Several years ago, I found myself in a personal crisis. It was about
this time that a chance meeting at a CoSIDA workshop would forever
change my life!
At the 1993 CoSIDA workshop in Atlanta a chance meeting with another SID turned into -- yes -- a "CoSIDA Romance." And, after a seven-year courtship, Seton Hall Assistant SID Tracy King and I were married in August, 2000. Life in a two-SID family can be interesting and challenging, but so very much fun.
I truly believe it is possible to balance your life as an SID and your spouse's role as an SID as well! We tend to make the most of the smallest of things. Grocery shopping on Sunday night becomes a sort of date, while eating breakfast together hashing over last's night's game is also part of our routine.
Each week, we try to find one night when neither of us has a contest and that becomes "date night!" We go out to dinner. Nothing fancy, but just quality time away from the things that consume or day and time for one another.
We have become each other's greatest assistants --and we work for free! We proof each other's media guides and help each other, if needed, with various special events. We share more than just the same last name. We share some of the same media and use the same photographer. We have set up an office at home, complete with a computer and fax machine, which helps us spend more quality time with one another at home and not in the office. Instant messages have been an amazing tool for us. You can instantly contact one another and find out when the other person is leaving and when they will be home and who is cooking dinner! We even use it to ask work-related questions, a media member's number at a certain paper, etc.
It is amazing to come home and be able to unwind from a crazy day and have a person there who completely identifies with what you are saying, rather than looking at you as a two-headed monster.
As Tracy and I start the New Year together, I realize how very lucky I am to have an SID as my best friend and my partner! It also makes me aware of how special the SID profession is and how we are very lucky to have one another.
CoSIDA offers a network of caring, compassionate friends which is a unique and special blessing in our highly competitive society. I can think of very few other professions where you can share your ideas and strategies so freely.
My wish to you is that you can find a special friend in the sports information profession and build a friendship that will endure most anything, while helping you grow and blossom at the same time!
I count my association with so many of you as one of the things in my life that I cherish.