Going Rogue: An American Life (8 page)

Going Rogue

latet that we learned out parents got a kick out of political

humor, too.

My folks were smart: less TV meant more books. From
The
to
Jonathan Livingston

ro
Animal Farm
and anything

by C. S. Lewis, I would put down one book just long enough to pick up another. The library on Main Street was one of my summer hideaways. I wandered through the stacks, thumbing through the smallish collection as though it were a secret treasure. One of my dad’s buddies said that he never stopped by the Heaths’ house when we didn’t our noses in a book or one of

the magazines we subscribed to, including
National Geographic,
Sports Illustrated,
or
Ranger Rick,

The 1970s also ushered in the running craze across America, and my family was hooked. Mom and Dad had their friends training for marathons even on subzero winter days, and in the summettime, we ran together in the sunlit nights. On weekends, we squeezed in 10k family fun runs. My parents and sistet Heather became decent marathoners. Dad qualified for the Boston Marathon and proudly represented Alaska twice at the Big Show. Mom, who was not at all athletic growing up, won her age group in the 26,2-mile Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon, a testament to how Alaska can change a person.

At the time, running with my family was just a fun and expected thing to do, but it became a lifelong passion for me. For one thing, you don’t have to be particularly coordinated or talented to do it. Eventually, though, I realized that the road, and especially marathon training, holds invaluable life lessons. That to reach your goal you have to put in the tough, drudging miles. That the best rewards often lie on the other side of pain. And that when it seems you can’t take another step forward, there is a hidden reservoir of strength you can draw on to endure and finish well. Some would call it something spiritual, others would call it
27

.

SARAH

PALIN

personal resolve, bur I believe rhat reservoir resides in all of us. We all have opportunities to tap it. A couple of decades and four kids later, I finally reached my goal of running a sub-four-hour marathon. By a few seconds. When I finished that hellish exercise, I considered it one of my greatest accomplishments because it just hurt so bad.

Every year in school I ran for something in student govern
ment-vice president, treasurer, something. Curtis Jr. was usu-
ally president, and I always served with him. One year, I served as one of the student representatives for the Mat-Su school board. Our rival school, Palmer High, sent a representative who was the undisputed queen of the Mat-Su Valley, a dazzling and brainy cheerleader, Kristan Cole, who would play an important role in my future.

We were all expected to participate in most everything offered in our hometown:
of course
we’d be in 4-H, and Campfire Girls, and Scouts and ballet and band.
Ofcourse
we’d take foreignlanguage courses and join the National Honor Society. And we went from sporr ro sport to sport.

One part of athletics I really appreciated was our local chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which I cocaptained under the leadership of the Wasilla Warriors’ wrestling coach, Mr. Foreman. At least sixry of us met in public school classrooms for Bible study and inspirarional exchanges that morivared us to focus on hard work and excellence.
In
those days, ACiD activists had not yet convinced young people that they were supposed to feel offended by other people’s free exercise of religion. As an athlete who advanced more on tenacity than talent, I wanted sports to be my future but was realistic enough to know I wouldn’t always be a player. That’s why with my passion for both sports and the written word, becoming a sports reporter seemed like a natural fit. There were few women in the field, but .

28

•

Going Rogue

I couldn’t see any teason why more women shouldn’t bust through and succeed in this arena. Lesley Visser had already sharrered rhe ceiling, breaking inro rhe profession when the rules of the press box were plainly printed on media credentials: NO WOMEN OR

CHILDREN ALLOWED.

I set out to follow that path, even memorializing in my high school yearbook my goal of someday working in the broadcast booth with Howard Cosell. Granted, conventional wisdom at the time was that sports reporting was a man’s world, but in my family, gender was never allowed ro be an issue. My parents gave us equal opportuniry and expectations. We were all expected to work, build, chop, hunt, fish, and fight equally. I’m a product of Title IX and am proud that it Was Alaska’s own Senator Ted Stevens who helped usher through the federal legislation in 1972 to ensure girls would have the right to the same education and athletic opportunities as boys. I was a direct beneficiary of the equal rights efforts that had begun gaining traction only the decade before. Later, my own daughters would benefit, participating in sports like hockey, wrestling, and football, which had been closed to girls for decades.

I didn’t subscribe to all tbe radical mantras of that early feminist era, bur reasoned arguments for equal opportunity definitely resonated with me. It was a matter not of ideology but of simple Standing on the shoulders of women who had won hardfought battles for things like equal pay and equal access, I grew up knowing I could be anything I wanted to be. Years later I came across a book by fellow Alaskan (and former basketball rival from Fairbanks) Jessica Gavora called
Tilting the Playing Field,
about the liberating effect of Title IX on women’s sports, and I agreed with a lot of what she wrote: “Instead of refleccing and, indeed, reveling in our expanded horizons, the feminism of the National Organization for Women and other so-called ‘women’s groups’ …

•

29

.

SARAH

PALIN

depicts women as passive victims rather rhan the makers of rheir own destinies, and overlooks our individuality in favor of a collective political identity that many of us lind restrictive.” Sports empowered me to plow through some Neanderthal thinking that still permeates corners of our culture, including some parts of that thing we call American politics. Jessica and I are from the same era and have the same Alaska spirit, so it’s no surprise that we consider ourselves more liberated rhan some women’s rights groups would have us believe we are. Dad coached many of our teams, Mom was an assistant running coach, and they expected us all to participate and work hard, no matter what our talent. We lived by the creed thar passion is ‘what counts. Our parents were as proud of us when we won litrle awards, like the Presidential Physical Fitness patch, as when we won bigger ones, like the time I was named MVP of our high school cross-country team.

My siblings all won many more sports awards than I, as I wasn’t equipped with anything close to their natural talent. But I once overheard Dad say to another coach that he’d never had an athlete work harder, Overhearing those words was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. Maybe God didn’t give me natural athleticism-other athleres could run faster, jump higher, and hit the basket more often-but I loved competition. I loved pushing myself and even relished pushing through pain to reach a goal. I realized rhat my gift was determination and resolve, and I have
relied on it ever since.

Because Dad was our coach, thete was extra scrutiny and pressure. It seemed to me that he went out of his way to dispel any perceived nepotism. I felt a jealous twinge, and even hurt sometimes, when he’d give other athletes an inspiring word or com
• 3°

.