From the roar of engines at the Speedway to the buzz of local happenings, this episode is a love letter to Indy's allure and the people, especially the WOMEN who make it shine. Joining us is Melissa Thompson, whose candidness about life's highs and lows paints a vivid picture as we celebrate her recent wins, honor the memory of her grandmother, dive into all things Olympic Swim Trials, and take an impassioned look at the role of Women in Sports and Events (WISE) in shaping the future of women in the industry.
Melissa's reflections are a poignant reminder of the resilience and joy we find amidst life's inevitable challenges and how mentorship and networking can be a game-changer.
From the roar of engines at the Speedway to the buzz of local happenings, this episode is a love letter to Indy's allure and the people, especially the WOMEN who make it shine. Joining us is Melissa Thompson, whose candidness about life's highs and lows paints a vivid picture as we celebrate her recent wins, honor the memory of her grandmother, dive into all things Olympic Swim Trials, and take an impassioned look at the role of Women in Sports and Events (WISE) in shaping the future of women in the industry.
Melissa's reflections are a poignant reminder of the resilience and joy we find amidst life's inevitable challenges and how mentorship and networking can be a game-changer.
What's up everybody. This is Trenisha English and you are listening to the Things you Should Know podcast, an Indy-ite. I mean that's better than.
Speaker 2:Indianapolisans.
Speaker 1:That's what they should change the Indians name to.
Speaker 2:The Indianapolisans, indianapolisans.
Speaker 1:I'll make sure to tell somebody. Yeah, I just, you know I don't want to be credited with it, but you know, if, if you ever get to a meeting and they're they're crowdsourcing, just throw that one in there, yikes. So, hey, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is the things you should know, a pod featuring trinisha english. Hi, I'm trisha English and I am here with a really good friend of mine, a first time guest of the show, but, I'm sure, someone that we'll have back from time to time. Melissa Thompson is joining the pod. You weren't expecting that round of applause, were you?
Speaker 1:I was not.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad you did not prepare me for that. Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I love to get people's genuine reactions to that. Welcome to the pod. Thanks for coming.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I'm sorry this is like a month delayed, but it's fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's actually happening at the time where I think it really should happen so it's really good. A lot of good stuff going on but we have to start the podcast the way we started every time, with a little bit of a mental health check. So how you doing, melissa? How are things going for you? Just generally.
Speaker 2:We'll dive into like a little bit more specific hot cold I mean, all things considered, yeah good, like cannot really complain it's been. It's been an interesting year so far, but there's also been some big wins professionally. So, that's good. I'm very excited about some things that we can dive into this, but excited about some things I'm doing professionally that are about to come to fruition.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and I know, like Melissa, this is professional for Melissa, but it's going to be fun. The stuff that Melissa is working on brings fun to the rest of the city, so we'll definitely dive into it a little bit. You started to hint to this. I'm curious to know what is something that has happened in 2024, or something that you've accomplished that you're proud of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we can't talk about it. That's the best part.
Speaker 1:Got to sign some NDAs.
Speaker 2:Sign some NDAs here, people no. So I mean we can kind of jump into it. What I do for a living is to bring amazing sporting events to Indianapolis, and we've had some really big wins that are about to be announced, and so that's years of hard work. It's years of putting in building relationships and putting in a lot of effort to put together really great proposals for organizations to bring their events here. So I'm excited about what's coming up. You know, maybe by this time this you put this up, we'll know well, no, people know what.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm hitting at yeah, but it's also been personally.
Speaker 2:It's been a really hard year, but also been a year when I've seen people show up for me. I've seen it's one of those. You know who your true friends are, you know who you get a new appreciation for your family. So yeah, it's just been. It's been cool to try and look at it from that lens. I was not at all planning to tell you this story, but I'm gonna tell you a story yeah um so part of part of the reason it's been a struggle is my grandmother passed away um.
