Katie Nolan

excuse me, you're a good friend, Mini driver. That's a good friend thing to do. Are you the famous Mini too? Like I mean that sounds like a ghost question, but like, if you're the famous Mini of the two Minis, you're always going to take the heat. That can't be good, by the way it is. It's true. It's like my dad said he'd never get on a plane with a celebrity because if the plane went down, he refused to

be and others. Yep, I always think that when I see somebody more famous than me on a plane, I'm like, damn, if we go down, no one's going to remember me. Hello, I'm Mini Driver Welcome to Many Questions Season too. I've always loved Cruce's questionnaire. It was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. It's

just the scientific method, really. In asking different people the same set of questions, you can make observations about which truths appeared to be universal. I love this discipline, and it made me wonder, what if these questions were just the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed if I ask these questions as conversation starters with thought

leaders and trailblazers across all these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where were you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped

you the most? What would be your last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest today on many questions

is sports analyst and television host Katie Nolan. What's interesting about Katie is that in the male dominated world of sports presenting, she is utterly self made. She wrote a blog, started making videos by herself, and drew attention and then jobs by carving a space for herself out of sheer will, knowledge and humor. She's gone on to win a Sports Emmy and has also been nominated multiple times. Mostly she

hosted NBC's coverage of the two Olympics. In my opinion, we need more Katie Nolan's in the world of sport. In your life, can you tell me something that has grown out of a personal disaster? This question is hard because I mean, I haven't had a big personal disaster. I've been very fortunate and very lucky, and I remind myself of that all the time. But I think the time in my life where I was going in a direction and then it stopped was after I graduated college.

Graduated in two thousand nine from Hofstra University. Go Pride used to be the Flying Dutchman, but they changed it to Pride as like a group of lions. It was a mess. Flying Dutchman was a ship. I don't understand who was offensive to point is. Graduating two thousand nine, the economy was in a place so everybody was looking for a job. My cousin from California was moving to New York City to do teach for America, and I was like, oh, perfect, she's moving here. I'm not going

to not move into the city with her. So we were roommates. But I didn't have a job, but I was always making it work, so I'd make it work, like I waited tables through college. I had money saved up. I moved to the city with her. Was out of my money by the like third month. We were living in a six floor walk up on the Upper East Side. I was eating cereal out of bags. I had no idea how expensive groceries were in the city. Didn't even cross my mind, walked into a gristitis and was like,

this is how much a yogurt costs. It was insane. I also bought groceries like I lived in a suburb, and then when I got to the checkout, they were like, how are you going to get this home? And I was like, oh, I didn't think through any of this. It was a mess. Couldn't get a job. Worked in Equinox selling gym memberships for six months, and then it felt like an awful person locking people into a year contract that was way too expensive that I knew they

were never going to use the gym. Couldn't do sales. I quit. I moved back home, so I felt like, damn, there goes my big New York City dream. I'm never gonna make it in the world. I don't even know what I want to do. And then I started bar attending because I was like, I know how to make money that way. But my mom had always told me. She was like, you can bartend. You will not bartend forever. You're going to go to college, you're gonna graduate, you're

gonna get a job. You're not going to fall into this because it's easy to kind of get comfortable with. You're getting cash at night, you are social, you're talking to people, you kind of feel like you're part of it, but you're not. You're working. It can be very um enticing, and you can kind of lose years of your life doing it. I've seen it happen to people, but my mom always planted in my head, like, don't do that.

So I started a blog. I don't know why. It's the only thing in my life I've ever like started on my own and really stuck with because I knew at that time, if you tweeted your blog at somebody and they clicked on it and they saw that you had written like a post, they were going to know you're not really a blogger. But if they click on it and they see that you posted four times a day, oh, this is a legitimate website. In my head, that made sense.

