Author: Kat (Page 15 of 89)

Attendees pose with Heather Mitts’ Olympic gold medals during her keynote. (Photo: Cayla Teller)

The new Empowerment Through Sport Leadership Series held its first event at Boston’s Simmons College January 12th. US Olympian Angela Hucles is behind the idea, hoping to use the successes of female athletes on the national and international levels to inspire young girls both on and off the field, court or ice.

For her first event, she brought her former U.S. National Team teammates Heather O’Reilly and Heather Mitts to Boston to speak to 150 young women during a full day conference. Keynote speeches, smoothie socials and breakout sessions dotted the day’s agenda. The young athletes also heard from former U.S. Olympic figure skater Alice Cook of She’s Game Sports and Northeastern University women’s soccer head coach Tracey Leone. And last but certainly not least, 2012 FIFA Women’s Player of the Year Abby Wambach Skyped into the event for her Keynote address after a last minute change of plans kept her from physically being there. (Gotta love technology!)

Empowerment Through Sport didn’t leave parents behind. The afternoon included a panel discussion geared towards parents and coaches on “Developing the Female Athlete.” Having time with the parents was key for Hucles. “Having certain issues raised with these girls can only be enhanced, encouraged and supported by the parents and coaches that are here,” said Hucles. “It’s a whole collaborative effort to raise someone who is going to be successful in life.”

Hucles hopes the event is the first of several scheduled for locations across the U.S. this year. She and O’Reilly spoke between sessions about their goals for these events and why it was so important to them to include families in the discussion.

Heather Mitts delivered a motivational keynote to open the day, telling the attendees that hard work and determination fueled her path from high school soccer, to the University of Florida, to the WUSA and the US National Team, despite quite a number of setbacks along the way. In this clip, Mitts recalls being drafted to the WUSA’s Philadelphia Charge in 2001 and how Charge head coach Mark Krikorian encouraged her to try for the US National Team. During her speech, she passed around her three Olympic gold medals to the awe struck crowd.

Thank you to Greta Teller for giving me the opportunity to cover the event!

2012 rivaled 1999 for the best year of my writing life. Okay, rivaled isn’t the correct term. Blew 1999 out of the water would be more appropriate. 1999 was the year I won a national haiku competition and was named editor of my school newspaper. 2012 was the year where I had a story picked up by the national media, got to write my first NFL piece and picked up a bunch of new beats.

I think we can all agree that 1999 has been trumped.

I wrote several pieces this year that I’ll be proud of for years to come. These were pieces that reaffirmed that my “double life” of part-time writing, full-time administrating is absolutely worth it. Here they are, in chronological order.

Media Roundup: New England’s Remaining Small Market Sports Radio Stations Serve Unique Audiences – SBNation Boston, January

To All The 9-12 Year Old Girls in Baltimore Monday (From A Buffalo Fan Who Has Been There) – Personal blog, January

Doctor By Day, Lacrosse Pro By Night – SBNation Boston, July

Motivation Comes Super Sized for Flaherty  –Boston Herald, September

Lacrosse Aids Yeatman, Hogan In NFL Quest – Inside Lacrosse, September

Kids thrilled to ‘play ball’ – Boston Herald, November

Fitting fine with the Crimson: Jillian Dempsey – New England Hockey Journal, December

Former Husky Rylan embraces new grind – New England Hockey Journal, December

What will 2013 bring? I have some goals I’ll be working on.

I hope that 2013 brings my writing in a few new markets. I’m querying some figure skating publications to fulfill a childhood dream and to hopefully position myself well to cover the 2014 US Figure Skating Championships in Boston for a media outlet. I also would like to break into a few publications in my hometown of Rochester, NY. Also, now that I’m a proud car owner, I’m hoping my writing allows me to travel a bit more around New England.

In addition, I used the second part of 2012 to work on my speaking skills. Blog readers saw some of my practice through a series of videos I posted this summer. I did a lot more work offline as well. I know how to better prepare for a video or radio appearance, what words will always trip me up, and how to not look or sound like a deer in the headlights. I’m hoping that 2013 brings some chances for me to use what I’ve practiced. (If you need someone to talk for a few minutes about high school gymnastics, college lacrosse, men’s or women’s college hockey or anything else, please consider me!)

