Transcript: WNBA Supermom
OLYMPIA: Oh. Hi guys, ready for a busy day? Hi, my name is Olympia Scott Richardson. I play for the Utah Stars.
NARRATOR: Olympia is a true WNBA supermom. With the help of husband, Al, she successfully balances motherhood, professional basketball as well as a budding writing and recording career. How does she do it?
OLYMPIA: I don't go anywhere with out this--my electronic organizer. It keeps my date book, phone numbers, task list. I can keep track of all kinds of things especially future events, like they give us a whole schedule for a month in advance and it helps me to have it on here so when people say 'What time do we have to get into Houston?' I can say 'Oh wait a second I have it right here'.
NARRATOR: Although Olympia uses an electronic organizer, you can use the traditional day planner. Most planners include a weekly or daily calendar, an address book and even a memo pad to make to-do lists. So let's look at a typical day.
OLYMPIA: My daughter BreAzia was born April 7, 1999. She gets up around 6:30 and we're basically up with her for of the morning. I usually shower and everything in the seven o'clock hour and then I bathe BreAzia, I eat breakfast then I go to practice.
AL: And when she's gone, obviously there's no one else to do it but me, and when she's here I try to do as much as I can to make it easier for her.
NARRATOR: By 8:30 a.m., while Al watches the baby, it's time to head off to practice. It's about a twenty minute drive, so by 9 a.m. Olympia is front and center. She has from nine to ten to get in some extra shooting practice before her teammates arrive.
OLYMPIA: I usually go in and I shoot around some and then we stretch as a team twenty minutes before practice starts. And then we practice for an hour and a half, or so.
NARRATOR: By twelve noon, Olympia has returned home from practice and fixed lunch. She's blocked off from two to three to spend some time writing her book.
OLYMPIA: The book I'm writing is a women's journal for mothers who recently had children, trying to lose weight, just trying to get back into the swing of things. Sometimes it's tough. Post-partum depression sometimes occurs, not wanting to leave your child, but wanting to get back in the rat race. I think it's somewhat therapeutic to be able to write these things down also for other people to draw strength from it.
NARRATOR: Olympia makes to-do lists daily and revises them as things come up during her busy life. Oh and don't forget the satisfaction she gets from checking things off as she does them.
OLYMPIA: Yeah. I like when I can go through and check 'Complete'. Sometimes I go and do something right there, then I can check something else off and it does make you feel accomplished.
NARRATOR: So much to finish in a day, Olympia finds it helpful to rank her tasks according to importance.
OLYMPIA: The way I rank each priority or each task is: 'A' things are basically things that I have to do, 'B' is things that I should do, 'C' is like I could do. So it depends on how much time I have in the day or if I just want to delegate it to another day.
NARRATOR: It's 3 p.m and Olympia and Al spend an hour listening to music for the record they're starting. Olympia's day is far from over. It's 4:30 p.m. and time for a mandatory pre-game session.
OLYMPIA: It's hard because I want to be a full time mom, but then I also have a basketball dream. I wish I didn't have to choose. I'd rather be able to be with her instead of having to go to work. Some days I'm like running late and I come back and kiss her three more times and then it's like okay I got to get out of here.
NARRATOR: It's 6 p.m and Olympia arrives at the Delta Center for tonight's game. After a jam-packed day, Olympia finds the energy to do one of the things that she does best, play basketball.
OLYMPIA: Alright guys. Thanks for hanging out, but it's game time. Got to go to work.