So I was like, let me just make sure I write four things a day, and then when I want to send it to somebody is like, check us out. If they click on it, maybe they'll like the blog. Nobody was reading it, and then um people started reading it, and then a come and he asked me to do videos for them, and I was like I don't do on camera stuff. I'm very uncomfortable on camera. Which I was very uncomfortable on camera, but I learned and I learned to get better at it. And I did that

out of my house for two years. And then somebody was like, we're launching a sports network. Do you want to be on it? And even my mom was like, you don't know enough. You can't do that. And I was like, well, let them tell me that. Because they said that, it's fine. So if they think I know enough, then I think I know enough and I won't ever go on TV and say something without looking it up first and familiarizing myself with it. She was like, deal. So I took it, and my career kind of grew

from there. So I thought my life was done when I graduated, and it hadn't even started yet. You created the whole thing. I had a lot of help. I had a lot of help along the way. Good I'm glad, But nobody sat down and wrote the blog four times a day. You put those things together. So it's it's

so cool, particularly when things are not going great. It's sometimes hard, like in the present moment, when something's not going great, looking back at an illustration of when that was also happening, but feeling like, well, there's no way that could happen twice, you know, but it always does. It's sometimes it's not on the timeline I think that we expect and we go, Wow, I'm back in the

shutter and nothing's working out. I do remember when this happened before, But what are the chances that are happening again? And that's hopefully when you know someone else goes just take a deep breath, hang on, write something, go for a walk, love your dog, Oh my god, that I can do. I mean, I think that's what I do. I mean, what else are we supposed to do? Enjoy

it all, because then it's over very quickly. Yeah. Recently I had a moment where I where like everything was kind of crashing and falling apart, not going the way that I thought it was going to go, and I just remember finally just crying, like losing it, crying in front of my boyfriend. He was in the other room and we've been dating for I don't know, six months, and I remember thinking I was terrified that he was gonna hear you know when you do that cry where

you're like and you just can't breathe. And I was like, he's gonna hear you, he's gonna think you're nuts. And he came running around the corner and he was smiling and he was like, finally, finally, He's like, let it out. This sucks, everything sucks. Let it out. Feel sad. You have to feel this so you can stop feeling it and get back to the thing that you're supposed to be. He's like, you are exactly where you're supposed to be. And I just remember that being so comforting of like, oh,

you're not supposed to not feel it. You have to feel it, so you can stop. But right now where you are, stop trying to not be there, be there. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. I think that's hugely wise. It's difficult to do, and you do sometimes you need someone else to say it's all right, this sucks, and it's allowed to suck for a minute or longer

than a minute. It's allowed to be bad, so that you can then regroup and figure out what the next move is and do that from a place of not feeling hysterical or like you're keeping it all in for everybody else's because it'll bubble up. Your stuff will always find you. I think so. But I do think it's constantly evolving, and I do think whatever looks like it's not working out, it really genuinely is something else working out. And just being able to pause in those moments and

trust that. I mean, I don't know. I'm saying this because it's what I need to listen to. What quality do you like at least about yourself? I mean, how much time you got? But the one that will always I think haunt me is time management. I hate my lack of an ability to manage time. I get very caught up in my brain and I'm very curious, so I follow a lot of paths, Like I could spend an hour and a half reading about drama between two people I've never met and don't know and I've never

heard of. Until I see a headline of this drama that sounds interesting, I can read it and learn everything about it and then just like not be bored for an hour and a half and I can learn something about me during that, And I can, but then I just lose track of everything else. Scheduling things makes me so anxious. I was ten minutes late, for this a thing that was very important to me, and I'm in

my pajamas. I just find a way. But the most generous reading I've had of that is my good friend Mina Kimes, who also works in sports TV and is brilliant and is our future and our queen. She said she compared me to Andy Reid, and I know that might not land with many, but I can explain it.

