Oral History Program Mary Kay Amicone Interviewed by Jazmine Thompson 31 March 2017 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Mary Kay Amicone Interviewed by Jazmine Thompson 31 March 2017 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Amicone, Mary Kay, an oral history by Jazmine Thompson, 31 March 2017, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Mary Kay Amicone, conducted on March 31, 2017 at the Dee Events Center in Ogden, Utah, by Jazmine Thompson. Mary Kay discusses her life and experiences as a leader for minorities. JT: Please start by telling us about your background your childhood, teen years, where you grew up, hobbies, family values, education, etc. MA: Alright. So I was born in Southern California and lived there until the 7th grade. I love athletics, I love sports, and I love recreation. I moved to Utah entering 7th grade through high school and again found myself on the courts on the fields. I had a pretty close family. Many of them still lived in California and my immediate family was in Utah. It was an interesting, diverse, move because I was so used to being outside and active. To move to Utah—it was September and it began to snow and I really loved being outside. I really didn't love the snow and that kind of made me conform to a different set of everything. I left behind childhood friends that was a very difficult thing to move at that age. I basically began making my way through junior high and high school. High school was a really big turning point for me because there was organized sports. I think it's difficult to understand for maybe your generation that honestly we kind of pioneered. My age group was fortunate enough to be able to begin high school sports. When I started playing in high school, we didn't have any facility at our high school. We went to a junior high for practice. We had practices and things, but then we had one day called sports day, where we did volleyball and then it went to basketball and so forth. I was kind of on the 1 leading edge of Title XI, which allowed us to then have a field built somewhere close to campus where we participated closer. Murray is where I grew up—Murray, Utah. We went to the city park to play instead of the junior high. But there was still no on campus facility for women or girl sports. Now, looking back, I just think that it is really hard to comprehend for even our sons who both play baseball and have been in the coaching world—I can't really believe how many opportunities young women get right now. Like to play and how great they are, the talent, the level of coaching and leadership and everything has really transformed itself. I graduated from high school in 1976 and that was really a time for a lot of women's rights if you will. Where we started to emerge on the college scene that we needed to provide opportunities for women to play sports in college. At the time, there was no softball for the NCAA. It was an association called IAWA which had to do with the intermountain Athletic Women's Association ... something to that degree. My whole playing experience two years at Weber State playing softball and two years at the University of Utah. It still wasn't sponsored by the NCAA. Here we are today watching women on ESPN play softball. And coaching of course is just like mind blowing to me. To really think back to the days, it wasn't very long ago to me where we fund raised. We really had no uniforms, not much equipment, nothing like today. We had maybe 5 or 6 bats that the team used. We drove everywhere in vans. That overall experience always led me to and I think my upbringing of both my parents working led me to the lesson of you work for everything you get. 2 After school, we had jobs we had things we had to get done before we could do anything. My dad was a machinist. My mom was basically an office worker and had worked all through my growing up years. As soon as I turned 16, I got a job at McDonald's. I bought some old cheap car to get back and forth to school and I was so appreciative of it, you know? Because even though it had dents on all four bumpers it got me to and from versus taking the bus to school. But that mindset was from my parents-- which was that you earn everything that you get, and if you miss the bus you better start walking. So I didn't usually miss the bus so I really am looking at the lessons that I learned. It was basically my mom and dad that instilled in me hard work and that if it's not necessary, we’re most likely not going to get it. JT: What experiences did you have in childhood, teen years, adult years that led you to believe that you were or could be a leader? MA: In high school, I had two brothers. My older brother, I pretty much tagged along with him. He didn't really like it, but he didn't have a choice because we went to the same babysitter because my mom was working. The three of us all had the same babysitter and so when we went outside to play anything—back In Orange, California, there where orange groves everywhere and there were fields. Actually, one thing that really stands out to me today, is that after school they and a program for what you may call it now as latch-key, or kids whose parents worked so they had after school sports. I always hung around and did whatever was in season whether it was track and field, hockey, softball, football, and flag football, whatever it was until our parents came home. We basically stayed after 3 school and we had supervisors they didn't referee everything. Pretty much you wanted to go play and it was just organized activities. So I think what led me to having a level of confidence is that my brother and I always went and it was with a bunch of boys. They always wanted to play sports whether it was football, hide and go seek, you name it, I was involved in it. I think they always—in the beginning—didn't want me on their team and it led me to go and say, “Alright, fine. You don't want me. You're going to find out why you should have picked me.” So I think gradually, I learned how to really fight for myself because I learned how to be, whatever team it was on. I just wanted to show them that I could play, and I did. I went from everything to over the line baseball with usually no other girls involved. It was kind of during that time, I think junior high is really where I saw the time that it was you were either a cheerleader or you're an athlete and during that time frame of 1974-1975, if you played sports, it was almost kind of frowned upon—as if you were a tom boy. It never really fazed me because I just loved it so much. It was where I felt my niche, that was where I belonged. Then the high school format, allowed me to just really excel. I played volleyball, basketball, and softball. I had the same high school coaches for all three years and they were great mentors. My teammates were my