Jessie Garcia

Oh, the glamour of the sportscaster: Admission to every game, up close and personal with the athletes and coaches who are knocking each other over to talk with you to get on television, first class air travel and luxury hotels, well not according to Jessie Garcia.

For those of you who are not Wisconsinites, Jessie spent 20 years as sportscaster for WTMJ TV in Milwaukee. Think the Wisconsin sports scene and you automatically think Packers and that is the focus of most of this book. Jessie tells us about her childhood in Madison and her introduction to broadcasting at Boston University. Armed with degree and a fiancé she returned to Wisconsin to begin her career with her soon to be husband, Paul, who works as a cameraman for WTMJ.

The story she tells is different from what much of the public envisions. It involves weeks away from home covering Super Bowls (less of a problem for Bears or Rams reporters), Thanksgivings and Christmases spent on the sidelines, rather than at family gatherings, early morning drives to Green Bay for Coaches Shows in all kinds of weather (remember this is Wisconsin and football is played in the fall and winter), late nights followed by 8 a.m. press conferences, connecting flights, medium to low grade hotels, you get the idea. I particularly liked the story of the time Jessie and her family were getting ready to vacation in Door County ( I will have to be on the lookout the next time my family goes) when she got a call that Brett Favre would give her an interview in the Atrium at Lambeau at 11. She was able to push it back to noon, load up and dash to Green Bay (it is on the way) and get her 10 minute interview before moving on to the beach.

There is glamour amidst the drudgery. She did partake in the excitement Super Bowls XXCI, XXXII and XLV and a White House visit, got to know Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, coaches Mike Holmgren and Mike McCarthy, Packers President Bob Harlan and other celebrities too numerous to mention. It’s not all Packers, though, she spent time with the Brewers (going into game 6 she predicted that the Cardinals would eliminate them in the 2011 NLCS), Badgers, Olympians and at the Curling Club.

This book pleases on several levels. The sports fans will enjoy the sides of the players and executives not seen on television. I know I will never look at an interview in the same way again. I have a greater appreciation of how hard the reporters work to think up the questions, get the access, make themselves presentable and edit the footage into that one or two minutes the station really wants. What I like most is the way Jessie tells her story. Many of can identify with her challenge of balancing the job with family, a challenge that finally draws her to a career change. She relates the role of a female reporter in male dominated sports. Our hearts are touched as we read of the embarrassing moments, and the disappointments in the choices of some of the subjects of her reports. She seems bewildered and dismayed by Brett Favre’s fall from grace, and disgusted by juvenile performances of others. Even in these sections her writing can best be described as classy. She draws the reader into her feelings, but never humiliates the offender or shatters the magic link between hero and fan. When I got this book I was expecting a literary sojourn into the Heart of Titletown. I got that, a traipse through the sports news business and much more.

I did receive a free copy of this book for review.… (mais)

I received My Life with the Green & Gold as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

In My Life with the Green and Gold, Jessie Garcia recounts two decades following Wisconsin sports--primarily covering the Packers, but also the Badgers, Brewers, and various Olympians. Growing up in the Midwest as the only child of a Jewish mother and a (largely absentee) Mexican Catholic father, Garcia was neither an athlete or sports fan, only becoming immersed in the sports world as a reporter for her college newspaper at Boston University. Returning to the Midwest after grad

Much of the book is anecdotes about her time on the job, including three trips to the Superbowl with the Packers, interspersed with commentary on her family life with her husband and two sons and the personal relationships she forged with Packers players, staff, and their families. There's not as much commentary as I would have expected about being a woman in a male dominated field--just a few short chapters--but maybe I'm just projecting my expectations of the field (no pun intended) onto Garcia's experience. As a sports fan, it was an enjoyable if not life-changing read--it's always fun to hear the behind-the-scenes commentary on these lionized, larger than life figures like Brett Favre and Mike Holmgren.
… (mais)