The Intersection of Work and Passion

The Intersection of Work and Passion

As a rabid tennis fan, Kelly knew I’d love working on the Mid-Atlantic Clay Court Tournament held at Salisbury Country Club last year. I started out gathering the information about the tournament to send out in press releases to local publications, like the Richmond Times Dispatch and local TV sportscasters. I shortly received nice responses from everyone. It’s a great story so I didn’t need to coax anyone to cover it.

The best part of helping to promote the tournament was getting to watch the matches¬— and call it work. Pretty quickly I realized two things: The players were all MUCH better than I am and I didn’t know who any of them were. They were seeded somewhere just below Federer, Roddick, Sharapova, and Safina. I overheard people talking about this or that player and trying to figure out who the heck everyone was. Then inspiration struck.

We quickly got approval for me to take digital photos of the top seeds in both the men’s and women’s competition. I feverishly collected biographical information through interviews and research. With the photos and biographical sketches I wrote, Cassandra Wilder designed large posters and smaller hand-outs. Cassandra made sure that the design was consistent with the rest of the promotional materials we created. It was a huge hit¬—with fans and players, as well as with the sponsors and the tournament director.

If I hadn’t spent so much time hanging around the courts and striking up conversations with people, I never would have seen the need for this project. The players themselves were flattered and flustered with the attention and most of them took a flyer home to tuck into their scrapbooks. I love my job!