaker 1: I was on third store floor.
22:25
Speaker 3: On purpose.
22:26
Speaker 1: I told them I need to be at the top.
22:27
Speaker 1: Number one for sound because if you guys are still
22:30
Speaker 1: partying and I have a meet the next day. And
22:31
Speaker 1: number two because I need to sequester myself and get
22:34
Speaker 1: everything done so that later I can go to the
22:35
Speaker 1: bars with you.
22:36
Speaker 3: And so walk past the table where they're all gossiping.
22:39
Speaker 1: Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, straight upstairs, get all your
22:41
Speaker 1: homework done so that you can go out with your
22:43
Speaker 1: friends later. And that's just sort of how I operate now,
22:48
Speaker 1: is like just making use of time and then also
22:51
Speaker 1: knowing that for like mental health and balance, I need
22:54
Speaker 1: to schedule social or relaxing long walks with my dogs
22:59
Speaker 1: with things like that offset the doing all the time.
23:02
Speaker 1: But I need to schedule it because my natural way
23:04
Speaker 1: will be to fill that with more work.
23:22
Speaker 2: You mentioned mental health, something that is so important, especially
23:25
Speaker 2: when you're running a thousand miles a minute. You had
23:29
Speaker 2: to think a little bit differently about your mental health
23:33
Speaker 2: as you got more invested in your career because you
23:35
Speaker 2: couldn't move the way that you once did after a
23:38
Speaker 2: gnarly achilles injury and then some surgery to repair that.
23:41
Speaker 2: Talk to me a little bit about kind of your
23:43
Speaker 2: comeback to movement and how you're taking care of yourself
23:45
Speaker 2: these days.
23:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sucks.
23:50
Speaker 1: It's funny, like if you told me when I tore
23:52
Speaker 1: my achilles, like this is going to screw up the
23:55
Speaker 1: whole rest of your life in terms of like your
23:57
Speaker 1: identity as an athlete, it would have taken it a
23:59
Speaker 1: lot harder. I think when you're an athlete, you just
24:01
Speaker 1: kind of like, well, what am I going to do.
24:03
Speaker 1: I'm going to get the surgery, I'm gonna do the rehab,
24:05
Speaker 1: I'm going to come back. But when they did the surgery,
24:07
Speaker 1: my achilles was the eighth the size of a normal one.
24:09
Speaker 1: So they couldn't just reattach it to itself. They had
24:11
Speaker 1: to take like allegedly a piece of my calf to
24:13
Speaker 1: strengthen it. That doesn't serve a purpose anymore, not true,
24:17
Speaker 1: because my calf is still two and a half inches
24:18
Speaker 1: smaller than the other one around around it the circumference,
24:22
Speaker 1: and I still can't do like single leg you know,
24:25
Speaker 1: calf raises on that side more than like seven or.
24:27
Speaker 3: Eight and I can't run now.
24:29
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to run for seven or eight
24:30
Speaker 1: years because I have two bolding disks in my back
24:33
Speaker 1: or hardinge a disk in my neck. It's all from
24:35
Speaker 1: like a kinetic chain imbalance that basically, once that calf
24:38
Speaker 1: got smaller and less strong and couldn't do what it
24:42
Speaker 1: was supposed to do, the imbalance from one side to
24:44
Speaker 1: the other affected my kinetic chain overtime, and like I
24:49
Speaker 1: literally can't play any sports. I can golf carefully because
24:54
Speaker 1: of the back twisting. I can peloton, not too much
24:57
Speaker 1: out of the saddle for too long because then it
24:59
Speaker 1: mimics the running motion and it's hard on my my.
25:02
Speaker 2: I love that peloton just became like instead of saying
25:04
Speaker 2: I could spin, it's a peloton, it's like a band.
25:06
Speaker 1: Aid because I have a peloton, so I use that word.
25:08
Speaker 1: But I can spin, I weightlift. I can do this
25:12
Speaker 1: like infernal pilates class, but I can't do any of
25:14
Speaker 1: the like burpies, mountain climbers, anything where I'm not controlling
25:17
Speaker 1: the position of my back and it's even on both sides,
25:20
Speaker 1: so nothing like one legged if it means instability. It's
25:24
Speaker 1: so frustrating, and it's mostly frustrating because I think, having
25:28
Speaker 1: been the do everything person, I was like, Okay, well,
25:30
Speaker 1: I'll do heptathlon in college, and then the rest of
25:32
Speaker 1: my life. I'll play tennis because I did usta tennis
25:35
Speaker 1: in before I got to high school. I'll play tennis
25:38
Speaker 1: forever in my into my eighties. I'll take up running
25:42
Speaker 1: marathons and half marathons for fun. I'll be able to
25:46
Speaker 1: play basketball pick up whenever I want field hockey like
25:48
Speaker 1: kind of harder. Not gonna find a lot of pickup games,
25:50
Speaker 1: but you know, go out and you know, hit around,
25:53
Speaker 1: and I've gotten so many cool off I got offered
25:56
Speaker 1: to play in Me and Hamm and Alex Morgan's charity
25:58
Speaker 1: soccer game Can't Do It, got offered to play in
26:01
Speaker 1: the unrivaled celebrity game Can't Do It.
26:04
Speaker 3: Can't.
26:04
Speaker 1: Just like this guy at the LeBatard show that I
26:07
Speaker 1: used to do all the time at ESPN, thought it'd
26:09
Speaker 1: be funny if I competed against a bunch of the
26:10
Speaker 1: guys from the show in like a mini heptathlon, just
26:13
Speaker 1: to be like, y'all have no idea who you're dealing
26:15
Speaker 1: with here as you think that you're like athletes. And
26:17
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't. I can't do any of
26:20
Speaker 1: those things, and it sucks. It's such a huge part
26:24
Speaker 1: of my identity. And even though I think every athlete
26:27
Speaker 1: gets older and has to figure out like what they
26:29
Speaker 1: can still do.
26:30
Speaker 3: I can't really do anything.
26:32
Speaker 1: And I am just still plugging along with my pet
26:36
Speaker 1: and my trainer and trying to figure out, like there's
26:39
Speaker 1: actually this woman who like fixed suberd and mega Repeto
26:42
Speaker 1: and Breanda Stewart and all these pro athletes, and I
26:44
Speaker 1: had her on my podcast, and I'm like, I will
26:46
Speaker 1: spend whatever money it costs to fly out to Portland,
26:48
Speaker 1: spend the day with you and see if there's anything
26:50
Speaker 1: we can do. I've already been to eight different doctors.
26:53
Speaker 1: I don't think that we're fixing anything overnight, but maybe
26:55
Speaker 1: there's something that you see in there that like can
26:58
Speaker 1: just get me back to being I just want to
26:59
Speaker 1: Like I'm not even allowed to pay pickaball. I just
27:02
Speaker 1: want to play something and like compete at something and
27:05
Speaker 1: get better at something.