He's a football coach who is very creative in his play calling, but sometimes he gets so distracted by how creative he wants to be that he doesn't realize that the game is about to end, and so he runs out of time to do the thing he wanted to do because he was showing off all the things he

knows how to do. It was part of the thing that's helped me see the good intentions of my weaknesses and try to do my best at them where I can, and then be prepared to apologize for them or warn people of them ahead of time, because nothing's worse than disappointing people. Oh, but that's just part of yourself criticism. You know there are things worse than disappointing people. Yes, probably killing people. I think maybe after you've disappointed them. Yeah,

well then you have to exactly. I like that idea that there isn't enough time. You can't say if your best plays for when the clock's running out. It's true. You just have to do it, you really do, and you really have to kind of I say this a lot. It's a soccer term, which is, even if it's going really badly, you have to play to the last whistle, like you have to play with everything, which I think is the other side of like don't save all your creative play for the last fourteen seconds of a game.

But I'm a procrastinator. That's what I do because if I as soon as I write it, or film it or put it on paper, whatever it is I'm making, then it's going to be done. And I don't want it to be done. I like living in the part where you're figuring it out until it's perfect. I don't want to do it. But what about the idea that like there's no there there and that it is never

going to be perfect? I know, what about letting go of the idea of like this constraint you've put on it and just be in the process, which you clearly love because God knows you create. Everything is self generated that you do, Everything is about you creating this content and offering that up. And people clearly obsessively love what you do. Even the people that don't get it, they love what you do. I think that might be one of the nicest things anyone said to me. That's very calm,

but I do think it's true. It's like I was looking at the people that haven't necessarily got it. That's okay. Like again, this notion of time throwing out the window, it's like you're just waiting for everybody else to catch up. That's what it seems to me. I hope that you will be nicer to yourself about whatever you think you're shortcomings off, because you're great. Where and when were you happiest?

I mean, it's hard. It's also a good question to think about, if I can just delay answering it for a second, because it's not the moments I find myself thinking about the most. Like when I heard this question, it was like, well, if you ask me sadness, I could give you top five off the top of my head. So it's good for me to go back through all the good ones and think about it. Can I give you two answers, because I think it shows the two types of happiness that I value the most. One was

the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl fifty one, which I'm sure you remember many driver, is when the Patriots beat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime. It was the first overtime in the Super Bowl. It was a game that they were losing in the first half. It looked like it was gonna be a loss. I'm a Patriots fan. I had been in Houston for the week hosting my own show on TV Live, which I had never really done before, so it was a big accomplishment for me. It didn't

go perfectly, but I at least learned a lot. I had like, it's a very small appearance on my favorite show in the world, the reason why I want to do this with my life, The Daily Show. I had done a silly like here's what's happening on social media, but it was my parents saw me on the Super Bowl, which you know, they were so proud, and I got to shout out my family on the Super Bowl. And then I was at the game and the Patriots came back,

tied the game, we went to overtime, we won. I got down on the field and got to hug a player on the Patriots who I met through my job, Martellis Bennett, after he had just won the Super Bowl. I remember standing there and being like, this is is the peak of your life. This is the coolest moment that working and your job has gotten you to this place where And I don't think I really noticed then fully the extent of my happiness, but looking back at it now where we are in the world, everything was

kind of perfect. It was such a celebratory moment. The second moment couldn't be more different, but feels almost the same in my heart. It was during the quarantine. I had woken up early for work. I was filming a TV show out of a spare bedroom of my house. I put on a full face and makeup, which I still have no idea how to do myself. God bless hair and makeup. That's what I've learned over these last

couple of years. One of the many lessons is that those people are angels and I need them in my life. But I just put on this full face and makeup and done a fifteen minute hit from some room, and then I came back into my bedroom and my boyfriend and my dog were cuddled up asleep, and I just got back in bed with them and snuggled them, and I was like, this is it's all for this. These are the moments that I'll look back on and be

like lived I loved. Things were bad, things were bad, world things were bad, and my job situation was bad, and it was a time of unrest, but in that moment we still found peace. I think that's why I value you know, so when you say happiest, it's like, not everything was the best, but that was exactly what my soul needed that day. Well. I do think that's the bit that we don't talk about enough, is that

