AZZI IS ON TOP OF HER NEW GAME: MOTIVATING TALKS

By JESSE SMITHEY, smitheyj@knews.com
January 29, 2006

Jennifer Azzi has always been at the top of her game - basketball.
Consider:

In junior high, Azzi's basketball team amassed a 60-0 record. Her Oak Ridge High School coach Jill Prudden remembered when Azzi entered her care.
"When she came to play for me from 1983 to 1986, I remember she was coming in her freshman year," Prudden said. "And her dad said to me, 'Now, you know she's never lost a ballgame.' I go, 'Excuse me?' He said, 'She's 50-0 in junior high. She doesn't know how to lose.'

"I can do the math. I'm thinking, 'OK. We play about 30 games a year, so three years in high school and we're going to be 90-0. We're going to be state champs for three years.' It didn't quite turnout that way."

Azzi later fixed her coach's story.

"I have to correct Jill," she said. "Our team was actually 60-0, not 50-0. My sister and I still brag about being 60-0 in junior high school."

At Oak Ridge, the Lady Wildcats were 86-11 along with a state tournament semifinal appearance in Azzi's four years.
"She had all the tools then that she has now," Prudden said. "And I knew she would go on to have a great career. She was the first one in the gym and the last one out. She always worked on the things that were difficult for her."

At Stanford, Azzi helped resurrect a comatose program into a national champion by her senior season (1990). The same year, she won the Naismith Award (most outstanding women's college basketball player) and the Final Four MVP.
"When I went there (Stanford), the team had been 4-28," Azzi recalled. "My freshman year, we went 15-15. And I can remember warming up for my first game. The clock was ticking down. I elbowed one of my teammates, and I said, 'Where are all the fans?' She said, 'What do you mean fans? We don't have any fans.'

"They didn't even pull the bleachers out. This is how bad it was. Talk about the difference in East Tennessee and going out there to play basketball."

Azzi was a member of the gold-winning 1996 Olympic team and also played for the U.S. in 2000.
The aforementioned considerations were definitely an abridged list. The trophies and awards Azzi has accumulated over the years could take up this whole column without a single word from yours truly, because whatever the defense or obstacle on the basketball court, Azzi handled it.

Wednesday at the Big Orange TipOff Club meeting at Calhoun's on the River, Azzi was playing a different game in a different arena, attacking a fierce defense - public speaking, one of the most-feared things in life other than death.

Azzi showed no fear, though. Public speaking is her life now, her profession. Now a Salt Lake City resident, Azzi is one of the country's most-sought-after motivational speakers.

Her platform: promoting dream achievement and healthy living.

"When Jennifer played, it was always about making people better," Prudden said in her introduction. "When I got on her Web site and read what she does today - working with kids on fitness, going to schools and talking - she's still today about making other people better."

Azzi's speech required some audience participation.

"Think back to when you were 5 or 6," she began. "I want to know what you wanted to be when you grow up? Can anyone answer that?"

One lady wanted to be an airline hostess. Then, someone tried to catch Azzi off guard.

"Marry someone that looks like you!" he shouted.

"All right," said Azzi, who is approaching 40 but still looks like a college girl. "Maybe we can talk afterwards."

After laughs subsided, Azzi followed with a story about how she lied on Career Day.

When she was 5 or 6, Azzi wanted to be a forest ranger. Her mother knew it, because her daughter had a five-minute rant about why she wanted to do so.

But on Career Day, Azzi forced "nurse" out of her mouth, because she thought that only men could become forest rangers.

Her mother happened to be in class that day and heard the fib. She later rebuked and corrected her daughter, letting her know that she can be whatever she wanted to be.

That scolding/pep talk powered Azzi. She didn't become the ranger, but she did play professional basketball for 13 years.

Near her career's end, Azzi wanted more. Like early in her life when her heart shifted from forest ranger to basketball player, her heart changed.

"When I made the decision to retire two years ago, I looked back at my life and I had moved 10 times in 13 years," she said. "Things started to shift in me. That drive to be in the gym early and leave late just wasn't in me anymore. So, I knew it was time for me to move on."

And while she's on her way to the top of her new game, it will be those who listen to her who will reap the rewards.