27:06
Speaker 3: And golf is hard because it takes all day.
27:08
Speaker 1: But right now that's the only thing that in theory
27:10
Speaker 1: I could be, like, let me get into golf and
27:12
Speaker 1: like see myself get better and work at it and
27:14
Speaker 1: improve and compete.
27:15
Speaker 2: Like that's what I missed the most, the competing.
27:18
Speaker 3: Competing and like being on a team. Yeah. I love
27:21
Speaker 3: being on a team.
27:22
Speaker 1: I love going out there and like having a shared
27:24
Speaker 1: goal and like, even if it's just for fun, I
27:26
Speaker 1: also am like problematically competitive.
27:30
Speaker 3: Like you laugh and sometimes I laugh, but like.
27:33
Speaker 2: I give me an example.
27:35
Speaker 1: Okay, I had an experience a couple of months ago,
27:37
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is a problem, Sarah. We
27:38
Speaker 1: were playing pictionary with my family. I was gonna yell
27:43
Speaker 1: at an eight year old like I was seeing red,
27:46
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is because you have no outlet.
27:48
Speaker 1: You have nowhere to put this, you have nowhere to
27:51
Speaker 1: do this, so that over here can be fun. So
27:53
Speaker 1: like I'm too competitive at board games. I'm too competitive,
27:57
Speaker 1: you know, playing pool at a bar or playing darts,
27:59
Speaker 1: like I hate losing so bad, but i have nothing
28:02
Speaker 1: to win at. So then I'm just like taking this
28:05
Speaker 1: energy around to places and like I have to before
28:08
Speaker 1: everything be like.
28:08
Speaker 3: This is fun, everyone's having fun.
28:10
Speaker 1: So now my friends are like you are right over there,
28:12
Speaker 1: I'm like fun, and I know that it wouldn't be
28:16
Speaker 1: that way if I could just get it out somewhere
28:18
Speaker 1: where it's allowed and it makes sense.
28:20
Speaker 2: You know. It's interesting though, because if I was to
28:22
Speaker 2: sit here and say, well, you could start like a
28:25
Speaker 2: Chicago Woman's chess league, like yeah, the same, but it's
28:28
Speaker 2: not the same.
28:29
Speaker 3: It's not the same. Now, it's like the moving.
28:31
Speaker 1: And also, like, listen, I'm around the best athletes in
28:35
Speaker 1: the world now, so I'm not saying this in a
28:37
Speaker 1: like in an unaware way, but like in the grand
28:41
Speaker 1: scheme of life, I just grew up and I was
28:43
Speaker 1: good at all sports. I wasn't gonna be an Olympian.
28:45
Speaker 1: There's plenty of people way better than me at things.
28:47
Speaker 1: But like whatever sport it was, I would try it
28:49
Speaker 1: and I would be the best, and like that becomes
28:52
Speaker 1: who you are, is like, oh, how fun is it.
28:54
Speaker 3: To like go play this thing or play amongst other
28:57
Speaker 3: great people.
28:57
Speaker 1: Like when I got to like high levels of national AU,
28:59
Speaker 1: I wasn't the best, and I still loved learning from
29:02
Speaker 1: my teammates who were better than me, but like not
29:05
Speaker 1: being able to do that in a physical way, not
29:08
Speaker 1: being able to go out and like use my body
29:10
Speaker 1: in a way that like I trained it forever to
29:12
Speaker 1: do these things for me, Like I tried to play
29:16
Speaker 1: paddleball with some friends, which my trainer was like, please
29:18
Speaker 1: don't do that. I'm like it'll be I promise I
29:20
Speaker 1: won't like dive or whatever. And at one point I
29:22
Speaker 1: did try to, like go, it's the kind where you
29:24
Speaker 1: can play it off the like wire wall in the back.
29:27
Speaker 1: It's like a winter raquetball kind of thing outside And
29:31
Speaker 1: I went to turn and reach, thinking I'd be able
29:33
Speaker 1: to pull myself back up, but like I don't do
29:35
Speaker 1: those movements anymore. My body doesn't do that anymore. And
29:38
Speaker 1: I literally fell like face first into this wire and
29:41
Speaker 1: like cut my face, my knee, my hand because I
29:45
Speaker 1: just my brain was like this is we can do that,
29:49
Speaker 1: and it doesn't do that anymore. It's like the extreme
29:51
Speaker 1: version of like when you go play beach volleyball and
29:53
Speaker 1: you jump way too early because you're like thinking you're
29:55
Speaker 1: gonna keep going up, but you start going down.
29:57
Speaker 3: Much sooner than you thought. It's like that, but it's
29:59
Speaker 3: like not even safe. At times.
30:00
Speaker 1: I can't even trust my body the way you do,
30:02
Speaker 1: because I can't do the things that make it what
30:05
Speaker 1: it was.
30:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
30:06
Speaker 2: I mean again, so understandable here that you're in this
30:09
Speaker 2: place where you're both trying to come up with new
30:12
Speaker 2: solutions and still undeniably almost forever in this state of
30:16
Speaker 2: mourning of what was right. So as you now recognize
30:21
Speaker 2: that you do need to take care of your mental health,
30:23
Speaker 2: how do you make up for that? What do you
30:25
Speaker 2: do in replacement of that?
30:28
Speaker 1: I mean, number one, the replacements are things that at
30:32
Speaker 1: least I know are go to healthy choices like long
30:36
Speaker 1: long walks, and especially as you get older, that's just
30:39
Speaker 1: something you should have as a habit anyway, because you
30:43
Speaker 1: will start to not be able to do quite all
30:45
Speaker 1: the things that you want to everybody.
30:46
Speaker 3: Not just me.
30:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean I do find outlets that allow
30:52
Speaker 1: me to like still move my body in a way
30:53
Speaker 1: that feels therapeutic and necessary.
30:55
Speaker 3: I also am just lucky, like I don't really on
31:00
Speaker 3: things too long.
31:01
Speaker 1: Like I said at the very beginning, I have a
31:03
Speaker 1: very natural just like positivity, and I'm very grateful that
31:07
Speaker 1: my brain goes that way. But also I've done some
31:10
Speaker 1: work into like neuroplasticity and understanding how you can train
31:13
Speaker 1: your brain to like go looking for things to be
31:15
Speaker 1: grateful for, go looking for the positive, and like spin
31:18
Speaker 1: you out of sadness if you start.
31:19
Speaker 3: To go that way.
