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Community Corner

Who's Who: Globetrotting Sports Producer is Bike Advocate at Home

Every week we'll feature a brief chat with someone who lives, works or plays in Albany.

Name: Amy Smolens

Age: 52

Occupation: T.V. Production Free-lancer specializing in sports

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You speak a number of languages. What role have various languages played in your career? My production in Spanish – that’s one of the things that makes me versatile and useful. If I go to international events, I can interview people, get around, get things done. I’ve done work in Spanish quite a bit; I’ve done work that’s been aired in Latin America, such as the Tour de France and the X Games.

In Kazakhstan in February for the Winter Asian Games, the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] was crewing the ice hockey venues and Alpine [skiing]. There were no translators at the ice hockey venue, so I was hired, since I know Russian and I could talk to everybody.

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How did you acquire experience in so many languages? I studied Spanish, German and Mandarin in college at Duke University, and then I wanted to go to Italy, so I picked up a book and some tapes – that was easy. I studied Russian at night at City College of San Francisco.

Why Russian? Those were the only people – the Russians and others from the former Soviet Union –that I couldn’t speak to during bike races.

French I took the summer I needed one course to graduate early from Duke – it was a year jammed into eight weeks.

Then I was going to work the Olympics in Greece; I have relatives there, and I was going to go on a bike trip. I would be on my own for quite some time, so I decided to learn Greek. I went up to the Greek Orthodox Church in Oakland.

How did you get started in sports coverage? I was always a little tomboy and a little jock. My father was a sports fanatic. I sat on the bench for the Duke basketball team in college. When I graduated a year early, … I sent resumés and letters all over the country and all over New York. I actually got a job interview from Channel 11 for the telecast of Yankee Baseball. I did stats and coordinated the graphics for Yankee Baseball for two years.

Describe your work as a freelancer in sports T.V. production. I have lots of different roles, depending on who I’m working for and what the sport is. At bike races I’m a field producer, so I go around and do pre-race interviews with athletes or directors and post-race interviews. [When] there’s same-day coverage, as with the Tour of Utah in August, we have our one-hour show edited by 5 p.m. – two hours after the race ended – every day for six days.

Some stuff I do, it’s a six-stage race and I get just one hour at the end. That depends on the sponsors – [whether they can] afford it.

Over the summer I tend to work a lot of tennis. [Then] I’m more technical [producer] than journalist. I have to make sure the advertising spots get in, and I’m more logistical. I make sure the stage is set for interviews, and that our copy is ready. After the U.S. Open, I said, “My next life, I’ll come back as an air traffic controller.” I was watching 10 monitors at a time.

With all your travel, does Albany seem sedate when you return? No, it seems great. The more I travel, the more I want to be home. Traveling is tiring; I’m trying to cut back.

Do you ever bike race yourself? No, racing’s too hard; there’s too much suffering involved. I do recreational rides up in the hills. I also use my bike to do my errands around town and to go to work as much as possible, carrying it on BART.

You’re active with Did you help found it? No, but I’ve helped it grow in a lot of ways. It started out as an advocacy organization; now it’s an advocacy and service organization. We’ve helped out when they hold bike-riding clinics at schools. We’ve gotten over 300 free rear lights onto kids’ bikes. For two years has donated 500 front lights per year; half are for the general public – we give them away at events – and half are for kids.

My focus is taking away the barriers: why don’t people ride? It’s too dark; it’s unsafe; there’s no place to park. PG&E was giving out grants for community projects. We need bike racks, so we got $1,000 for eight bike racks [for] and .

I want to partner with businesses as well. We’ll give them a certain amount. If they want a simple U-rack [in front], we’ll give them half. If they want something fancier, they can pay the difference.

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