role models. It’s interesting to me, looking back again, my mom was very athletic. She played what would have been the travel ball organization at the time. Which was a team in Orange, California, called the Lionnettes. She played with them until she got married and she was a compassionate supporter of mine. My dad came 4 to very few high school games, he never really came to see me play in college. It never really fazed me, but I found it interesting now being a parent myself, that I would do anything to watch our sons participate and or support them or Mark. Then my dad— it kind of was not his thing. But my mom would never miss anything. Whether I was involved in playing it or coaching it, she came to everything and then as I started to assist in my coaching career or teaching— because that is what I got my degree in Elementary Ed—she was my biggest fan, my biggest supporter. She would stay with Trevor or walk him around at the ballpark, while either I played or coached. Being competitive really did shape me. It was just fun and it kept me out of any kind of trouble I could find. I think there's random trouble that's fun-loving trouble, hide and go seek in the library at a junior high with the teachers, you know. But it was good clean fun. But that really, really did help me. I didn't know quite where I fit in when I moved here. My high school years were critical, and then my time at Weber State. I met some great friends and then transferred to Utah, and again athletics was the key. Then I made life-long friends with my coaches and my teammates JT: What are your core values? How have they influenced your leadership experiences/abilities? MA: Well right now, honestly, it's basically been refined to team things. Mostly my core values are optimism, gratitude, and just remaining positive. Those are part of really my mission statement for myself—is to be a leading mentor and a friend, to love, to lift. Those are my personal core values and it's been interesting to 5 continually read it and apply it because when life hits you and knocks you down you really do have to hold on to one thing that you personally believe in—that optimism and that gratitude for life and the lessons that they have to offer. You don't see them right away. So you're not grateful for maybe being dismissed from a job, or a role that you play on a team, losing a loved one, it comes within all of that. How do you get back up? So I would say that resilience has allowed me to get back up from some pretty significant trials in my life. I think the core things that I believe in have allowed me to have some insights with whoever comes into my life—that either coaches with me, or definitely my family first. I have also found myself in positions with young people who have suffered adversity like I've suffered or a setback that has allowed me to say, “Wow, I know where you're coming from and in my experience, this is what's happened, and I don't know if it is going to be the same for you, but this is what has happened for me.” So these things have led me to be very clear and transparent. Just to say that, “Man, I have made some big mistakes.” Or, “I have suffered some losses and this is what I did after that.” Or, “This is how it helped me to grow.” JT: And does that tie into core values that you hold for your team, or people that you lead, your followers? MA: Yeah it has. It's emerged to put it in a format that is strategic as a team. We can keep it simple and we've always believed that family is the power of the unit. And that is always having each other's back and we're not always going to agree, but when it comes down to it, the team is first and I have to put myself last. And I think that translates back into the personal values of sacrifice and selflessness. 6 Competitive excellence, I would say is that I want to be the best at what I can be. That's my own standard of how can I get better. So in a team format, the power of a unit, competitive excellence, I would say and relentless competiveness—striving to be relentless all the time. That kind of branded the softball program and it's trickled down into some other values that we as a team value and I think those have helped us. I think a lot of times we individually lose perspective and it's real easy when we don't really like our role or our job—to complain and don't really find gratitude in it. So to have someone else say, "How did you respond to that?" “How did that help you to grow?” It's made me really work on being a better mentor, being a better leader, listening more, etc. Sometimes I don't always hear what the struggle is, so I think having those three core values for our team or for our organization—I can always go back to the player and say, “Well what are you doing that empowers our unit?” Then they think about it, “Well I guess I'm not. I didn't really think about, ‘what if she gets hurt? How do I contribute?"‘ So it's more of when that structure is there, we are able to process decision making a lot more simply because it then goes back to those questions—how are you incorporating these three core beliefs? Personally, You, Jazmine may have different beliefs, but whatever organization you are going into, they are going to have a belief system or a missions statement that you need to align with. So our players need to align with those three core beliefs. Whenever we get off track, it is my responsibility as the head coach or the leader to pull us back together and go, “Are we aligned on 7 everything?” Or in individual meetings, or in small groups, “Where are we with competitive excellence?” You know, having been in our program, there is a standard of measurement, a 10+1. So, “I'm probably at a 6 right now coach! I'm feeling like I can do better but you know ....” That kind of mind set. Having a scale in there has allowed me to check in with myself and as a team to keep us centered. JT: Name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader, maybe someone who has been a mentor to you. Why and how did this person impact your life generally, and your leadership abilities specifically? MA: Well my mom was definitely the original mentor. I think specifically with regard to my leadership ability. Unfortunately, I lost her, she passed away before a lot of significant things happened—me being a mother. I was pretty young in that stage, so I am going to highlight a good friend of mind that I taught with. Derek Whaddups is his name. My experience with him was team teaching a leadership class called, “No Greater Heroes” and it's based off of Tony Robbins—Anthony Robbins’ leadership principles. I pick Wad—that's his nickname, Wad—because we had worked five years together and twice a week we taught this class to student athletes. We brainstormed about coaching—he was an assistant baseball coach. But I learned so many great lessons from him because