Hear Her Sports

Natasha Camy is an NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Referee now in her 14th season. She has officiated at the very top level, including in the 2024 Elite 8 game featuring LSU and Iowa, the most watched women’s basketball game in history! She has also officiated in the Conference USA championship, Big 10 conference playoffs, Big 10 final, SEC conference playoffs, WNIT final, WBIT quarterfinal and final.

In the episode, Natasha shares with host Elizabeth Emery about how she prepares for games, nerves, cute interactions with players, and how things have changed in the fourteen years she’s been oficiating.

Beyond her own officiating career, Natasha is helping others grow in the profession. She founded and runs Referee Ready Academy, a holistic referee development training program.

In January 2024 she was announced as an investor for the Cape Town Tigers, a South African basketball club belonging to The Basketball Africa League (BAL); founded by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and

International Basketball Federation (FIBA); making her one of the first African American women to do so. The investment deems Camy one of the only African American women to invest in a BAL team.

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Alpine Climber and Integrative Wellness Coach Blake Cason shares her journey in climbing, preparing for upcoming trips, humility, ego, confidence, trying over and over, yoga, meditation, meal planning, nutrition, unanswered emails, saying no, and what coaching is all about.

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Lynn Holzman returned to the NCAA in February 2018 as the vice president of women’s basketball. She is responsible for the strategic direction, oversight, operations, and management of women’s basketball in Divisions I, II and III. She serves as the primary liaison to the women’s basketball committees and provides strategic oversight of the site-selection process for each championship. In 2014, Holzman was appointed commissioner of the West Coast Conference after serving in various leadership roles within the conference office, including executive senior associate commissioner/chief operating officer and senior associate commissioner of governance and administration. Before her conference office tenure, she worked at the NCAA national office for 16 years, last serving as a director of academic and membership affairs.

Holzman serves on various Boards, such as the Board of Directors of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, Kay Yow Cancer Fund and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She has also served on numerous other Boards such as Women Leaders in College Sports, San Jose Sports Authority, National Association for Athletics Compliance and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics.

Holzman earned her Bachelor of Science and secondary major degrees at Kansas State University where she was captain of the women's basketball team and a three-time Academic All-Big Eight Team member. She also earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a Master of Business Administration from Purdue University.

Lynn discusses with host Elizabeth Emery some changes coming up in the March Madness site-selection process, how she ended up working on the administrative side of sports, consequences of the pandemic on women’s sports, the importance of sport for player and fans, the NCAA equity report that came out after Sedona Prince’s weight room TikTok in 2021, and being a natural introvert but learning how to use her voice.

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Mary Ellen Kelly is credentialed as a registered dietitian and board-certified sports dietitian. She holds a Bachelor of Science in nutrition from Boston University, where she was a 4-year member of the NCAA Division 1 varsity women’s track and field team. She earned her master’s degree in clinical nutrition from New York University and completed her clinical training at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bronx, New York.

Mary Ellen is the Manager of the Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association Sports Nutrition Immersion Program fellowship. She is also currently an Adjunct Faculty for Boston University and has previously served as an Adjunct Professor at Bloomsburg University and online Adjunct Faculty at Drexel University. In 2014 she was hired into a full-time team dietitian role in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins and worked with them for over three years. Mary Ellen was the Head Sports Nutritionist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and prior to UNC, she served as the Campus Dietitian/Sports Nutritionist at St. John’s University in Queens, NY. She began her career as a staff dietitian at the JJPVA.

In 2018 Mary Ellen Kelly founded Fuel Forward, private practice and nutrition consulting business offering nutrition-related speaking, writing, consulting, and coaching for groups and individuals. Current or former clients include but are not limited to: Baylor University, Bloomsburg University, Boston College Varsity Women’s Lacrosse and Field Hockey, Boston University, Golf Mind & Body, LaSalle University, New York Liberty (WNBA), North Coast Seafood, Trimsarter.com, University of Delaware, USA Lacrosse.

In the episode Mary Ellen and I discuss her work with Liberty, being a vegan athlete, importance of getting enough protein and fiber, why nutrition is both simple and complicated, essentials of fueling adequately, and high school, collegiate, and aging athletes.

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In this special collaboration with Women's Running Stories, we talk to Jae Gruenke, Feldenkrais practitioner, running form expert, and founder of The Balance Runner.

Jae Gruenke is known as “the wise woman of running” and has helped runners from beginner to Olympian relieve pain and improve their performance; she specializes in helping runners whose problems have persisted despite medical treatment.

Jae’s interest in running technique was sparked when, as a professional dancer, she was asked to perform choreography that included sustained running in large, outdoor environments. Frustrated by how difficult and uncomfortable running felt, she began to study running technique and use the Feldenkrais Professional Training Program she was enrolled in as a laboratory to discover how to coordinate her movements so that running felt comfortable, easy, and enjoyable.

Eventually, realizing she’d come to prefer running to dancing, and also that the changes in movement that had made the difference to her running were not being taught, discussed, or researched elsewhere, she retired from dancing and launched The Balanced Runner. Jae has been a member of the Feldenkrais Guild of North America since 1999 and the United Kingdom since 2011 and was an ACE-certified personal trainer from 1999-2012.

She graduated from Williams College in 1992 where she majored in literary studies and cross-enrolled at Bennington College to study modern dance. Working as a professional dancer from 1992-2003, she performed with a number of New York City-based companies, and at the time of her retirement from dance in 2003 she was a senior company member of Sarah Skaggs Dance.

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