PR/INTERPRETER

I've taken part in about 18 different sports in my life, including: taekwondo (thanks to those old great Bruce Lee movies!), soccer (still playing with the boys at 49+ years of age!), football, ping-pong, tennis, volleyball, basketball, baseball, track & field and many others, including trekking. 

Given my passion for the world of sports in general, I graduated in 2002 with my third university degree, an Msc. in the sociology of sports and sports management from the University of Leicester, UK.  And given my love for women's soccer, my entire thesis was a comparative study of U.S. and Italian women's soccer: how the first works SO well (two World Cup titles since 1991 and two Olympic gold medals) and how the second works so poorly (so far NO world titles).

COACHING

I began coaching the women's game in Canada in 1985 along with my father.  I've continued doing so in Italy, having coached so far four different teams, including Roma and Lazio.  I've also taken a goalkeeping course.  As of September, 2008, I'm now coaching the goalkeepers of a local men's 3rd division amateur team (Bearzi) in Udine plus the youth goalkeepers.

 WORLD CUPS

At an international level, these are the sporting events I've so far worked at as PR and interpreter:

-1976 Montréal Olympics;

-1987 U-16 boys’ FIFA world soccer championship, Montréal;

-1990 Interpreter Italian Soccer World Cup;

-1991 U-16 boys’ FIFA world soccer championship, Montecatini

 (Italy);

-1994 US Soccer World Cup;

-1999 Women’s Soccer World Cup in the US (I was

 Italy’s interpreter/PR);                

-2003 3rd World Dragon Boat championship, Rome.  I was responsible for 2,000 athletes from 18 different countries;

-2006 Special Olympics European Youth Games, Rome.  I was responsible for the heads of delegations from 55 European countries which attended the games (the Special Olympics were founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, JFK’s sister and the mother-in-law of Arnold Schwarzenegger!).  There were seven sporting events during the Games in Rome with approximately 1,500 athletes.

As of 2009 I'm teaching physical education classes at "The Mills" private English school in Udine.  All the lessons are exclusively in English (I teach junior high kids. I probably have MORE fun than they do because many of them are real darlings!).

I'm presently coaching pee-wee soccer near Udine, at the Pagnacco soccer club.