On this installment of Bob On Baseball, we welcome another fine young writer who is striving to make her mark in sports. I met Tara Wellman at the U.S. Nationals, one of the biggest drag races in the world, when I was busy handling my “real job” as Team Manager for Tim Wilkerson’s NHRA Funny Car team. Tara was “dragged” (pun intended) to the race by a friend who was already a fan. Within minutes of meeting her, our mutual love of baseball became the topic and the sheer determination I could see in her eyes impressed me. I immediately knew that this young lady was focused on career success, and nothing I’ve seen or heard from her since has diminished that assessment.
Tara is an aspiring sports journalist whose first love is baseball (more specifically, St. Louis Cardinals’ baseball!) She completed her undergrad degree at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa in May 2010, double-majoring in Journalism and Radio/TV Production. Since then, she’s gone on to host a local television show, direct local sports broadcasts, write for a new online sports network (AerysSports.com), host her own blog about her other sports love – figure skating – and interview past, present, and future champions along the way.
She describes herself as a dedicated sports fan, a passionate story teller, and an undeniable dreamer. Tara has big plans for her career, but they all center on finding great stories and telling them with a creative twist – the kind of stories you just can’t put down. When not working or writing, she enjoys watching Sports Center, playing the piano or guitar, and relaxing at Starbucks.
Enjoy Tara’s work, and remember her name. She will not stop short of success.
Bob Wilber
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“If you’re not going to play to win, why play?”
That was my grandpa’s motto for anything competitive. Don’t just muddle through, strive to be the best. He taught my mom well – she was the star of her high school basketball team, an excellent softball player, and later, a high school basketball coach. (She never backed down at Candy Land, either. Or Skipbo. Or Pictionary. …you get the idea. If I was going to win, I had to earn it.)
In my family, you play to win. Not because winning is everything, but challenging yourself to achieve something great is.
My dad, then, introduced me to other sports. A native St. Louisian, his priorities were always the home team, and topping that list, the Cardinals. He was a fan when there wasn’t a lot of good baseball played at Busch. But he believed in them, cheered them on, and loved them through it all.
Similarly, I’m never short on support from the home front. Not because I never fail, but because they believe one day I will succeed.
Like any kid, my life goals changed as often – and as dramatically – as the seasons in my hometown’s mountain west climate. Singer, artist, detective, Olympian, president, and ultimately, writer. But that last one didn’t come until much later – my junior year in college.
I wasn’t much for making decisions. I wanted to do too many things to pick just one! I’d settle on something like photography, only to be discouraged by all the things I’d have to leave out to make that work.
To add to the confusion, teachers and friends had a whole different idea for my life – I should be a teacher, like my mom. (Not because I’d actually be any good at it, mind you, but simply because, well, like mother-like daughter, right?)
Whatever I chose to do, I wanted two things – to love what I do so much that it hardly felt like work at all, and to be the best at it … or at least try. If I’m not playing to win, why play?
The journey to my current post as a sports journalist is long, winding, and not entirely interesting for the average reader, so I’ll spare you the details. To sum it up, my parents – who had never pushed one direction or the other – offered a new idea: Do what I already love, no matter what others might say. And, of course, strive to do it as well as I possibly could.
So, after a dramatic program shift followed by two years of overwhelming myself (in a good way) with the activities of sports writing, radio announcing, and television reporting, I was off to the real world. Little did I know that all those things people say about women in sports would be more accurate than I was willing to admit.
It’s tough being a girl who likes baseball more than beauty products. Convincing hard-core sports fans that I know what I’m talking about – and can write about it just as well as their favorite male writer! – is a constant battle. And good luck being chosen for a sports job over an equally qualified “sports guy.”
It’s tough.
But my grandpa taught me well.
I worked hard, took some risks, and gave up once-necessary sleep to make it work. And I spent this baseball season doing something many people never considered possible – writing for an online sports network about my beloved St. Louis Cardinals. Yes, you saw that right. A girl who grew up learning about baseball from her dad (who, by the way, always told her she could do anything the boys could do!) documented what turned out to be an historic whirlwind of a season that ended in the best way possible … World Champs, anyone?
Just in case I didn’t learn my lesson on stick-to-it-ive-ness from my deeply competitive and supportive family, the 2011 Cardinals were a superb reminder.
The season (in which they were favored at the start) wobbled on a tight rope-thin edge for months as expert after expert calculated the reasons this team would never make it all the way. In late August, when things had taken the worst turn yet, the 10.5 games separating the Redbirds from the playoffs nearly proved those experts right.
Thus began the greatest comeback in major league history, thanks to a team that, as announcer Joe Buck would eventually say, just wouldn’t go away.
They played to win, and they would settle for nothing less than their utmost effort to do just that.
They could never make the playoffs. But they did.
They could never beat baseball’s golden-child Phillies. But they did.
They could never take on their “beastly” league rivals – the ones who had run away with the division – to claim the National League pennant. But, again, they did.
And again, and again, and again.
Even when they found themselves a strike away from losing game six and watching the Texas Rangers celebrate their first ever World Series win on the Cardinals’ home turf, they battled back. Not once, but twice. And in the most appropriate way possible, the never-say-die “Cardiac Cardinals” powered their way around the “experts’” predictions yet again and forced a game seven.
Oh, and, they won that, too.
In the eyes of their adoring fans, there was never any doubt, and never a better moment.
Some may say, “It’s just baseball,” but look what this team’s resilience proved: Cliché as it might sound, don’t ever, ever give up.
It’s not about what anyone else says. It’s all about what you do.
I learned how to compete at an early age. I learned to live passionately as I developed what I loved. I accepted the challenge of a career that would take plenty of work, knowing that, no matter the “experts” counting me out, it’s possible to prove them all wrong. And that, no matter what, there were those who would always have my back – they would always be my biggest fans.
I love what I do. Telling a story that taps into an audience’s emotion isn’t just a job, it’s a passion. And while I’m not there yet, I’m striving to be the best. Not because I need accolades to quantify my success, but because, well, it’s what I do.
I play to win.