31:21
Speaker 1: So between what I was naturally gifted with and like
31:23
Speaker 1: working on it, I don't see any point in sitting
31:27
Speaker 1: around and being like I'm so sad I can't do
31:29
Speaker 1: that anymore. I'm more likely to be like, I'm so
31:32
Speaker 1: grateful I can still go on the peloton, go for
31:36
Speaker 1: a walk. You know, I have functioning arms and legs,
31:39
Speaker 1: like there's people who have it so much tougher, and
31:41
Speaker 1: so that kind of gratitude and like looking for the
31:44
Speaker 1: positive is a great way to constantly keep my mental
31:46
Speaker 1: health like.
31:47
Speaker 3: In the right place.
31:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's like finding another thing
31:52
Speaker 1: is going to that inferno hot pilates class.
31:54
Speaker 3: It is a challenge.
31:54
Speaker 1: There are parts of it that I can tell when
31:56
Speaker 1: I'm going regularly or easier, so that feels like, you know, oh,
32:00
Speaker 1: I'm working towards something, but also knowing when it's like
32:03
Speaker 1: don't do that mm hm, like no one in the
32:05
Speaker 1: class cares, no one's watching you, like, oh, Sarah didn't
32:09
Speaker 1: do the you know whatever today, And so sometimes being
32:12
Speaker 1: like this isn't working a muscle, I can tell it's
32:14
Speaker 1: not working a muscle, it's messing up a joint. Yeah,
32:16
Speaker 1: and then it's going to keep me from doing my
32:18
Speaker 1: other workouts this week. So like get out of your
32:20
Speaker 1: ego head and just pick a different exercise that's similar
32:24
Speaker 1: and don't force it. And like that's something I've also
32:26
Speaker 1: had to learn in that class because it comes back
32:28
Speaker 1: to that like adrenaline competitive where I'm like I'm going
32:31
Speaker 1: to beat the person next to me in this plank. Yeah,
32:33
Speaker 1: and then if it's not a muscle anymore, if I
32:36
Speaker 1: feel something that starts to hurt, it's like you're not
32:38
Speaker 1: helping yourself, Like, who are you trying to prove something?
32:41
Speaker 1: To do something else? Get on your back and do
32:44
Speaker 1: some bicycles, et cetera, whatever it is, so that you're
32:46
Speaker 1: working the muscle you're aiming for instead of staying in
32:48
Speaker 1: the plank and feeling your back hurt and then regretting
32:50
Speaker 1: it later.
32:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's good that you have that background as
32:53
Speaker 2: an athlete because you have a general understanding of exactly
32:55
Speaker 2: what you're saying, what muscle groups are trying to target.
32:57
Speaker 1: Here.
32:58
Speaker 2: When I can't do A, I can do B instead.
33:01
Speaker 2: I also really appreciate your focus on gratitude. When would
33:05
Speaker 2: you say you got to a place in your life
33:08
Speaker 2: that you had a really good understanding of just how
33:10
Speaker 2: much having gratitude could do for you.
33:15
Speaker 3: It's interesting.
33:16
Speaker 1: I definitely had a bit of judgment about people, sort
33:19
Speaker 1: of like believing that everyone had a generally same vibe
33:24
Speaker 1: end point of view, Like I just am so lucky.
33:27
Speaker 1: I grew up in such a great place with a
33:28
Speaker 1: great family. I had so many opportunities I've had, you know,
33:32
Speaker 1: such a wonderful life free of you know, real serious
33:37
Speaker 1: trauma and tragedy, and I sort of would judge people's
33:41
Speaker 1: decision making without really fully understanding how so many aspects
33:46
Speaker 1: of your life can lead you to wanna self medicate
33:49
Speaker 1: or engage in risky behavior, like why would people do that?
33:53
Speaker 1: And then I realized later as I got more into
33:55
Speaker 1: understanding psychology and neuroplasticity and generational trauma and all the
33:58
Speaker 1: other things that I just found fat stating to like
34:00
Speaker 1: start digging into why people are the way they are,
34:02
Speaker 1: that I realized that, like, not everyone has dealt the
34:05
Speaker 1: same hand. And so instead of patting myself on the
34:08
Speaker 1: back for what I've done, just being grateful, like, wow,
34:11
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that I was born with a brain
34:15
Speaker 1: that seeks happiness and positivity, that I was born with
34:19
Speaker 1: parents that didn't send me running to therapy to figure
34:22
Speaker 1: out how to undo things that they had even without
34:24
Speaker 1: intention done that you know, cause lifelong issues. So I think,
34:30
Speaker 1: you know, this corporate lawyer turned hot yoga studio owner
34:34
Speaker 1: that I met through my friend Kylie where I take
34:36
Speaker 1: those Infernal Plates classes, did a presentation that he uh
34:40
Speaker 1: often does for fellow lawyers and corporate retreats and stuff
34:44
Speaker 1: understanding why people who have quote unquote adversarial minds. So
34:49
Speaker 1: people who work in law, in insurance actuaries, people whose
34:53
Speaker 1: job it is to look for the worst thing that
34:55
Speaker 1: could happen, can unintentionally train their brain to do that
34:59
Speaker 1: all the time.
35:00
Speaker 3: You're at work all day. What's the worst that can happen.
35:02
Speaker 3: Let me go there, Let me go there.
35:03
Speaker 1: Your brain's like, okay, cool, let me make some short
35:04
Speaker 1: cuts so you get there faster. Then you go to
35:06
Speaker 1: dinner with your family later, and your brain's still doing that. Right,
35:09
Speaker 1: So how come all these lawyers that he knew that
35:11
Speaker 1: had a lot of money, that had their dream jobs
35:13
Speaker 1: were dying by suicide or having depression issues. We're struggling,
35:17
Speaker 1: and he was trying to find the why and recognize
35:20
Speaker 1: this brain pattern that's this repetition of their job was
35:24
Speaker 1: needing to be offset by intentional work in another direction.
35:27
Speaker 1: And neuroplasticity is only a couple decades old, but it's
35:30
Speaker 1: essentially that you can actually train your brain and create
35:32
Speaker 1: synapses and bridges from one to the other. If you
35:35
Speaker 1: do something often enough, your brain wants to get there
35:37
Speaker 1: faster neurons that wire together fire together. So let's say
35:40
Speaker 1: you always thinking of Lisa Leslie always does squats when
35:44
Speaker 1: she brushes her teeth. So she puts her electric toothbrush
35:46
Speaker 1: on and does squats until it runs out, and eventually
35:49
Speaker 1: she doesn't have to think about it anymore. She just
35:50
Speaker 1: starts brushing her teeth and she does the squats right,
35:52
Speaker 1: or for the average person, just brushing your teeth, you
35:56
Speaker 1: wake up, you don't even think about it.
35:57
Speaker 3: You grab the toothbrush.
35:59
Speaker 1: That's because you've told your brain over and over enough
36:01
Speaker 1: days in a row when we wake up and walk
36:02
Speaker 1: in the bathroom the first thing we do. So you
36:04
Speaker 1: can do that. You can drive home and not remember
36:06
Speaker 1: because you were like, oh, I just have it plugged in.