Lastly, I’m going to write more about social media. I’ve been doing social media management for several years, and many of those who purport to be social media “gurus” are writing material that really (to quote Peter Griffin) grinds my gears. I want to counter the so-called “social media” gospel they’re proselytizing with reality.

Those are some lofty goals for 2013, but nothing that is completely out of my reach. I know if I continue to get support like I have in 2012, so much is possible. Let’s see what I can get done in 2013. Thank you all for your support and feedback – I take it all in and appreciate the time that you share with me.

Happy New Year!

I don’t know about you, but I survive my commuter rail-subway commute every morning by listening to either music or sports talk. The sports talk is usually things I have downloaded or are streaming to my phone on demand. I rarely listen to live sports radio (every once and a while I get to listen to afternoon sports radio in my office, and on the weekends when I’m driving to and from writing jobs I catch more.) Most of the sports audio I listen to is on-demand and shorter in length than a typical sports radio show. It works for me – I get concentrated discussion on topics that interest me most.

One of my on-and-off gigs is to run the social media presence for one of the pieces of on-demand sports audio I listen to – a college hockey radio program called Hockey On Campus. It was a traditional radio program until the radio station it was on switched formats, forcing the show online. I am trying to find the best ways and times to share the show’s audio files on social media. I would also love to establish better means of communication between the show’s host and the audience.

How to do that? Create a survey, of course. (So very grad school of me, I know.)

I know how I interact with on-demand sports audio, but I’m just one person. So if you listen to “on-demand sports audio” – i.e. you listen to sports audio you can download or stream whenever you want to – please consider taking this survey. To do so, click on the continue button below. Consider it your Christmas or early birthday gift to me.

I know what you’re saying. “Kat, you’re blogging again? It’s only been, like, months. You stink at blogging.”

Patience, people! If I’m not here, just check my Writing page or Twitter feed. It’s not that I haven’t been writing – I just have been writing a lot for others.

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I have become a bit of a kitchen barista. Since I was a teenager, a part of me has wanted to spend a spell behind an espresso machine. This dream was fueled by my (infrequent) teenage visits with my friends to Moonbeans, a coffee shop on the corner of University and Atlantic Avenues in my hometown of Rochester, NY. (The awesome Starry Nights Cafe is now in its place.)

The dream was reborn by my visit last week to Southern California, where I became enamored with The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf – aka, the official coffee shop of Olympic Gold Medalist gymnast Nastia Liukin, who loves to Instagram every single time she visits. There was one within two blocks of my hotel, so while my husband was working (we were out there for his work) and I was left to my own devices, I wandered over there thinking, “Well, if it’s good enough for a famous gymnast, it’s good enough for me.”

Holy smokes. The Coffee Bean is absolutely addicting. It makes my past addiction to Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee look tame.

My first Iced Blended Coffee from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Screw the calories – this thing is worth it.

No wonder a gymnast loves it. It’s straight caffeine with sugar. Down one of their lattes and you don’t need any food or drink for the rest of the day. You’re ready to vault for hours on end.

The Coffee Bean’s trademark is their vanilla powder. It’s blended into many of their lattes and is one of two key ingredients in their well-known ice blended coffees. Luckily, you can buy their vanilla powder in cans, and I was able to bring some back to Salem with me.

Don’t mind the dent – that’s what happens when you put the can in your checked luggage.

I have been experimenting with my Keurig machine and the powder, and I’ve stumbled upon the best homemade latte recipe ever. I take two and a half tablespoons of the powder (I know that seems like a lot, but the packaging on the powder recommends to use more and I’m trying to conserve it), 2 ounces of warm milk, and a small brew of coffee from my Keurig machine (this morning I used Dunkin’ Donuts Pumpkin Spice, because that’s all I have right now.) I dump everything in my blender, run for 20 seconds on blend and another 20 seconds on liquify (with the lid on very tight so I don’t splatter and burn myself.)

Volia! A addicting homemade latte that tastes almost as good as the ones I had at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Huntington Beach, CA.

(But if anyone would like to bring a franchise here to Massachusetts, I would be forever grateful. Across from the Herald, please.)

(Until then, if you want to buy me more vanilla powder, pure coffee extract or winter dream tea, their online store is here. You think I’m lying. Those are the only thing on my holiday gift list.)