Saturday Lunch Speaker: Elise Burgin By Rebecca Plevin
2006 AWSM Intern with Sports Illustrated The problem with being a professional athlete, said Elise Burgin, is that you get old really young. When she retired from a 14-year professional tennis career at 31, she had to start planning for the rest of her life. She still remembers the “bizarre” day that she retired. From that point on, she said, her life changed completely. Gone was constant attention, structured days of training and paychecks, and the “inordinate pressure” of being a professional athlete. Two years later, she began the second phase of her life – as a sports broadcaster. Burgin discussed her tennis career, her sports broadcasting career, and her perceptions of women’s tennis today during a Saturday luncheon for AWSM members and guests. After succeeding as a professional athlete at a time when most female athletes did not compete beyond college, she became a pioneer in her second field as well. Burgin started her journalism career at 33 as an intern at the ABC affiliate in Harrisburg, Pa. When she was hired there in 1997, she became the first woman to do sports on air in that market. Burgin said that time away from the game has allowed her to become a better tennis broadcaster. Now that she isn’t close friends with the women who are competing, she said that she can be more critical and more honest. And she’s honest when she says that she’s impressed by the game she sees today. “What a change!” she said of the professional female players today. “There’s incredible parity.” She said that there have been eight Grand Slam winners since the 2004 French Open – proving that among today’s players, anyone can win. This level of equality is exciting to her, but she said that the public may not agree. “The sport is most successful with great rivalries,” she said. Burgin replaced Sheila Johnson, owner of the Washington Mystics and BET co-founder, as Saturday’s luncheon speaker. But Burgin said that she was the better choice – tennis-speaking, that is. “Her backhand?” Burgin joked with attendees, “terrible. Her serve? Embarrassing.”
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