My husband saved my 1^st grade writing and coloring project done on 11 x 22 inch paper.    I illustrated this story.  I wrote, "When I grow up I want to be a housewife.  I like to cook and iron and take care of babies.  I would like to dress up in the afternoon and play bridge." 

I'm 50 years of age now, I am a wife and I live in a house, but I wouldn't say I'm  a housewife.  Thank goodness for prepared dinners.  I'm a terrible cook.  I don't own an iron.  And I can hardly count cards to play bridge.  I have a 14 year old son, and the baby stage wasn't my best time with him.

We each decide our life's path.  It's called a career.  Doesn't that just sound awful? 

But as I have discovered over the last 25 years, life....and your career....is about you.  It's all about you.  It's all about getting to know yourself and determining your place in the world.  With whom do you want to get to know yourself?

I chose sports.  Of course, I only liked sports.  I was a tomboy growing up, playing baseball and basketball with my brother's friends.  I wasn't particularly good at math, was middle of my class in science, history wasn't relevant, and I jam-packed more words into a sentence that even I couldn't understand what I was saying.  I lost every argument to my then to become lawyer brother, and I did not understand what supply and demand meant in my senior year in high school.  Business was boring and hard to get into.  So, I majored in phys ed!

You, seated here this evening, either have started or want to focus your career - your self discovery - in the world of sports.  There couldn't be a better time for it.

At the 2004 NBA Teams Job Fair, a by-invitation only event for to-be college graduates who show an interest in and an aptitude for sales, over 100 are invited to attend a 2 ½ day with ticket sales manager from at least 20 of the 30 NBA Teams.  Men, women - from all over the country - attended.  The top candidates who received the most job interviews - WOMEN!  There were in fact 5 of them.  Last year, the top 2 candidates to receive the most job interviews were women.  There were 96 job offers made that weekend.  Any person of color who presented themselves well were also tops on the list.  One Asian woman who we had rejected, lobbied herself into the Job Fair, and received at least 2 job offers.

There are more women human resources executives in sports than men.  One well-respected human resources executive at a Major League Baseball Team when trained on our new job board asked how she could pull up the diverse candidates first.

In fact, MLB Teams bought the online program because they saw the pictures of the applicants we had recruited to the NBA Team Jobs Fair and said the women and people of color were what they wanted their front offices to look like.  I told them those resumes were online.  They wanted them!

I'm pleased for the new breed of women these days.  Thank goodness for Title IX providing greater opportunities for women to experience teamwork.  You believe you can make a difference in this business.  And the fact that 5 more women and there were others ! will be selling tickets at NBA Teams next year will help propel more women to senior levels. 

I heard a verse from Corinthians last weekend, you all have heard it, "When I was a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became an adult, I put childish ways behind me."

When I was a child, I thought I would stay at home and take care of babies.  My husband would provide for me.  I would be safe.

When my father died when I was 33 years old, I learned that life wasn't safe.  My husband wouldn't provide everything for me.  And time is limited.  There is a moment in time, you just go for it.  I encourage you, go for it.  The sooner, the better.

Here are the facts.  Women apply for "safe jobs".  All the jobs that are unaccountable.  Event manager.  Guest services.  Marketing.  Public Relations.  And the most favorite unaccountable job in my mind is community relations.  We all apply for those jobs.  We get paid $25,000, the next year $26,000 and the next year we hope $27,000.  And then there's a ceiling at $45,000 - $50,000, and we wonder why.

Men, they apply for those sales jobs - the risk taking ones.  They make $13,000 plus commission.  So, the first year they earn $21,000.  Next year $35,000.  Next year $45,000 and they are managing people.  If you are a team owner trying to win back money you've forked over for those player salaries, who would you choose?

Women can sell.  We sell ourselves all the time.  We sell an experience.  Often an experience with us!  Men sell by befriending the boss and being his best son.  Both can be successful.

Darmorra Gill, a graduating basketball player from Dillard University applied to the New Orleans Hornets for a receptionist job.  She loved basketball.  I knew she had the passion for the game.  I convinced her to sell tickets.  She was the 2^nd best ticket seller at the team.

But perhaps our greatest gift is also our worst enemy.  We have been afforded the luxury of doing it all.

"Fast Company" cover story not long ago said, "Where have all the women gone?"  One of the women featured was a friend, Brenda Barnes.  Brenda was raised in a very middle, maybe lower middle class home right near the Wilson Sporting Goods factory in River Grove, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  When she graduated from a very unknown college named Harper College she answered a job announcement placed on the factory job board posted high in a parking lot outside the plant offices.  It was for an assistant in distribution.  Well Brenda rose to an assistant product manager, went back to get her MBA at the University of Chicago and leveraged her relationships with other brand managers at Wilson who later went onto Pepsi and Frito Lay to become President of the Pepsi Bottling Group.  When Brenda's children were in their teenage years, she suddenly resigned from Pepsi, moved back to Chicago from Pepsi's headquarters out east and became a full-time mom.

