Category Archives: Sports & Recreation

Sharing the Olympic dream: The storytellers of US Bobsled and Skeleton

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Story by MEGAN SWEENEY

What’s the story of the storyteller? Meet Amanda Bird.

Amanda Bird, marketing and communications manager for USBSF, was a member of the US National Skeleton team.  Photo provided by AMANDA BIRD

Her current title is marketing and communications manager for the United States Bobsled and Skeleton Federation (USBSF). She makes it her career to share those unknown stories of the less than 300 athletes who compete every four years in the Winter Olympic Games.

Bird says her favorite part of the job is relating those elite athletes to the public vs. focusing on the finish times ad medals around their necks. She was a former skeleton athlete for more than 10 years. She would hurtle herself face first down an ice chute, at speeds exceeding 70 mph. However, she discovered there was “more than showing up to train.”

Being an athlete is more than lifting weights, eating right and training hard. It also entails being a stand-up citizen, a semi-professional marketer and a savvy salesperson.

These revelations in place, Bird started to simultaneously compete and blog. After graduating from the University of Albany with a master’s degree in English, she began her career at the Albany Times Union of upstate New York as one of the initial bloggers.
With her skills as a writer and her passion for the sport of skeleton her dream of “marrying her two passions” became a reality.

Sometimes, though, reality can be harsh. Transitioning from the Albany Times Union to the USBSF was difficult. Within her first week with the organization, she had to write a press release about the death of Captain Brian Freeman, her former teammate and a member of the US Army Reserves World Class Athlete Program, who had been killed in Iraq.

She was tested again when 2010 Olympic athletes John Napier and Christopher Fogt decided to take a leave of absence from sliding in order to serve in the Middle East. “It’s difficult and emotional to go on and off the record,” Bird said in a telephone interview.

It isn’t all negative though. Bird has the opportunity to make a difference in athletes’ lives. She gets to share details about two-time Olympian Eric Bernotas of USA Skeleton. Bird wrote about the triumphant comeback of Noelle Pikus-Pace after she was hit by a bobsled in Calgary, Canada, which postponed her Olympic dreams and made her determination grow stronger for the 2010 Games.

Bird also wanted to shed light on the transitional athletes such as Bree Schaaf who started her career as a skeleton athlete and moved on to become a 5th-place finisher in the 2010 Olympic Games for the women’s bobsled team. She yearned to expose the struggles of Olympic gold medalist Steven Holcomb who pilots the No. 1 sled for USA men’s bobsled. Despite being almost legally blind, he challenged the odds by positioning himself as one of the most prominent bobsled drivers in the world.

Bird’s positive movement was enhanced within the federation in the form of negotiating contracts with sponsors such as Under Armour. This provided more athletes with national team clothing.

She was challenged by the prospect of attaining additional sponsors in order to provide the USBSF athletes funding so that they weren’t paying out of pocket to travel and race on the international circuit.

Athletes such as Erin Pac and Elana Meyers are recipients of those sponsorships. They’re also the subjects of Bird’s most memorable and favorite story she ever wrote. It began on Feb. 24, 2010, at the Whistler Sliding Centre in Whistler, Canada.

From the moment the team of two women crossed the finish line and stepped off the ice, Bird accompanied them. The trio made their way through mix zone after press conference after meet-and-greet. Then, finally (two days later), ended up at the medals plaza to receive their bronze medal in the awards ceremony. After all was said and done, Pac and Meyers turned to Bird and thanked her.

“Amanda was awesome during that entire experience!” Meyers wrote in an email. “It was great to have a familiar face with us and someone to share that moment with. She really helped make winning the medal that much more special — and we were super excited to share all our experiences with her.”

Meyers also wrote, “Having Bird definitely changed our relationship. She has shared moments with me that I’ve only shared with Erin. It was a magical experience.”

Bird agreed. “In the end it was so special that I felt I needed to share it with the world. The ride of emotion was almost indescribable,” she said.

From left: Elena Meyers, Amanda Bird and Erin Pac. Photo provided by AMANDA BIRD

While reporting on passion creates a good read, one major issue for Bird in dealing with the media today comes from an athlete’s ability to share through social media.

The USBSF is known for being one of the last sports announcing its Olympic team. Explaining the long, drawn out and complicated process to “outsiders” might be worse than trying to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

In a single tweet an athlete can tip off a reporter without even knowing. One tweet or status change that may be as simple as a smiley face followed by “20XX Here We Come!” can trigger an irreparable Google effect.