36:10
Speaker 1: You can do that with purpose for things like gratitude practice.
36:13
Speaker 1: And if you don't naturally go looking for delights all day,
36:16
Speaker 1: you can pick it days to do that over and over.
36:19
Speaker 1: I'm going to look for ten delights today, and if
36:21
Speaker 1: you do that often enough, your brain will start to
36:22
Speaker 1: do it for you. So learning about that, I was like,
36:26
Speaker 1: how many people would benefit from this if their brain
36:29
Speaker 1: doesn't do that for them naturally, which then opened the
36:31
Speaker 1: door to me to start thinking about all the ways
36:33
Speaker 1: people are handed things that I wasn't And that's when
36:36
Speaker 1: I was really like, holy, how my natural gratitude has
36:39
Speaker 1: afforded me a million things, whether that's not sitting and
36:43
Speaker 1: pondering what could have been when it comes to a
36:46
Speaker 1: comedy career or my athlete career or my achilles like
36:51
Speaker 1: just a constant How lucky am I that I still
36:53
Speaker 1: have all of this?
36:55
Speaker 2: So it's constant? But also is there any specific dialed
36:59
Speaker 2: in daily gratitude practice aside from being cognizant?
37:02
Speaker 1: You know the one that kind of start out I
37:04
Speaker 1: used to I can't do yoga anymore, which makes me
37:06
Speaker 1: really sad because.
37:06
Speaker 3: I love it, but I'm not allowed to do forward bends.
37:09
Speaker 2: Huh.
37:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's part of my back.
37:11
Speaker 1: It started having being down through my sciatica because it
37:14
Speaker 1: was like too much pain in my back, so it
37:16
Speaker 1: sent it into my leg. Anyway, Eventually, hopefully one day
37:18
Speaker 1: I'll get back to yoga because I love it and
37:20
Speaker 1: also a great place to like do challenging things and
37:22
Speaker 1: know you're getting better.
37:23
Speaker 3: I'm doing a bird's Paradise. Yeah, but my one yoga teacher,
37:28
Speaker 3: I love that in Savasna.
37:29
Speaker 1: After every class she would do basically a gratitude practice
37:32
Speaker 1: without naming that. It would be how lucky are you
37:34
Speaker 1: that you got here today on this mat? How lucky
37:36
Speaker 1: are you that you have arms and legs that let
37:38
Speaker 1: you do this? How lucky? And it made me leave
37:41
Speaker 1: always thinking about it, and then I don't have to
37:44
Speaker 1: do it every day. It happens all the time. It
37:47
Speaker 1: is a NonStop. It's funny. How like today I walked
37:52
Speaker 1: out after getting my hair and makeup done for this
37:54
Speaker 1: photo shoot we did, and it was really windy, but
37:56
Speaker 1: not so windy that it messed up my hair.
37:58
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, it's windy.
37:59
Speaker 1: That's annoying, but not too windy, and thank god it's
38:01
Speaker 1: not raining, Like that's just what it does. Instead of
38:04
Speaker 1: going I'm so mad it's windy, it immediately goes I'm
38:06
Speaker 1: so happy it's not raining. If I'm in traffic, like, oh,
38:10
Speaker 1: I'm so annoyed I'm in traffic, but I'm really enjoying
38:12
Speaker 1: this podcast and now we'll get to finish it. Or oh,
38:14
Speaker 1: thank god, I'm in traffic on this day and I'm
38:15
Speaker 1: not in a rush to get somewhere. It just does
38:18
Speaker 1: it for me now all the time, it's a fricking gift.
38:22
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
38:23
Speaker 2: It's amazing. There's glimmers everywhere if you're only willing to
38:26
Speaker 2: look around and notice. Right for me, I try to
38:30
Speaker 2: write a page every morning. And when we're talking about
38:33
Speaker 2: habits sacking here, so for me, my habit sack is
38:36
Speaker 2: go to the bathroom, brush my teeth. While I'm brushing
38:39
Speaker 2: the teeth, put in an espresso pod. Finish brushing the teeth,
38:42
Speaker 2: get an espresso pod, walk over to the couch, do
38:44
Speaker 2: the journaling practice. At the end of the journaling practice,
38:47
Speaker 2: I write down one good thing that happened in the
38:49
Speaker 2: last twenty four hours. So that's where I'm cognizant of
38:53
Speaker 2: what good is happening in my life. And on the
38:55
Speaker 2: days where I feel incapable of articulating what that good
38:58
Speaker 2: thing is, well, that's a flag for me of where's
39:01
Speaker 2: your presence? Why aren't you where your feet are that
39:04
Speaker 2: you can't come up with one good thing that happened?
39:06
Speaker 3: And what are you stuck on?
39:08
Speaker 2: Right?
39:08
Speaker 3: What are you stuck on? What is it worth being
39:09
Speaker 3: stuck on?
39:10
Speaker 1: And sometimes it is sometimes you have a real bad day, yeah,
39:12
Speaker 1: which sometimes you're like this is not now right?
39:15
Speaker 3: Am I dwelling on this exactly?
39:17
Speaker 2: So like, find some good there, so I can hear
39:20
Speaker 2: what you're saying and really empathize with this need to
39:23
Speaker 2: look around yourself and say, but there's so much good
39:26
Speaker 2: here if I'm just willing to look at it. I
39:28
Speaker 2: also really appreciate what you were saying. I haven't had
39:31
Speaker 2: anything profoundly awful that's happened to me. Although if you
39:35
Speaker 2: were to take a step back and look at some
39:37
Speaker 2: of the things that you've dealt with, I mean, you
39:39
Speaker 2: noted maybe not loving the way that you left ESPN.
39:41
Speaker 2: You noted talking about that injury in college and that
39:44
Speaker 2: surgery and having one calf that's two and a half
39:45
Speaker 2: inches smaller than the other half.
39:47
Speaker 3: I was a singer. I had to get surgery in
39:48
Speaker 3: my vocal cords, and now I can't say you do
39:50
Speaker 3: you have noes?
39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I have nodes actively they're in there right now.
39:53
Speaker 3: I mean I do too.
39:54
Speaker 2: They came back after the surgery, because is why we
39:57
Speaker 2: have radio voice, Yes, exactly. But what I'm saying is
40:01
Speaker 2: that you've had Yeah. No, I could do all analogis
40:04
Speaker 2: and you're not viewing them in that way still there
40:09
Speaker 2: have been I'm sure many a challenge in both your
40:12
Speaker 2: career at ESPN and then of course now in this
40:14
Speaker 2: chapter here, when you think about your time at ESPN,
40:17
Speaker 2: especially you know, coming up when you did and really
40:20
Speaker 2: being one of the leading voices when it came to
40:22
Speaker 2: the way that we speak about women's sports and the
40:24
Speaker 2: amplification of women's sports, talk to me about perhaps the
40:27
Speaker 2: biggest hurdle there.