Stories like that help and hurt us.  We have to convince the men who own the businesses that we're in it for the long haul.  Yet many who went for it, also bailed.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, a career is a journey about you.  It's about getting to know who you are.  And about choosing the people around you to help you know yourself. 

One woman I recruited called me yesterday.  She's a success story.  Dee Scott.  She's worked here in Atlanta.  Worked at the NBA, the Atlanta Olympics - all in licensing.  Because of her strong background, NASCAR hired her to one of their Directors positions in licensing.  The first African American to work for NASCAR.  She has never thought of herself as any color.  It was never a deterrent.

One of my most recent clients recently hired a woman sales executive over a man.  Because she seemed like she could get along better with a wider variety of people.  Because she would be able to sell a "mother's experience" better than a man. 

I was in Los Angeles for an NHL Marketing Meeting.  I stopped by Dodger Stadium and met with many of the senior executives at the Dodgers.  Was it a surprise that the CFO, CMO and head of ticket sales were all women?  I had lunch in Houston this past fall.  There we were - three women - having a "power lunch."  A woman baseball team president, a woman CFO and me!

The world is a different place.  Twenty years ago, I was the only woman executive at IMG.  In fact, I had to take the woman's elevator up the back at the Union Club for meetings with senior executives and Mark McCormack.  I was reprimanded when I walked down the front stairs.

How do the women do it?

1. Be the best you can be.  And like yourself.  "You've come a long way, Baby!"  Good is not good enough.  Push yourself to be the best.  Try hard.  Work hard.  What are you living your life for if you don't push yourself?   And like yourself knowing that you will become more of yourself as the years go on.  People want to be with people who like themselves.  Project your positive energy.
    
2. Work for the best companies.  The #1 organizations teach you great things.  The most woman friendly league is the NBA.  The NBA recruits the most diverse group of candidates than any league.  The office at STAPLES Center looks like a virtual United Nations.  Help Major League Baseball's hr directors find you.  Find out who is the best.
3. Work for the best executives.  We recruit the most people who are behind great leaders.  We recruited Tim Leiweke to the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1987 as head of Sales and Marketing.  Three of Tim's subordinates are team presidents - John Thomas in Sacramento, Shawn Hunter, formerly President of the Phoenix Coyotes; and Len Komoroski, President of the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Brenda Tinnen headed his ticket operations.
   
   
4. Find your passion.  This is your life.  This is who you are.  Find the one moment in time where you got so angry you were going to change the way things are done.  Find it.  Then make it happen.
   
   In 1975 I was thrown off the women's tennis team at Indiana University because I disobeyed my coach and went out on a date at the Big Ten Championships.  I never disobeyed the rule of the intercollegiate council, yet my coach tossed me off the team.  I then knew I wanted to be in a position so no one would have to go through that.  Subsequently, my father's death in 1987, made me get on with life.
5. Be loyal to the people who are loyal to you.  Thank them.  The people you see on the way up are the people you see in times of trouble.  Stay true to the ones who are true to you.
   
   
6. Find a theme for your life's work.  As you knit your life's experiences together, find the meaning in who you are.  Sit back and assess it.  Although never described as a top woman in any polls, I feel I have helped push those who want to make the difference.  I was behind the scenes, cheering them on, coaching them on how to get a job.
7. Share in your successes.  Tell people about them.  Support each other.  Networking events are again places and faces where you learn to know yourself, promote yourself and promote others.   Let others know what your strengths are so that when they hear about a job, they can support you for it.
   
   
8. It's not a man versus woman.  Men help women.

I can promise you that you will be delivered into your life's lessons.  The challenges, the struggles. 

Mary Ellen Garling, a divorcee who had joined Arena Football as a secretary to then Commissioner David Baker and advanced to head the af2 league turned 40 and wondered whether she should settle down and marry a man in Cleveland.  She had a job offer to run an Arena Football Team - the major league of the minor league.  She had never done that.  She put off the marriage, moved to Las Vegas and now runs the team.

My hero was Billie Jean King, founder of the Women's Sports Foundation and the Women's Tennis Association, one of the most prominent women's sports leagues in the world.  I drove her home from Toledo to Cleveland.  A big supporter of women, she really supports equal rights.  Men and women.  Team Tennis. 

Ina Broeman, head of Philip Morris' sponsorship division.  She managed their sponsorship of women's tennis initially showcasing Billie Jean King and motorsports.  She's retiring soon.  She's done an outstanding job.  You've come a long way, Baby.  Look at you in this room.  You've all come a long way.  Go out there.  Support the men.  Support each other.  You can make a difference.