Sports Gala

Tuesday night was my night to attend the Women in Sports Awards Gala. Such a fun event to get to go to! It started out very stressful - I had a bomb dropped on me at 5:00 at work, right when I'd planned to leave to go home to get ready. It was a stressful couple of hours. I missed the entire cocktail reception, was 15 minutes late for the dinner, and had to go back to work afterwards! I was not happy about all that and only had about 15 minutes at home to change clothes, do my make-up, and I didn't even attempt to try to fix my hair - it was a mess!! But, the good news is I made it, felt good in my dress, and enjoyed the evening!

The ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria was so pretty. I am so glad I got to go to an event at such a prestigious place! The food was nothing extraordinary, but still very good.

They honored many famous sports women - mostly the recent Beijing Olympians, but others as well. They paraded all the women on the stage and each lady took a seat at a different table. I got to sit next to the athlete at my table - Brenda Villa. She won a silver medal this year as the Captain of the Water Polo team. This was her 3rd Olympics and she now has 2 slivers and a bronze. She also played for Stanford. She was really nice and fun! I even got to take my picture with her medal!!

This is a horrible picture of me, but I had to show you the silver medal! Brenda explained to me that this is the back of the medal, which is different at each games. The front is always the same silver, but the host country gets to decide what to do with the back. This was the first time a country decided to place a stone in the back, which is the green part you see. I have no idea what stone it is though. Oh, and the lady you see in the picture is Lynn Zinser. She's a sports reporter for the New York Times and covers the Rangers (NYC Hockey team). The NHL asked her to sit with us at our table. She was really nice and covered track & field in Beijing and shared some of her experiences there.

Natalie Coughlin sat 2 tables over from me and Katie Hoff was just in front of me. I was amazed at how gorgeous all of these athletes are. Katie Hoff is the best example - I thought she was almost awkward looking on the Olympic coverage, but she is SO cute! Sure, some of them looked cute on TV in August, but in person they are all extremely beautiful women! Nastia Liukin was an award winner. One of the awards is named after Billie Jean King - she spoke twice and was honored with standing ovations both times. Michelle Kwan presented an award, as did Jill Hennessey (actress from Law & Order and Crossing Jordan). Shawn Johnson was there, but I didn't get to see her cross the stage because she went before I arrived and I never saw her after that :( The entire US softball team was there - Jennie Finch is so pretty! The women's baseball team that "A League of their Own" was based on was there - such cute little ladies! Another award winner was a discus thrower from Texas Tech who has overcome cancer. Her story was really neat and she did an awesome job speaking to such an intimidating crowd! I also saw Mariel Zagunis, a fencing superstar who I actually recognized!! I know, weird that I recognized a fencer, but I watched a special on her during the Olympics.

All the other NHL people RUSHED out as soon as dinner was over, which I thought was kind of a bummer. There was a champagne reception afterwards and I wanted to check it out! I popped my head in there for just a second - there was hardly anyone there - but I did get a picture of Michelle Kwan signing autographs!

I would have liked to take more pictures, but no one at my table was, so I kind of felt like a dork - even though lots of other people there were. I didn't get pictures of my dress either. But, since I talked so much about it, I will share with you the ones I took the night before when I was trying everything on - my head's cut off though because I was ready for bed otherwise! I don't have a tall mirror in my new place (haven't figured out where I'd put one), so I've resorted to taking pictures of myself at times when trying on clothes :) You can't see the detail very well in these pictures, but it is basically a silk wrap dress with ruffles on the edges down the middle and around the bottom...a bow tied in the back. I wore it with high-heel black sandals. I also had to wear a beige cami under it...for obvious reasons. I felt appropriately dressed, so that was good...I even thought some of the other NHL people looked UNDERdressed, but who am I to say?!?