However negative social media can be, its power can extend into other avenues of Bird’s job and actually help her sponsorships.

The reason athletes look like a walking billboard on a regular basis is due to the support they receive from sponsors. A single tweet or picture of a bobsled or skeleton athlete raving about the upgraded car rental that Budget gave them for vacation goes beyond a plug to their fans.

It can result in athletes receiving Range Rovers to drive around Europe for the entire six-month season.

Another obstacle that can be difficult to overcome are time zones. This is particularly challenging when one is trying to balance both a personal and professional life. Being awake at 2 a.m. to catch results from the first heat of a bobsled race in Cesana, Italy, doesn’t allow for sleep but Bird’s fiancé, Jason Hartman, understands.

He was the former strength and conditioning coach at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center.

Hartman has worked closely with most of the athletes of the USBSF. He has a personal and emotional investment in these athletes as well and this enables him to realize that the stories Bird has to report on are more important than sleep.

At some point, an athlete transitions from competing as a hobby to competing as a career. This makes Bird’s career one of status and prominence. She is responsible for the visibility and livelihood of the athletes who represent the USBSF.

Many look to achieve her portfolio and have the ability to report on such stories as she does. In order to get there she believes that being able to communicate clearly and fully express a thought is more valuable than anything. Bird believes that practice makes perfect and she says no matter what you’re writing about, just write.

Every story Bird reports on she executes like a racer would: with a purpose and a passion.

Sarah Minen’s massage business in Salt Lake City

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Story and photos by SHERYL CRONIN

Exterior view of Sarah Minen's office.

Young entrepreneurs often do not do as well as they expected in this economy. But businesswoman Sarah Minen has made her personal career successful with a growing clientele.

She recently moved her business Sarah Minen LMT from her home into an office in downtown Salt Lake City at 24th South and 600 East. Her new office is more spacious and more professional looking for her clients.

One of Minen’s clients, Chris Nizzardini, has been seeing her for three years. He said the massage room in her house was very nice. She was able to transform the room into a professional atmosphere for massage, but he says that the new office is more like an official place of business.

Interior of new office.

Minen says she is more likely now to socialize with her clients before and after the massage because she doesn’t have her roommates there to make things awkward.

Minen, 26, grew up in a small town, Tracy, Calif., and moved to Salt Lake City in her teens. Raised by two professionally successful parents, they instilled their work ethic within her and her siblings.

Minen was always interested in the profession of massage but was discouraged by her parents because they did not feel that it was an adequate career. She ended up getting an associate degree in sociology at Dixie College in southern Utah to try to please her parents, but she still felt that she wanted to do massage.

After obtaining a school loan and a small loan from her sister, Minen was able to enroll in the Utah College of Massage Therapy in 2007. She obtained her massage license while attending school only part time for one year and graduated in 2008. She was able to pay off the loans while still in school by working in restaurants as a server to make ends meet.

While in massage school she said she was taught how to market herself. At first it was really difficult to sell herself to others. She said it has become easier for her and has been beneficial as a self-employed young adult.

In a few of her past massage jobs she has been a manager, which also contributed to the transition into managing her own business.

“I love to help people feel better,” she said. One of her most memorable clients was a woman who was suffering from daily migraines that were so severe she could not work. The woman had come to her for three sessions and the migraines had disappeared.
“I feel that I changed her life,” Minen said.

Most massage therapists have a specialty massage and every year there are conferences around the country where the therapists go to learn about new types of massage. Minen’s specialties are deep tissue and trigger point.

Deep tissue is a type of massage in which therapists use their fist or elbow that work to get to the deeper muscles. With this technique the therapist must massage very slowly to mold the muscle. This method works the muscles that are not normally reached with a regular massage.

Trigger point massage is a method that focuses on particular points on the body that the therapists lean on with their elbow. When leaned on for a long enough time the muscle will release its tension.

Trigger point and deep tissue are both really good techniques to use on athletes. Minen was thankful that those two methods were the first she learned to do because they were the most useful to her athletic clients.

Minen said Utah is a great place for massage because of the number of outdoor athletes. The mountains in the Salt Lake area bring in a lot of clientele. Many of her clients run, ski, bike, snowboard, and there are even some triathletes who see her for sports-related muscle issues.