happiness is not necessarily qualified by everything being happy. There at these moments that we recognize happiness sometimes incredibly challenging. What year was that that they beat the falcons in in overtime? It was twenty seventeen. It was the before times. Yes, yes, before we knew well, but we kind of thought we knew, but we didn't know. You know, well, I feel like, you know, Trump was the helpful herald of the pestilence that was coming. So actually your right sort of bang

in the middle of it. That does sound. Even as somebody for whom football is a completely different game, I can appreciate how absolutely astonishing that moment must have been. Oh my god, it was unbelievable. And it's not like, you know, it would have been obviously a better movie in the movie version of it. It would have been like the Patriots first Super Bowl, like they had one, they had the capacity to win, but it was the way that they were completely down the first half. It

was awful. Brady had thrown a pick at the end of the second quarter and it was just like, what's happening? And then it just it was beautiful. It was awesome. So let me ask you this, because again with my whatever the opposite of encyclopediac is, that's my knowledge about American football. How is it being a fan of a team that is never the underdog? And I'm I'm assuming that they are never the underdog soon once it all wears off, because you know, sports fans memories kind of

linger for a while. We don't like to move on, is one thing I've learned working in this industry, And so like that narrative is gonna last for a while, but they'll be underdogs against soon and people are gonna love it. But it's funny because I grew up with my dad complaining about how Boston fans couldn't catch a break, the Red Sox, the Patriots. It's just like let down

after letdown. He was not a basketball guy, so I probably back then would have been like, you should have liked the Celtics that went well, But he raised me to think that we had been down trodden. And then sort of by the time I came into my own understanding of my sports fandom as I'm hitting high school and then college, we were just winning all the time, and so it was like I now feel like I was spoiled, but at the time I felt like I had inherited my Dad's like, no, no, this, we deserved this.

But it's like, yeah, but I didn't deserve my dad deserved it. And I'll tell you my dad didn't even enjoy it as much as he probably would have thought that he did because he never trusted He never trusted the Red Sox. He never let them like become the winners, and then he was like, I can count on them to win. It was like the second they would lose, he was like, ah, they stink and would just bail

on him. And it was just this to me, stereotypical attitude of a person from Boston towards sports that never fully changed if you experienced the pain of it, because you always knew it was just around the corner. So I tried to slow him down and tell him, like, this is the good. Enjoy the good while it's here.

I know. I think that's what I'm interested in. It's like the loss of Like I loved my football team, my soccer team when we were shipped, and then I loved it when everybody gave us ship for the rich Russian coming and augmenting our team, and it changed everything. And now we're back in the shitter with the government basically taking bids on who's going to buy the team that I've supported since I was a kid. Like, it's weird, but I think those vicissitudes as a fan those verse

did you say vicissitudes? Vicissitudes ups and downs in a ten cent word? I love? What a good word is that? A C there V I C. You don't have to know this, mini driver, I'll google it. V I C I S S I T U D E S. Vicissitudes, vicissitudes, That's what I would have guessed I would have gotten that in a spelling ups and downs, Katie, ups and downs, Yes, exactly. But I think that's part of what is. It's like everything.

It's what makes you appreciate the well being ship made you appreciate snuggling in bed with your dog and your boyfriend. And I'd take it any day of the week. If I could teleport to a place, I think that would be it, you know, And I try to remind myself that every time I'm here, I'm like, this is where you want to be. So while you're here, don't worry about anything else. Just think about this, because this when you're out doing all the other stuff, you're gonna want

to be back here. So be here now. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you. It's a weird answer, but stay with me because I think this is what my brain really thinks. It's Trinity and Neo from the Matrix, a faultless answer. I took forever to see that movie because I had a weirdly vivid memory of my dad watching it when it came out, and so I was eleven, which is probably too old