40:30
Speaker 1: I mean, gosh, it's it's the sexual harassment and disrespect.
40:35
Speaker 1: I mean, I came out of school with a naivete
40:40
Speaker 1: and I guess maybe it was a little bit too
40:43
Speaker 1: self indulgent, but the idea of like, oh, I'm an
40:45
Speaker 1: IVY League grad Division I athlete, so of course when
40:47
Speaker 1: I go work in sports, people will be like, she
40:50
Speaker 1: knows their stuff, and she worked hard and she deserves
40:51
Speaker 1: to be here. And instead, just like every other woman
40:54
Speaker 1: who's been in the biz, I guarantee you there's probably
40:57
Speaker 1: not a single one who after enough years hasn't had
41:00
Speaker 1: some experience of sexual harassment.
41:05
Speaker 3: I was shocked that it happened to me. I literally
41:07
Speaker 3: was on the way to an interview before I ever
41:10
Speaker 3: got a big break.
41:11
Speaker 1: But I was going to interview for one, and I
41:13
Speaker 1: was reading a book about old school early ESPN that
41:16
Speaker 1: was about how they used to call it the man
41:18
Speaker 1: aquarium and how it was like there were so few
41:20
Speaker 1: women and it was really hard and there was all
41:22
Speaker 1: these dudes that had issues with you know, harassment and stuff,
41:25
Speaker 1: and I was like, that's terrible, not going to be
41:27
Speaker 1: me right, Like I just didn't think like people, Oh,
41:30
Speaker 1: you were going to work in sports, that seems like
41:31
Speaker 1: a lot with and I was like, oh, I'm used
41:33
Speaker 1: to being around dudes like I'm sporty, spice, you know whatever.
41:36
Speaker 3: And it sucked.
41:38
Speaker 1: It was so frustrating and also really knocked me off
41:42
Speaker 1: my axis early on to be doubted in that way
41:45
Speaker 1: because I felt like I had put in all the
41:47
Speaker 1: work to prove myself and I had earned anything I got.
41:51
Speaker 1: And it became about number one aesthetics, like do you
41:54
Speaker 1: look the part? And I'm like to talk about sports
41:57
Speaker 1: like and I mean, I now have fake elow, just
42:00
Speaker 1: fake hair, I whiten my teeth, like I try to
42:03
Speaker 1: do as much as I can to be allowed to stay.
42:05
Speaker 1: But I'm also back to I like, I have one
42:07
Speaker 1: wild and precious life. I'm not spending it all day
42:11
Speaker 1: fixating on how to make myself look different so that
42:13
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to talk about basketball.
42:15
Speaker 3: That's dumb.
42:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hate that, Or like my weight, like I've
42:20
Speaker 1: had every diet in the book, I've had eating disorders,
42:22
Speaker 1: I've I'm not supposed to be a twig.
42:24
Speaker 3: I'm never going to be a twig. It's not gonna happen.
42:27
Speaker 3: Trust me. If I was doing three hour workouts every
42:29
Speaker 3: day for heptathlon.
42:30
Speaker 1: And eating only vegetables and I didn't weigh one hundred pounds,
42:32
Speaker 1: it's not happening. And so how much of my life
42:35
Speaker 1: do I want to waste being sad about that? Or
42:37
Speaker 1: do I want to be like, hey, I'm gonna make
42:39
Speaker 1: it regardless of that. And if I miss out on
42:40
Speaker 1: jobs that they're hiring based on looks, great, cool.
42:44
Speaker 3: Let me go get a job based on brain, that's it.
42:46
Speaker 1: That's what I have to offer, right, And so I
42:49
Speaker 1: think early on I had to suffer through all of
42:51
Speaker 1: that first to just be like f that, like, you're
42:56
Speaker 1: not keeping me out of this business because you either literally,
43:00
Speaker 1: on one of my interviews, tried to kiss me and
43:02
Speaker 1: then graphically described what our sex would be like.
43:04
Speaker 3: And then I didn't get the job.
43:06
Speaker 1: And now I always have to wonder if it's because
43:07
Speaker 1: I pushed you away and said please don't do that,
43:09
Speaker 1: like this is professional, Like that's not going to keep
43:12
Speaker 1: me from working in this business. Because a colleague of
43:16
Speaker 1: mine got asked by an up and coming reporter like,
43:19
Speaker 1: I really like the work Sara Spain's doing, Like do
43:20
Speaker 1: you have any advice how I could get started and
43:22
Speaker 1: being like the early level like her? And he said
43:24
Speaker 1: start by dressing like her. And I wore a sweatshirt
43:27
Speaker 1: to work every day it was radio. I could not
43:29
Speaker 1: have been more of a schlub, and his vision of
43:32
Speaker 1: me was always going to be that, regardless of my behavior.
43:35
Speaker 3: And when I told my boss like, hey, I didn't
43:37
Speaker 3: like that, he was like, oh, he's being funny, right.
43:40
Speaker 1: Constantly over and over again, a constant microaggression every second.
43:44
Speaker 1: The second day of my radio gig at ESPN one thousand,
43:47
Speaker 1: all I did was updates for a minute, like three
43:51
Speaker 1: times an hour. I immediately started getting like, I hope your
43:54
Speaker 1: dog gets hit by a car. I hope your husband
43:56
Speaker 1: beats you. You don't belong here, who did you blow
43:58
Speaker 1: to get here?
43:59
Speaker 3: Like it was a.
44:02
Speaker 1: Sort of unfathomable to me. I just didn't understand why
44:04
Speaker 1: people were so mad that I just existed. And then
44:07
Speaker 1: I was like, and screw them, and I belong here,
44:11
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna prove it. I'm gonna be so good
44:12
Speaker 1: at this that they can't say no to me. And
44:15
Speaker 1: that just was like a constant every day, put one
44:17
Speaker 1: foot in front of the other and do what I'd
44:19
Speaker 1: always done, which is just outwork everyone. Yeah, show up
44:22
Speaker 1: and outwork everyone, and be over prepared and be smarter
44:26
Speaker 1: and better and funnier, and bring as much as I
44:28
Speaker 1: could to the table so that if they tried to
44:30
Speaker 1: say I didn't belong, they at least had to be
44:34
Speaker 1: making up stuff. They couldn't say, look at this mistake
44:36
Speaker 1: you made. Yeah, you know, which is a lot of pressure.
44:39
Speaker 1: I mean, women in this business, you make a mistake
44:41
Speaker 1: and you've taken out the whole gender, like one mistake.
44:44
Speaker 1: This is why women shouldn't It's like, wait, wait, that.
44:46
Speaker 3: Was just me, just me who did that? Just the one?
44:48
Speaker 3: Sorry all women.
