By Sophie Vaughan
Dreams are not what we always expect them to be. Life does not always turn out the way you planned. To most people, that is a negative sentiment. It signifies a failure, that you did not achieve what you worked so hard for. This can be true for most people, but for the rest, that can mean that somewhere down the line, you discovered a new dream that is more meaningful to you. For Katie Brock, this is the case.
Katie, born Kathleen, was born in Pasadena, California on September 6, 1972, the first child of Lynn and Carl. Though they moved all over Los Angeles throughout her childhood, she ultimately ended up calling Pasadena her heart and home. At the age of 17, she graduated from Glendora High School, home of the Tartans, and started her freshman year at the University of Southern California on her 18th birthday. Growing up, Katie always dreamed of being a sports broadcaster on the field, interviewing both coaches and players in college and professional football. She grew up watching and loving football, a shared hobby with her father. “Watching football with my dad was like, a thing that belonged to only us, since my mom and sister didn’t want to watch with us. It was a way for me to feel like the son he never had, though I would never be the one playing it.” She was a USC Trojan since the day she was born, especially as she was born her father’s senior year of college there. Football games and ESPN were more common to hear roaring from the television down the hallway than music on the weekends. Her closet had a section dedicated to crimson and gold. And though her goal was to fulfill this dream, she was unfortunately not allowed to pursue it. At the time she attended college, there were no female sports broadcasters. It was a world primarily dominated by men. So when she started at the University of Southern California, she enrolled as a communications major with her minor in marketing, as this would help get her in the field of her dreams. Of course at the University of Southern California, enrolled students still have to apply to the school of journalism, she was told her college would not be payed for since it would be impossible for her to have a successful career at that time. Katie graduated from USC in 1994.
Still living in California, Katie’s first job was working in employee benefits at a no longer existing company called Great West Life. Her job description entailed mainly sales and the company was a national life insurance company. Even today, her favorite job she ever had was with Great West Life. Though it had great people she is still friends with today and was located close to home, it was her favorite because of how many lessons it taught her. There were so many life lessons as she was freshly out of college, learning her way, and had something to pursue. “The pressure that was on me for this job was a great push, but not for the same reasons my jobs in the past 24 years have put pressure on me. It was still really fun.” For a year and a half, she lived in Florida, then moved back to California to help take care of a sick family member. Once she returned, she quickly fell in love with one of her closest childhood friends, Jason. They married in 1998, giving birth to her first child, Grace in 2000.
After the birth of her first child, she wanted to find a way to spend more time with her family and pay as much attention to her child as she could. She maintained her license in insurance, but realized her new dream: being an incredible mother. Katie started working with a pharmaceutical company where she could work part time. During this job, she had the ability to have her mother, Lynn, take care of her daughter while she was at work, then could come home for the rest of the day. Luckily, her husband, Jason, had a successful job working at his family’s company, where they could be surrounded by family wanting to love and support their new family. Soon after they settled with Grace, Katie had another daughter, Sophie, in 2002. Almost two years later, the now family of four moved to Arizona, where Katie still continued to work in pharmaceutical sales.
Unfortunately in 2009, Katie split with her husband and was now tasked with supporting herself and two daughters as a single mother. She was forced to find something to sustain a life for the three of them. “Up until you and Grace were older, the only thing that mattered was a work/life balance. Flexibility in my schedule was a must since I wanted to be home with you guys and let you both be able to do what you wanted for extracurricular activities after school. I’m not sure if you remember this, but countless times, you guys would be fighting in your room or dancing in the living room, and I would be taking work calls in my bathroom before making dinner.” She switched jobs or worked a few at a time during this period. “I could’ve made a lot more money over the years and was actually offered opportunities and promotions to move places I had always wanted to live in more or make more money, but it always came down to what would be the best for you and your sister. I don’t regret a single choice I ever made in regards to my career path and how it effected you guys, because then you wouldn’t be where you are today, and I wouldn’t switch that for the world.”
If the possibility stood, hundreds of thousands of people around her age would probably say they would love to go back and rewrite their career paths. Katie does not stray from this. While there are not regrets, “if I could go back and write my own path all over again, I would still be working for NBC sports or ESPN and helping promote women’s sports. The inequity between women and mens sports while they are doing the same thing isn’t right. As far as sports reporters who are killing it today, I would’ve loved to be like Erin Andrews and her interviews and on the field. She doesn’t ask obvious questions, she knows how to ask good questions to use her time well, she’s an entrepreneur, she runs her own clothing brand. She is an extremely admirable woman.”
About 15 years ago, Katie read a book called Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow, by
Marsha Sinetar. To this day, she claims this book changed her life and believes it is one everyone should read. Though she did not get to accomplish her childhood dreams, she is just as happy as she expected to be when she was younger. The key to that, as she says, is making sure you are not following the hollow trail that money can lead you down. Finding the balance is key. “You don’t want to dread Sundays because you hate Mondays. You can dislike certain parts of your job, but it’s no way to live if you absolutely hate your life. You have to be passionate about what you’re doing.”