to be scared. But my dad was watching it really late at night, really loud, and I just remember gunshots being very loud in my house and it's scaring me because it was middle of the night. It woke me up, and so I was like, what movie were you watching last night? And he said, The Matrix, Mike, I'll never see it. I'll never see it. It was so scary. And then you know, when we were locked up and I had nothing to do, I was like, let me

watch all this stuff I've never seen. I watched The Matrix, and my takeaway at the end of the whole thing, I'm like, I feel like a lot of people missed the point of this movie. Like it felt to me like the most obvious thing was Trinity. Loving Neo was how Neo was able to believe that he was the one, which is the only way he was able to become the one. So without love, he wouldn't have known his

own potential. Her belief in him allowed him to believe in himself because he loved her, and if she believed in him, then he believed in him. To me, that is love. Love is finding somebody who believes in you so much that you couldn't possibly not believe in yourself. Do you think that that needing self love to be augmented by someone else? Is like? Is that part of

love you like? Is there a missing piece that, like, for example, your boyfriend or someone that you love fills because you that's part of that your foundational understanding of love is like having something else there to make it real. It's having a partner to whether any storm with. It's having a teammate. It's having someone you can always trust that they're going to be honest with you and also

keep you grounded, remind you of who you are. It's just an external reflection of your best self to remind you. You know, when I look at my boyfriend and he looks at me, I can almost it helps me be aware of me because I see him looking at me. Is this making any sense? No, it makes total sense. I just think it's really I think it's really interesting. Think it's really interesting because what you're describing really is like having this coach that you're allowed to be in

love with. It is that bad? Am I finding out that I'm codependent? No? Not all, are you joking? It just means that that you're literally like living in the world that you love being in, which is like, of course love would have a sports analogy in it for you. Yeah, that's the word. Is that somebody to imbue you just say your self love, you are worthy, and then you yourself see yourself as worthy. Yeah, that's every great teacher. So yeah, if we need someone to help us get there,

why the hell not? I mean again, for me life, all bets are off. That's why I hate you know how to books about certainly the big life subjects, because it's not one size fits all. It's not if you do this, then this will happen. It's like read this, think about this, and then put it into your main frame. But like you've really identified I like having knowing someone loves me. It makes me help me love myself better.

So if that makes you feel good, then who's to say that you're supposed to get the self love first and then be loved. Everybody says it, But here's the thing, that you have to love yourself before someone else can love you. Does still ring true to me because I think there was a period of my life where I was The best way I can describe it is like acting out what I thought I was supposed to be doing and then I sort of had, you know, life happen, and recently have come into like just do what you

want to be doing. And I think once I came into that was when I found I mean, I think he's the love of my life and you know, have had this incredible relationship that came exactly when I needed it. And he sort of helps me remember me as opposed to telling you know what I mean, Instead of telling me I'm worthy and so I'm worthy, it's more like sometimes I forget and he will remind me of it.

And because he exists externally from my brain, which sometimes I get into situations because of my mental health because I struggle with depression and I have a d h D. Sometimes things get a little toxic upstairs and I can't tell if it's me or if it's real. And he's sort of just like the what's the thing in in that movie about dreaming. It's a little token or whatever that they have that reminds them of an inception. What do they call it? What is it? Well, it's his

spinning top or whatever. Yeah, yeah, it's he's like my little like okay, the spins. So it is real, I have a boyfriend like that too. Oh no, is that? Did you say you had a boyfriend like this too? As in like I'm gonna that this is going to end and I'm gonna go under the next one. No no, no, no, no, I have a boyfriend like that now, okay, thos it had damn so it ends? No no, no no, no, no no. And it's all of that idea that you have to get there by yourself. Yes, it's a really nice and

great thing. And of course finding self love and yourself is a really good thing to aim for. Having help and being augmented by a loving partner or someone who is more tolerant of your ship than you are of your own is a really good thing, well prescribed so many things. It's really you know yourself to know that he's helping that part of you that is in pain or is difficult. So that feels a lot like love to me. But yeah, also Neo and Trinity for sure.