Some of the physical effects from doing massage can be carpal tunnel and disk degeneration. Minen said that eventually she would like to have her own business with her own employees to avoid the risk of getting carpal tunnel after working with her hands for so long.

One of the greater benefits of not being employed by a salon or chiropractic clinic is the hours. She only has to work about 20 hours a week. She keeps all of the profit instead of having to give a portion of it to a company she works for. This was one of her main goals to accomplish from being self-employed.

Minen’s business looks like it will continue to grow and provide her with a fulfilling career. She’s glad she did not listen to her parents when it came to her career. “I would choose this same career if I could do it all again,” Minen said.

NBA lockout has complicated playing opportunities for WSU alumnus Daviin Davis

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Kellen McCoy playing in 2010 for Sweden.

Story by LAUREN DEANE
Photos provided by KELLEN McCOY and DAVIIN DAVIS

The NBA’s 2011 lockout has forced former Weber State University (WSU) basketball star Daviin Davis to consider alternate playing options in overseas competition.

“The lockout has had a huge impact on American players overseas,” said Kellen McCoy, a 2009 WSU graduate who is now coaching at Emporia State University in Kansas.

“My friend D-Will (Daviin Davis) is still overseas playing, he is having a really hard time finding a job even though he just got off a great season,” McCoy said in a telephone interview. McCoy used to play for Boras Baskets in Sweden’s first league in 2010-2011.

According to Eurobasket.com, Davis had an impressive season playing for Finland last year. He averaged 11.7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. On top of that, he was awarded a starting position in five season games and came off the bench with significant minutes in all the other matchups. Even after being so successful in the 2009-2010 season, he is still facing the dilemma of not getting signed overseas this season.

The overseas season started in mid-October 2011. “It was the end of September and I wasn’t getting any offers to play [overseas],” Davis said in a Skype interview. “Most teams do all the signing weeks before the season begins so they can start practicing and molding the team. The teams from the division I was in last year had no interest in me.”

Davis said because of the lack of interest shown in him, he had to attend multiple tryouts for different teams all over Europe. Some of them were in better divisions — overseas play is grouped similar to the NCAA’s three separate divisions — and some were not. Although he was sending out game tapes, no one had an interest in hiring him. So he went to Latvia in hopes of getting signed. He was finally signed by Valmiera in Latvia.

The reason why Americans playing overseas are being impacted so much by the NBA lockout is because there are set rules for each team and division. Each team is only allowed to sign two American players per season for its squad. Also, contracts for Americans are written for one year only. This is to ensure the two players signed are the absolute best competitors the team can commit to that season.

Davis said the main players from the NBA who are signing contracts oversees right now are “the bench riders,” or practice players. Practice players are participants on the team who do not play a key role during games against their opponents. They generally don’t get very much, if any, playing time. However, they are vital to any team because they make the key players better and are ready to play in case of an unexpected injury. Another key role they play is to practice as an element of the scout team — players pretend to be their opponents during practice to make sure the key players get repetition defending their opposition and attacking their future opponent’s weaknesses.

The teams and NBA players will agree to sign year-long contracts overseas. The coaches abroad are using this year with the ex-NBA players to enhance the skill of their local and long-term athletes. “People get better by practicing and competing against an opponent that is at a higher skill level than they are,” McCoy said. “The coaches in Europe will be using the lockout to benefit their program.”

Daviin Davis shows his skill while playing for Finland.

The advantage to the NBA players signing overseas is they can stay in shape to get back on an NBA team when play returns. McCoy said these two reasons are why both the overseas teams and ex-NBA players are benefiting from the lockout.

According to ESPN.com, 63 confirmed contracts had been signed between European teams and last year’s NBA players as of Oct. 26. “These bench riders are impacting the availability for jobs in Europe and are making a lot of athletes unemployed,” Davis said.

Davis went to more then a dozen tryouts this year in an attempt to get signed abroad. “Unfortunately, no one else [would] sign me, so I had to take a contract with Latvia this year.”

Latvia is in a lower division, has less talent and will provide him with less money and benefits than he had last season. Davis said it is the “worst” team he has competed for since starting his professional career in 2009-2010. Even though the team isn’t as good, he said he still felt “relieved and blessed” that Latvia decided to sign him on Oct. 4, 2011.

