Years ago, at the great media brouhaha that was the official unveiling of David Beckham, I was walking on the concourse of what is now called Stub Hub Center stadium, when I spotted a tall woman. She, like me, was on her way to the media rooms designated for different groups of reporters. Even though Beckham's move to the Galaxy was a huge story, there weren't that many women covering it, so I noticed her. I stopped for a moment, thinking that she might be an ex-athlete turned reporter, perhaps a former basketball or volleyball player. It even occurred to me that, if so, I should ask her about that, and get a unique perspective that might add some insight into a Beckham event reaction story. She looked somewhat familiar, so I tried to remember where I'd seen her before. Then I realized she was Christine Daniels, the transgender sports writer whose story I'd read about about earlier that year.
Even before that galvanizing story, I'd read Mike Penner columns/stories in the LA Times for years, but never ran into him in the LA pressbox for Galaxy games, where Grahame Jones had the regular local soccer beat. I'd been keeping up with Christine's blog, and I wondered if it was ok to start with that as a intro comment, "Hi, I've read your blog; I'm a reporter, too, are you going to come to more soccer stuff?"
But then Christine walked into the suite marked for national media reporters. I went to the one for local media. Maybe I'd see her after the interviews ended, I figured. Or perhaps she'd be out soon again to actually see Beckham play and I could introduce myself in the pressbox before a game.
Beckham came to the local media interview room last. Christine and most of the other reporters were long gone by the time I stepped out of the suite into the bright sunshine.
Selfishly, I hoped I would see her again soon. I had friends in the LA pressbox, but sometimes it still felt a little isolating to be the lone female reporter there. I imagined that Christine wouldn't be intimidated, at over six feet, walking into a locker room full of players amped up after a game. I, who was always more comfortable at a keyboard than speaking in person, would sometimes wonder if players refused interviews or ignored my requests for a quote because I was a woman and they didn't take me seriously as a reporter. I figured Christine wouldn't be so easy to brush off. I also thought I could help her if she needed anything translated from Spanish. We could be like a distaff soccer-writing Mutt and Jeff.