of his example and his ability to help me work through things. He was kind, but he was also clear and we could have critical conversations about, not only the team I was coaching, but also just about me. So when he would teach half of the lesson— 8 cause it was roughly thirty minutes each, I taught these student athletes—When he would teach, I would watch everything—his physiology, his state of mind, his engagement with the students, and I would follow his lead. Between the two of us, it is very much like husband and wife or like head coach and assistant coach. We would role model for each other and our student athletes. In this case, these leaders in the class would feed off of us as well. If we didn't put our armor on, so to speak—if we came into the class and something was bothering us, oh, they saw it. It may have started from something small, but then the divide widens because we don't align ourselves. He and I would then talk after class what we saw in our student athletes. We would see how we either triggered a nerve and they were sad about it, or it empowered them. When he would teach, I would watch more in depth his method of teaching, but also the responses from the students. I would then await his feedback on my portion of the teaching. Even now, Wad and I text each other regularly. He helps me, he follows our schedule—no matter what's going on in my life he will reach out and say, “I'm thinking of you buddy!”—because we had the buddy system. In a way, he was my buddy, my first buddy with this class. Just shadowing and understanding that success does leave clues and as he worked with me on a daily basis, I found myself growing stronger and stronger. In not only coaching, but teaching, being a parent, a better wife, and better companion because he had that positive influence on me. Working through some things with kids whether it was baseball 9 players, softball players, or our own children—we could bounce ideas off each other and it was a real mutual respect for one another. JT: What do you see as the biggest challenges of being a woman and/or minority leader in a Northern Utah? What do you do to overcome these challenges? MA: I haven't felt a whole lot of adversity with regard to that. In my experience at Weber State, I have had a great deal of respect professionally. Jerry Bovie, has been incredible. The coaches that I look for are here to help me, and mentor me. Transitioning from a previous job to this one has been really great. I think there is an overarching theme that equal pay is a big thing. Personally, I don't really speak to that, but I think it goes back to what my mom and dad taught me. I believe that as I continue to coach, part of my role is to bring other women along and increase their pay and their responsibilities and delegate responsibilities to them. I think the other thing that comes to mind as we talk about this, is that Mark, my husband, he has always been such a great support to everything I've done. I've had people say, “He works in Salt Lake and you guys moved from Sandy to South Weber, so you could take this job?” We did. And it was him saying we need to move because, “You're too far from your girls.” Ideally, it is worth the thirty-minute commute as he said. I've never really felt like there has been a challenge that way because I think all of my formative years, I was always fighting against that. It was always getting better and better. JT: What advice would you give emerging young women/minority leaders in order to be successful? 10 MA: Be yourself. Be as authentic as you can be. This all comes with a lot of adversity. I think you really find out who you are when you're in your lowest times. Success kind of leads us to not as much reflection as loss or struggle. I think I've learned the most when I've experienced loss or adversity. Look for role models who have gone through things that you're going through and pick their brain because it is much easier to learn from their experience than to go through the personal experience. As softball players, we talked about that expensive experience versus inexpensive. I found that had I learned those things twenty years ago, that I would have been through a lot more than maybe I have experienced on my own. I think as you receive some push back in areas of your life for success, do some self-reflection. “Why does that hurt?” Or, “How am I feeling about this right now and how did this help me?” Those types of things have led me to being a lot more open to answer any and all questions because there really is no way to learn if you're not going to be open about what is taking place and why things happen. Also, really get to know yourself. Reading and studying leadership models—that's all great, but when it comes right down to it—and it's a personal relationship that you have with players and coaches—it really is about who you are. If you aren't real, genuine, loving, and caring then you're really not going to know what to say. It's through that process, that I've learned that there is a lot of hard conversations to have. To me, it's allowed me to say, “In the big picture, being a leader and a mentor has a big responsibility because it helps everyone. It 11 helps me, but it helps with the big stressors of life such as how to be a better companion and friend.” That's the long answer, but it really is to know yourself better and the things that you overcome. “Why is that standing in my way right now? Why is that causing me to feel this way?” Questioning it and always going back to what you believe in—gratitude, optimism, faith and resilience. Get yourself back to it because you are going to be knocked down. It's really about how high you bounce back because there are times in life whether that's losing a loved one or losing a job and you don't ever want to get back up. It keeps you down for maybe a day, sometimes a week, and it could be a lot longer than that. You've got to do the gut check and say, “What does this mean to me?” I think those are the most important questions that we have for ourselves. I believe that people need us in their lives, I know that you've experienced that and there are no coincidences for the connections that we have in life. When as a leader, you have the insights to ask tough questions and to get back to core beliefs—that is going to empower you to have that personal connection. It doesn't have to be that they live close to you, it can be TED talks, YouTube, it can be whatever, but it's about your take-away from that leader and how it affects you. JT: What books or reading material would you recommend to future leaders? MA: Man’s Search for Meaning, is a great one. I love the book, Resilience. John Wooden has been a mentor from a distance. Anything that John Wooden has. 12 I've benefitted from Tony Robbins’ core stuff. The Power of Why, is really good as well. 13