McCoy said his friends in the NBA have told him the negotiations between the players and owners are still at a standstill.

“The owners are on first base and the players are on third. There is no way they are going to come to any kind of conclusion soon,” McCoy said. “This will cause the bigger and better players to sign overseas as well [as the bench riders] and will completely change the overseas dynamic.”

Davis has played four games this season with the Latvian team, Valmiera. He came off the bench with significant minutes in the first two games and earned a starting position in the last two. Overall, Davis has averaged 27.5 minutes, 6.75 points, 3.5 rebounds and one block.

“I am looking forward to another great year no matter what team I am with. I will use this year to get better and improve the weak points in my game,” Davis said. “I am glad to finally be on a team, but I can’t wait for the lockout to end so my friends can get jobs overseas again and I can play on the teams I am talented enough to compete for.”

Baseball player helps a breast cancer cause in Salt Lake City

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Story and photos by CARLY SZEMEREY

Sam Kaplan wearing "Swing for Life" jersey for the breast cancer awareness game.

Ever since Sam Kaplan can remember, he has been doing two things — playing baseball and helping others.

While growing up in Cottonwood Heights, a suburb of Salt Lake City, Kaplan’s parents, Neil and Kitty, taught him that service is a small meaningful act that goes a long way.

Because of this lesson Kaplan, now 19 and a University of Utah student, has donated his time to many efforts in hopes of bettering other people’s lives. He has raked yards, served food to the homeless and worked at the Utah Food Bank to sort food for the homeless and those in need.

He remembers one specific moment of volunteer work that touched him deeply. While he and his father were delivering food they came upon a Sudanese household. Once they had knocked at the door to deliver the packaged food, they were invited in the home. The family fed Kaplan and his father all of the food they had to offer. “It was really touching and nice of them,” Kaplan said.

When Kaplan was not volunteering his time helping others, he enjoyed playing centerfield for Cottonwood High School’s baseball team. Baseball has been a big part of Kaplan’s life for many years. His parents had enrolled him in T-Ball when he was just 3 years old and he has stuck with it ever since.

Kaplan has placed his focus on being the best player he can be. “I worked hard every single day of my life,” Kaplan said. “I didn’t take a day off ever.”

With this hard work and dedication Kaplan received multiple awards throughout his high school baseball career. Some of these awards included an All-State award his senior year and the All-Region award two years in a row.

“Sam was a great player who is an extremely hard-working kid,” said Jon Hoover, Kaplan’s baseball coach at Cottonwood High School.

Given Kaplan’s commitment to volunteerism and baseball, few were surprised when he brought up the idea of a breast cancer awareness game to raise money for research.

“[The idea of the game] just hit me one day,” Kaplan said. “I just wanted to help out a cause and raise money.”

In early spring 2010 many things happened. Kaplan had suggested to his coach and teammates the idea of a baseball game targeted at raising funds for breast cancer, the game was played to raise funds and  a longtime family friend, Toba Essig, was diagnosed with breast cancer. This diagnosis pushed Kaplan to make sure that this game happened and really became a driving force of the whole plan.

With the knowledge of a Cottonwood vs. Brighton baseball game coming up, Kaplan felt this was the perfect opportunity to implement his plan.

Essig’s son, Brian, played on Brighton’s team so Kaplan contacted Brian and asked if he would be willing to help him out with this cause.

Brian agreed so Kaplan approached his coach about the game.

“When Sam approached me about making our game against Brighton a breast cancer awareness game I thought it was a really good idea,” Hoover said. “Out of everyone I’m not surprised it was Sam to do this.”

"Swing For Life" designed the logo for jerseys to be worn in the game.

After speaking to his coach Kaplan began contacting different breast cancer organizations such as the Huntsman Cancer Institute and “Swing for Life” — a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to raising money in breast cancer research — to see if they would be willing to set up booths at the game.

His focus became more targeted when speaking with Kathy Howa, from “Swing for Life,” and Brighton’s baseball.

“Howa was really helpful,” Kaplan said. She helped plan the event and supplied the teams playing with pink and black jerseys to wear.

After all the planning the breast cancer game was ready to begin. On April 3, 2010, many people attended the game to support a cause.

Parents of the kids from Cottonwood’s baseball team took shifts in the goody shack — the snack shack at Cottonwood’s baseball field. All the proceeds raised during the game at the shack were donated to “Swing for Life.”