And just as an aside, I met the as was then witch Howski Brothers now just the Wichowskis for that part and wanted to in that film. Oh my god, you would have been great. No, But but there can be only one. I mean, carry On Moss was who Carryan's just plays it perfectly. She really is. It's just she's just the most beautiful and lovely and deep. But I remember looking at the storyboards of that film and going, this film is epic. It's very good. I wasted so

many years not dressing up as her for Halloween. I waited way too long to watch it. That's okay, sort of. The nineties are really bad. They really are. I've got like bangs. You know we're doing it. You just don't plug your eyebrows. No, I won't. Can we never go back to whatever we were doing? Then? It's just terrific. It was awful. It really was awful. So in your life, what person, place, or experience has most altered it? I want to give credit to the good. But I'm I

can't believe I'm voluntarily bringing up this topic. But I'm going to say middle school. I think middle school as a place and as just like an entire chapter of my life shaped me the most as a person. Because look, I was born into middle class family in a suburb framing him Massachusetts shout out. You know, life wasn't hard

by a large metric. But I had a bad haircut from first grade through eighth grade, and those last three years there were a real tough time because it was six seventh eighth, which is when kids like no enough words to hurt you, and um I was. I wasn't very popular, but I was such a happy, smiley, friendly kid and wanted everybody to like me. And I think I learned in middle school a lot about people, and a lot about me, and a lot about how little a lot of things matter, like the opinions of people

whose opinions you, in other contexts wouldn't respect. I think it taught me the value of being a good friend, because that was one of the only ways I was going to make a lot of friends is by, you know, being there for people who didn't have anybody else. And so I've always said this about me and never really

understood what it said about me. I used to think it was a bad thing that if somebody was being bullied, even if that person had bullied me before, I would always be like, all right, do you want to talk about it and be there for them. I always thought it was a weakness, and I'm starting to see it as a fundamental part of who I am. It's tough now because when we get into issues of bigger things like hatred and race and all the things. I'm not saying that I'm a person that thinks people can do

no wrong. I'm a person that values holding people accountable with a loving hand. Does that make sense? I don't know. I just think people were mean to people and I wanted to be nice. So let me ask you. Does that inform dealing with that version of middle school today, which for me is like certain aspects of social media and that toxicity that's there. Oh yeah? Was it are traumatically recognizable for you? Or do you try and deal

with it in the same way? I mean, I don't think it eviogates maybe easier, but it actually I mean, in the last few years, I think it has. My relationship with social media I would not describe as healthy. I came up through you know, YouTube videos, and when I was making YouTube videos, I was reading the comments. I used to run my own Facebook page where I had like seventy fans and I would talk to them. I would like post and they would post. I knew

them by name. When one of them just stopped posting, I noticed, I asked where he was like, I'm incredibly online. What I've started to look at social media as now is like, you get to watch people interacting with each other. Sometimes they're doing it performatively, sometimes they know like somebody else send a tweet where it's like I feel this way about this thing, and I've done it all figured out. That kind of stuff you gotta take with a grain

of salt. But when you get into the meat of it, when you scroll down through the replies and the conversations that branch off from the replies, or if you scroll through Reddit, not at the you know, controversial top pages, but you go to the pages of things you're interested in, and why watch people have conversations. You can observe humans and how they interact and how conflicts happen, and where

the disagreements happen, and when disagreements turn into agreements. You can be like, oh, that that's how they bridged that gap. You can learn stuff. And so I started looking at social media that way. I used to get in arguments all the time, replying to tweet something You're not seeing it my way. And I had a boyfriend and ex boyfriend now who was like, you're not gonna change people's minds. Why do you care? And I was like, it's a

really good point. But I think the reason I care is because to not care implies that I think I'm better or different than anybody else. I think a lot of people want to be a part of the conversation. The way that they can do that is social media. The good of that that we've seen as people and communities who haven't had an avenue to speak on things and the way that they receive things have been able to speak up and and meet each other and sort