44:50
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean it did take a long time
44:52
Speaker 1: for me to just have the not only the agency
44:56
Speaker 1: and voice and like experience for people to believe that
44:59
Speaker 1: about me. But for me to say about myself, stop
45:03
Speaker 1: doubting that you belong here? How one of them is
45:06
Speaker 1: my One of my mentors is Dan LeBatard. He's a
45:10
Speaker 1: multi award winning, super successful legend of the radio podcast
45:14
Speaker 1: Game and he would actively during his shows call it
45:17
Speaker 1: out if he didn't know something, something obvious that you
45:20
Speaker 1: would think someone in his job would need to know.
45:22
Speaker 3: Like he would be funny about it. He'd be like, yeah,
45:24
Speaker 3: the Grizzlies, did you say that game less night? Blah blah?
45:26
Speaker 1: Their coach? Who's their coach? Who does anyone here know
45:29
Speaker 1: who coaches the Memphis Grizzlies. And instead of embarrassment, he
45:33
Speaker 1: just owned it and with confidence, was like, I don't
45:35
Speaker 1: need to know all the things all the time.
45:37
Speaker 3: That's not possible.
45:38
Speaker 1: Anyone who claims they do is faking it, because this
45:40
Speaker 1: business makes you fake that you know all the things
45:43
Speaker 1: all the time, and you'll get great producers that help
45:45
Speaker 1: you prep and you know every once a while, like
45:47
Speaker 1: I remember Stephen A. Smith one time was talking about
45:49
Speaker 1: how great a guy had been all season. He'd been
45:51
Speaker 1: on IR all season. He probably went and found an
45:53
Speaker 1: old article from the season before, didn't realize it was
45:56
Speaker 1: old and was taken all that info and pretending like
45:58
Speaker 1: he'd been watching you got a face it sometimes in
46:00
Speaker 1: this biz and being able to just say I don't know,
46:04
Speaker 1: and I still belong here, and I still know a
46:06
Speaker 1: lot of things, and I still have a lot to
46:07
Speaker 1: offer was a gift for me.
46:09
Speaker 3: And watching Dan do that.
46:10
Speaker 1: I know he's a man and he had been in
46:12
Speaker 1: a different place, so I couldn't do it just like that,
46:14
Speaker 1: but I could sort of take my foot off the
46:16
Speaker 1: gas and be like, it's okay to figure out what
46:20
Speaker 1: you bring and what you offer and not have it
46:23
Speaker 1: be all the things. You don't have to be the
46:25
Speaker 1: smartest and the best at stats and the funniest and
46:27
Speaker 1: the one who is the most about history and the
46:28
Speaker 1: one just relax And once I just was okay with
46:35
Speaker 1: what I knew I could bring, then I didn't worry
46:38
Speaker 1: as much about what I couldn't.
46:56
Speaker 2: There were moments, maybe in that job at the patient
47:00
Speaker 2: moment or that job moment, where you were interviewing and
47:02
Speaker 2: you were like, this isn't going to be for me.
47:04
Speaker 2: There are moments that you maybe were able to remove
47:06
Speaker 2: yourself from a situation that was anything but what you
47:10
Speaker 2: deserved and I'm sure also moments that you were incapable
47:14
Speaker 2: of walking away from frustrating things about how people were
47:19
Speaker 2: treating or speaking to you. How did you keep showing
47:23
Speaker 2: up anyway and find your own joy when it felt
47:26
Speaker 2: like that was being robbed of you.
47:29
Speaker 1: I think the thing that I'm finding out more and
47:31
Speaker 1: more the older I get is and I don't I
47:35
Speaker 1: credit my parents for this. They're always like, I don't
47:37
Speaker 1: know why you always say that we didn't do anything.
47:38
Speaker 1: I'm like, you guys nailed it. But I have such
47:42
Speaker 1: a deep belief and trust in myself, Like I trust
47:49
Speaker 1: my gut and how I feel without a doubt, and
47:54
Speaker 1: I have for almost my whole life. It's just this
47:57
Speaker 1: like deep knowing inside of me, and it's shown up
48:01
Speaker 1: in a million different ways. Like I didn't drink till
48:03
Speaker 1: I was like a junior in college because I was like,
48:04
Speaker 1: I don't think I want that yet, and I'm not
48:08
Speaker 1: going to be peer pressured into it and I won't
48:10
Speaker 1: feel bad. My dad was like, oh, do you want
48:12
Speaker 1: to like hold a cup and pretend. I'm like, I
48:13
Speaker 1: don't really care. I don't really care if people think
48:16
Speaker 1: I do or not. Like I'm just not going to
48:18
Speaker 1: be pressured into stuff that I don't think is quite right,
48:20
Speaker 1: and then when it is right, Okay, I'm gonna do that,
48:22
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna choose that, or I'm gonna and so
48:24
Speaker 1: the idea that like I would be like this is
48:26
Speaker 1: the career I want and somebody else being a piece
48:29
Speaker 1: of shit would prevent me from it. Absolutely not, or
48:33
Speaker 1: even people on the internet you shouldn't belong here, or
48:38
Speaker 1: you're a woman, you shouldn't do this, or especially when
48:41
Speaker 1: I'm talking about really touchy issues or controversial issues, the
48:44
Speaker 1: most pushback I get is always what I'm talking about,
48:47
Speaker 1: sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, women's issues, women's empowerment, women's sports,
48:52
Speaker 1: Like any intersection between men and women is the thing
48:55
Speaker 1: that triggers the most anger and death threats and all
48:58
Speaker 1: the stuff.
48:58
Speaker 3: And if I ever thought I was wrong.
49:02
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I'm on the wrong side of this, it
49:06
Speaker 1: would be harder to take all that. But when I'm
49:09
Speaker 1: getting attacked for wanting to have thoughtful conversations about why, say,
49:14
Speaker 1: NFL players will say we're a family and speak up
49:17
Speaker 1: and defend their teammate who just got arrested for domestic violence.
49:21
Speaker 1: But we'll say it's a distraction if someone's gay and
49:24
Speaker 1: they should be off the team, or we'll never speak up.
49:28
Speaker 3: If there's someone who doesn't want to wear.
49:31
Speaker 1: Pride stuff and you know they're just like picking and choosing,
49:35
Speaker 1: and I want to have a conversation about it, and
49:37
Speaker 1: you want to give me death threats or say I
49:39
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm right. Let's have this conversation about why
49:43
Speaker 1: no one will stand up for Colin Kaepernick and everyone
49:46
Speaker 1: will stand up for ray Rice, Like, let's talk about it.
49:49
Speaker 1: What's the difference?
49:50
Speaker 3: Right?