In addition, the players’ black jerseys were auctioned off to the highest bidders at the end of the game. This money was also given to the organization.

Kaplan and his supporters were able to raise more than $1,000 to be donated to breast cancer research.

“This game was one of my prouder moments and I’m so glad that I was able to help out,” Kaplan said. “I just hope that I am able to continue both of my passions and hopefully combine them together once again in hopes of making a difference.”

Following Kaplan’s graduation in 2010 he moved to Forest Grove, Ore., to play college baseball for Pacific University. After his freshman year he moved back to Salt Lake to get surgery on his shoulder in August 2011. Now a student at the U he hopes to continue playing baseball again after his shoulder has healed and he has completed the necessary rehabilitation.

University of Utah alumnus takes his talents to New York City law firm

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Story by MATT ELLIS

Photo taken by Shanna Richmond

When James Clegg graduated from the University of Utah in 2006 he had a career plan. But he had no idea that, in a few short years, he would be working as a lawyer in New York City.

After the U, James spent years at two more universities before he ended up at Mayer-Brown, one of the leading corporate law firms in downtown New York City.

James, or “Jace” as he is known to family and close friends, was born in Farmington, Utah, in 1981 but spent three years in England while his parents fulfilled religious duties for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He graduated from Davis High School in 2000 and then served his LDS mission in Hong Kong.

James met his wife, Christy, after he got back from his mission. They had both spent time overseas while growing up, and having that in common led to almost immediate chemistry. They were married in August 2004, about eight months after they had started dating.

After earning a degree in English from the U, James attended law school at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Even as early as 7th grade, he knew he wanted to be a lawyer; at the time, though, he was partial to Yale.

“Growing up, I always thought that I wanted to be a lawyer,” James said. “People told me they felt like I had an aptitude for it because I like to argue.”

He decided to go to Cornell because it had the best international law program of all the schools he was accepted to. James learned one form of Chinese, Cantonese, on his mission in Hong Kong, and took six classes at the U learning Mandarin Chinese. He had originally hoped to return to China to practice law.

“When I was interviewing at different firms, that’s why I picked Mayer-Brown. … They have a large Hong Kong office,” James said. Along the way, however, he discovered that he might want to take a different path. “As I went through law school, I found that I had an aptitude for tax,” he said.

“In the legal world, if you want to do tax law, you have to have a specialization,” James said. So, after graduating with honors from Cornell in 2010, James decided to enroll at the tax law program at New York University, which is widely regarded as the “gold standard” of tax specialization. Tax law was something that really resonated with James, and he enjoys his current duties with Mayer-Brown. The firm handles contracts for loans, mergers and securitizations for multiple large companies, including BlackBerry.

He finished the program at NYU in 2011 and now works full time at Mayer-Brown. “I really like that it’s very cutting edge, very high-level legal work,” James said. “It’s really scary when you think about, ‘If I screw this up I could literally cost this person millions of dollars.’”

James’ wife Christy, also a University of Utah alumna, does social work in New York City. She does adoption work with adoptive parents, as well as counseling for adults. Though both are very serious about their career paths, things are not all business all the time.
Asked for one word to describe James, Christy responded, “He’s a jokester. He is kind of silly.”

James did concede that he tries to be funny, and that includes having a little fun with friends who are not very familiar with his Mormon faith. He once told a friend that Mormons believe that it is sacrilegious to eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

James is an avid follower of the U’s football team, and so far has been disappointed by the first season in the Pac-12 conference.

“I think that it’s pretty evident that we don’t have Pac-12 talent just yet,” James said. He misses going to football games in Rice-Eccles stadium, and was glad he could attend the Utah-Washington game on Oct. 1, 2011, while he was in town for the weekend.

While in New York, he catches the Utah games in the Flat Iron area of the city at a bar that is the official sports bar of the local chapter of the U’s alumni association. On any given game night, James said, between 70 and 80 Utah alumni show up to enjoy the game.

James has always had a plan for his next four or five years, but says that right now he is not sure where he wants to go. One option he has considered is going to work for a private equity firm, an area where he does have some experience from an internship he did while he was studying tax law at NYU. Although James would be open to opportunities overseas, both he and Christy plan on being in New York for some time to come. Christy even said she would like to start a family sometime soon.