of come together and form movements. I think the bad side of it is that everybody gets to say anything they want about everything that happens, and everything is constantly happening. So you get this world where now we have news

organizations that write articles where the headline is blank. Happens and social media erupts and you're like, yes, something happened and people reacted, but is it worth writing a whole article on your website, which then makes it seem like this idea that maybe seventeen people had is now an idea that people should pick sides on. It turns everything into a conversation about the conversation instead of an actual

conversation about a thing. And so like I've tried to, you know, be the change you want to see in the world. Blah blah blah. I try to when I log onto social media. Now, this is so stupid, but hopefully it will make sense to someone. And I'm not recommending this, but my approaches. I pretend it's somebody who loves me, who's joking or who um isn't as good at communicating as I am, haven't studied and thought about the amount of words and how to use them the

way that I have. So I give them the benefit of the doubt a little bit. And then if they continue to prove and I've got my own little red flags, and I'm like, all right, that's one. That's one strike. You're not getting past this. Uh, I will end the conversation for my own sake. But I've noticed people you can kind of be like, I get it. I disagree, but I get it. On like certain things, there are places they can go that are bad. And like I said, my privilege has made it so I don't have to

deal with much of that. But whenever I hear people say, here's the problem with social media like people. It's people. Heart of it is people. It's just people. Even the things that are the problem with social media that's engineered by the social it's made by people. And so what the problem always boiled down to me, it felt like

was it's people. And as a people, I'm like, maybe I can find some sort of an answer about how I think we should use it, and then I can just start using it that way and see how it works. You know, yeah, I do. I'm also fascinated by what was your haircut between first and eighth grade? I can show you it. I want to see that, because like, what was that so bad? It was? So I'm Italian, um like three quarters Italian, a quarter Irish, So that means I'm furry, if you will, if I can put

that as cutely as possible. And so, you know, going through puberty, I had this short haircut. So it was like my mom would do this little swoosh, she would blow dry this little wave at the front. Uh, and then it was just short like a boy's haircut in the back. And so I was, you know, often misunderstood for a boy because you know, at that age you see the haircut, you just assume. I played hockey when I was really little, so I had a helmet and was called Kyle. I was quiet and speak up, and

I would just let them. I didn't want to have to explain that I was a girl that felt uncomfortable. Then as I was getting older and trying to grow it out, and it was, it went through this awkward stay. I'll try to find you the worst picture I have many, it's real bad. I'm sure that your mom was just being practical, having your happy short na. She was. She's like, it makes you stand out, it's sure dead it did.

I genuinely think it was because she couldn't find me on stage at the day's recital because all the girls had buns, and she was like, just cut it off and then I can find her by the way. I mean, I'm not mad at that parenting logic, but I'm sorry for your trauma. Oh thank you. I walked my dog during whatever time I was home last some holiday, I walked my dog in the middle schools right across the

street from my house. I walked my dog there and we walked around and I peeked into the cafeteria, which was like my own personal hell, and it just I was like, ha, I made it, so screw all, y'all. I made it. My dog was like, what are we doing? Can I pee? I was like, yeah, go ahead, pee on the building for all I care. I really have so loved talking to you. I'm so thank you, Katie. I'm really, really, really excited for whatever you do next. I'm telling you, I have a very strong, witchy feeling.

You just feel like the right person who's going to be able to champion everything that you're brilliant at is just is right there. Oh many, You're just so sweet. This is the sweetest. This has been such a joy. Thank you for having me. There's been a bit of a sea change in the world of sports and sports media. With people like Katie in the industry, I think we can feel comfortable that the future is in good hands. To stay up to date on Katie's reporting and announcements,

follow her on Instagram at Natie Colon. Yep, that is Natie Colon, not Katie Nolan. Mini Questions is hosted and written by me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced

by me Mini Driver. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and a Nick Oppenheim at w kPr DA, La Pescador, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, And for con cintly solicited TEX support, Henry Driver,