49:51
Speaker 1: And I think if you know and feel rooted in yourself,
49:55
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to then look at thing, especially
50:00
Speaker 1: when they're wrong. You know they're wrong, Like you shouldn't
50:02
Speaker 1: sexually arrest me. You shouldn't not be giving me this opportunity,
50:05
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be treating me like this. You figure out
50:07
Speaker 1: how to play the game, because that's required. You figure
50:09
Speaker 1: out how to not emasculate men by calling them out.
50:12
Speaker 1: You use humor to get out of situations that you
50:15
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to be in, and then you just for me,
50:18
Speaker 1: get even more determined to go do the thing that
50:20
Speaker 1: you wanted to do that you will not let them
50:23
Speaker 1: get in the way of.
50:25
Speaker 2: It sounds a little tiring exhausting, right, And.
50:28
Speaker 3: It's funny this.
50:29
Speaker 1: The thing that I said in the first six months
50:32
Speaker 1: or so of Good Game of Sarah Spain was like,
50:34
Speaker 1: I am built to swim upstream, but holy shit, is
50:37
Speaker 1: it nice to just.
50:39
Speaker 3: Lazy river it for a while? Yeah, and be like.
50:42
Speaker 1: Surrounded by people who agree and want to help women's
50:45
Speaker 1: sports and believe in it and are in the space
50:47
Speaker 1: and understand it and like want to talk about it
50:49
Speaker 1: instead of it being this constant can we talk about this?
50:53
Speaker 3: Oh? Can we cover this?
50:54
Speaker 2: Ooh?
50:54
Speaker 3: Should we do something about this? Oh? What about over
50:57
Speaker 3: and over for years and years.
50:58
Speaker 2: Yes, And it's still exhausting though to think about that.
51:03
Speaker 2: That open portal for communication is always there. There are
51:07
Speaker 2: always going to be people that have something to say
51:09
Speaker 2: about the things that you're saying, the people that you're
51:10
Speaker 2: standing up for your hot takes, right, and to keep
51:14
Speaker 2: showing up anyway. I just want you to know on
51:19
Speaker 2: I'm sure behalf of so many people that listen that like,
51:21
Speaker 2: we see you, and you're doing important work. And the
51:24
Speaker 2: best thing that we can do for one another is
51:27
Speaker 2: a understand that everyone's fighting battles that we had no
51:31
Speaker 2: idea what's going on, and be like, the intention is good.
51:38
Speaker 2: And that is something that I find so important when
51:41
Speaker 2: it comes to interviewing people and getting different perspectives. It's like,
51:45
Speaker 2: all we can do is assume good intent until there
51:49
Speaker 2: is reason to believe otherwise. Right, And so you're showing
51:51
Speaker 2: up with your intentions. You're showing up with every hope
51:54
Speaker 2: to improve the conversations that are happening around the game,
51:58
Speaker 2: and you know that's all you can do.
52:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Like, the one thing I'll say about the
52:01
Speaker 1: women's sports space that I'm still adjusting to now is
52:05
Speaker 1: because there's an absence of established voices and places. There
52:10
Speaker 1: isn't Sports Center, There isn't like the Adam Schefter that
52:12
Speaker 1: everyone knows if he says it, it's until more recently
52:15
Speaker 1: there's been some issues with that, but if he says it,
52:17
Speaker 1: it's fully accurate and veted its or just like I
52:20
Speaker 1: want that to happen for the women's sports space. But
52:22
Speaker 1: right now, there's too many people that give the same
52:24
Speaker 1: weight to someone they read on Twitter as to someone
52:26
Speaker 1: who's a journalist. Yeah, and it's creating a lot of
52:29
Speaker 1: toxicity rooted in rumor mongering and guessing, and then people
52:35
Speaker 1: thinking you have an agenda because they read a thing.
52:38
Speaker 1: And I'm not on the reddits, I'm not on the
52:40
Speaker 1: message boards, I'm not on Twitter anymore.
52:42
Speaker 3: I'm not in those spaces.
52:43
Speaker 1: I'm talking to the coaches and players, I'm talking to
52:46
Speaker 1: the journalists, and whatever I'm saying on my show is
52:48
Speaker 1: rooted in that I'm not carrying water for people. I'm
52:51
Speaker 1: not helping someone in a beef with someone else. And
52:54
Speaker 1: when I get accused of that, I'm like, I don't
52:56
Speaker 1: know what.
52:56
Speaker 3: To tell y'all.
52:57
Speaker 1: I don't have time to be up in your mess
53:00
Speaker 1: boards and figure out that you think that this player
53:02
Speaker 1: said this and then this journalist said.
53:04
Speaker 3: This about them because they have a I just don't.
53:06
Speaker 1: And so it comes back to like I have to
53:09
Speaker 1: remind myself, like I want to do the best job
53:11
Speaker 1: I can. I want people to see me the way
53:13
Speaker 1: I am, and some people won't and some people will
53:15
Speaker 1: have impressions of me that aren't right. But what's needed
53:18
Speaker 1: in this space is for the show that shows up
53:20
Speaker 1: and does it journalistically yeah, and isn't feeding into rumors
53:24
Speaker 1: and spreading things that aren't fact. And if that has
53:27
Speaker 1: fewer listeners than a gossipy show.
53:30
Speaker 3: Those are the listeners for the gossip show.
53:32
Speaker 1: I want the listeners that want a show that really
53:35
Speaker 1: respects and gives respect to the people participating in all
53:39
Speaker 1: these sports and doesn't trade on their name and their
53:41
Speaker 1: stories without, you know, giving it a good journalism with
53:45
Speaker 1: a J.
53:45
Speaker 2: Look first with a J. Now someone comes to your
53:48
Speaker 2: social media, your Instagram, they see a woman that is
53:52
Speaker 2: leading the charge here when it comes to covering and
53:54
Speaker 2: talking about women's sports. But when you look in the mirror, Sarah,
53:58
Speaker 2: what is it that you see looking back at you?
54:00
Speaker 1: Hmmm? I see that I see a lot of success.
54:07
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of myself. I'm also at a weird
54:11
Speaker 1: age where I have to figure out do I want
54:12
Speaker 1: to try to slow the passage of time using artificial
54:16
Speaker 1: means or do I want to gracefully age and accept it.
54:21
Speaker 1: I love aging in every aspect except for my body
54:25
Speaker 1: falling apart even more and the just signs of age
54:28
Speaker 1: that you then have to figure out, am I trying
54:32
Speaker 1: to be in this game still or do I just
54:34
Speaker 1: let myself become older?
54:35
Speaker 3: And that's life. So yeah, when I look in the mirror,
54:37
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of myself.
54:39
Speaker 1: I'm also very critical of what I see all the
54:42
Speaker 1: time and trying to figure out again, like how much
54:44
Speaker 1: of my life do I want to spend trying to
54:46
Speaker 1: reverse something natural so that people will still let me.
54:49
Speaker 1: That's the other thing that sucks is like I'm not
54:52
Speaker 1: going to be for a lot of young people if
54:53
Speaker 1: they want to learn about this stuff, because they want
54:55
Speaker 1: someone who's going to be like yeah, Cap and Bet
55:00
Speaker 1: and like, oh, I'm so mogged or whatever. You don't
55:03
Speaker 1: even know what magged me. And I feel dumb doing
55:07
Speaker 1: that artificially. Some of it is natural, and part of
55:09
Speaker 1: like it's gotten to me, which means it's probably over
55:11
Speaker 1: if it got to me, the lingo is dead when
55:12
Speaker 1: it gets to the old white lady. But but also
55:16
Speaker 1: I can't, you know, constantly be pushing for that young
55:20
Speaker 1: audience that they want to get this information from someone else.
55:22
Speaker 3: But it makes me kind of sad because I do
55:23
Speaker 3: want to be.
55:25
Speaker 1: Like the voice that people respect in the show that
55:27
Speaker 1: people go to, and so I do have to balance
55:30
Speaker 1: like how often I make jokes and references that are
55:32
Speaker 1: definitely of my time and how often I'm making sure
55:35
Speaker 1: I'm like keeping it, you know, useful enough and that's
55:39
Speaker 1: kind of sucks too. It's like trying to play, like
55:40
Speaker 1: play that game. But yeah, other than that, young people
55:45
Speaker 1: getting old is great. It is you don't give an
55:49
Speaker 1: f about things you shouldn't give an f about.
55:50
Speaker 3: You know yourself, you know other people.
55:51
Speaker 1: You're more patient, you're less judgmental, at least for me,
55:54
Speaker 1: and you're just like, you just get it. You just
55:58
Speaker 1: get life in a way that's so much hard when
56:00
Speaker 1: you're younger and figuring it out.
56:01
Speaker 2: Aside from getting older, what else excites you right now?
56:05
Speaker 1: The WNBA Draft, the WNBA season, the Chicago Sky who
56:08
Speaker 1: went from an absolute pile of crap to at the
56:11
Speaker 1: very least the team with the best fits and the
56:13
Speaker 1: most swagger. I'm not sure about the locker room fights,
56:15
Speaker 1: because at least two of three players have fought their
56:18
Speaker 1: own teammates, either physically or emotionally, but drama should be fun.
56:23
Speaker 1: I'm super excited to go to my friend's wedding in
56:25
Speaker 1: Italy this summer in this like gorgeous villa. I'm super
56:29
Speaker 1: excited for warm weather in Chicago to finally arrive so
56:31
Speaker 1: I can take those long walks all day and listen
56:33
Speaker 1: to my podcasts and zoom out, zone out with my
56:37
Speaker 1: dogs and flowers and sunshine.
56:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, like all the things, all the things, well, just
56:43
Speaker 2: warm weather is what I'm here. Yeah, anything revolving around sunshine.
56:47
Speaker 1: Because I went to the Olympics this year, which was amazing,
56:49
Speaker 1: but I didn't go to Cup spring training. I didn't
56:51
Speaker 1: go to the super Bowl somewhere warm. I didn't go
56:53
Speaker 1: to this concert festival that a Simmers go to in Mexico.
56:55
Speaker 1: So I went straight up raw dog from September to
57:00
Speaker 1: when I got to Arizona for Final four in April
57:02
Speaker 1: without like sunshine, warm weather, and I don't recommend it.
57:06
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. It was nice to be in the
57:08
Speaker 2: warm weather though in Arizona, to be getted.
57:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
57:10
Speaker 2: But I'm sitting here with this spraytwan, So who am
57:11
Speaker 2: I to tell you I never have one?
57:13
Speaker 3: And I'm so pa I'm transparent.
57:16
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Well I'm so happy that we were
57:18
Speaker 2: able to sit.
57:19
Speaker 3: Down side fun.
57:20
Speaker 1: I want everyone to know that Emily had a bunch
57:21
Speaker 1: of cards and she didn't use them once just right
57:23
Speaker 1: off the dome.
57:24
Speaker 3: Naturally apper, just a naturally apper.
57:26
Speaker 2: What can I say? It's the Italian Jew and me
57:29
Speaker 2: before it lets you go though winding down every time
57:31
Speaker 2: the same way. Right now, you have an opportunity to
57:34
Speaker 2: offer yourself a piece of advice. Let's go back to
57:36
Speaker 2: that Achilles no bueno situation. You're in this place where
57:40
Speaker 2: you're identifying as an athlete. You're worried that everything you
57:44
Speaker 2: know it is about to change. Knowing what you know now,
57:47
Speaker 2: what advice would you offer Sarah during that younger hurdle moment?
57:52
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, for one, don't try to do the laundry
57:54
Speaker 1: yourself using your crutch to push the laundry basket down
57:56
Speaker 1: the stairs, because you will fall down the stairs and.
57:59
Speaker 3: Completely full up your other ankle.
58:01
Speaker 1: That will then be a mess for the rest of
58:02
Speaker 1: your life as well. Just ask for help. That's a
58:04
Speaker 1: great one, just in general for me, still working on that.
58:08
Speaker 1: Terrible at asking for help, terrible at seeding control of
58:11
Speaker 1: any kind to anyone. Other than that, I would say,
58:17
Speaker 1: you're gonna get to at least be around sports for
58:19
Speaker 1: the rest of your life.
58:20
Speaker 3: It's not going to look like how you thought.
58:22
Speaker 1: I knew I wasn't going to be a professional athlete,
58:23
Speaker 1: so I knew it was going to be out of
58:25
Speaker 1: my life in some way. But you'll be competing at
58:30
Speaker 1: other things in the world of sports, like best Show,
58:33
Speaker 1: first Show, all these things in a way that's going
58:36
Speaker 1: to be very deeply satisfying, even though you're not making
58:39
Speaker 1: the winning basket or crossing the finish line.
58:41
Speaker 2: That's it, Sarah Spain. How do the people keep up
58:44
Speaker 2: with you if they're not following you just yet?
58:46
Speaker 1: Well, of course, subscribe to Good Game of Sarah Spain
58:49
Speaker 1: anywhere you get your podcasts. You can watch full interviews
58:51
Speaker 1: from the show as well on the Iheartwomen's Sports YouTube.
58:54
Speaker 1: Follow me at Spain two three two three at Instagram,
58:56
Speaker 1: follow me at Sarah Spain dot com on Blue Sky,
58:59
Speaker 1: follow me on LinkedIn in. Uh, you can't find me
59:01
Speaker 1: on Twitter or TikTok anymore because I don't want My location.
59:05
Speaker 2: Is the two three two three a Jordan reference of course. Okay,
59:08
Speaker 2: just checking Chicago. I just needed to make sure that there. Yeah,
59:13
Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily's Body and at Hurdle Podcast Another
59:16
Speaker 2: Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys next time.