Speaker 2:But my grandmother was an amazing woman. She was 94 and a half years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah she lived by herself in a house that she lived in for 77 years until January 6th, when we moved her to an assisted living facility. She gave up the keys to her car on January 29th Really January 29th and then on February 5th she woke up. She called my mom and she said a doctor and a nurse told me I was going to die today and she literally passed away 24 hours later. Really, and it's just, it's kind of a beautiful expression to me. She lived her life the way she wanted to live it and when she decided she was ready to go, she was ready to go, or you know, and and personally I believe that it was probably Jesus that showed- up and said today's the day I'm coming to get you Right, but like it was just, it's just so.
Speaker 2:Even in a hard season of like losing my grandmother, who is this like rock for our family, like she did it on her own terms, right, and she, and that's what I want I want to be able to um, I would hope that you know that I get to live my life that way.
Speaker 1:So yeah, no, that's really inspiring to know like in 94 she didn't hand over the keys until like a few days um before it was done. So, yeah, that's really inspiring. Thanks for sharing that that was. I'm really glad that you did um, and I'm gonna ask you to share something else because you have a real, like a big birthday coming up. I do I mean ish, but yeah, no halfway between two big ones, yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like. I feel I feel like a birthday ending in a zero and birthdays ending in fives are good, are big deals. I know what you're doing for your birthday, because Melissa has a ritual of celebration, but anything you're looking forward to forward to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I ironically get to spend my actual birthday with the person that I appreciate the most in life, which was not expected because he doesn't live here, so that it kind of worked out that that's going to happen. And then the day after my birthday, I get to spend the day with my all my girls and have a really good time, and so we do have a ritual and a tradition for my birthday, and it's a lot of fun. And and then and then I get to spend the next three weeks immersed in as much college basketball as you can ever imagine.
Speaker 1:So which I understand that it's work for you. I love college basketball. Like this is my favorite time of year I am. I have, like purpose, purposefully not turned on the big 10 women's tournament because we wouldn't have recorded oh that's really a good point.
Speaker 2:I was like today's, like today's the day, yeah, today's the day to be watching.
Speaker 1:We will as soon as we wrap up. Um, I actually am having a lot of feels about the big 10, so I went to a big 10 school. Fan of a big 10 school. Melissa is also a fan of a big 10 school, but we won't mention that school on the podcast.
Speaker 2:They might be different schools in the same state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe, whatever we listen, you can't be, you can't be perfect, and you can still be friends with people who have different opinions than you right, like that's what we're learning lots of.
Speaker 2:We're on different sides of lots of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah um, but uh, caitlyn clark of the uh iowa hawkeyes will, hypothetically, we don't know, oh, suspense maybe maybe she will be an Indiana, a fever player, in a few months this is international women's day yep um, so yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, women's sports is having a moment right, like from college volleyball to college basketball to the W, like it is having a moment, and I think it's a moment that we all knew was there and the product is really, really good, and for people to actually be seeing that, like that game last Sunday which was viewed more than a couple of NBA games that were played last week that were high-profile games.
Speaker 2:It's just incredible that it's going to be, or it was, one of the highest-rated TV hours, right. And then to know that women's basketball last year, the NCAA or women's Final Four last year was the highest watched women's game ever and this year is probably going to eclipse that right, because you have such amazing, amazing players. Angel Reese is probably going to be in the Final Four again.
Speaker 1:Kaitlyn Clark will, probably that Carolina team who has gone two undefeated seasons back to back. That's my pick, that's who I've got my money on to win, but yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you've got, you know usc, and and juju yeah yeah, I mean like there's just across the board. The product of women's basketball is, frankly, better than men's basketball right now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah so I'm even watching the um so uh, it's called athletes unlimited, so they've created a us women's pro basketball league. It's happening like in dallas right now, as we speak.
Speaker 1:Honestly I think they've got a game right now, literally tipping um and and they've also done some like really creative things, like with the team captains aspect. They switch the team switch weekly. It's really cool, and I'm seeing like they actually just signed like a deal to get some of their games on SBN Plus, like even that is growing. Like the women's game is Well and Athletes Unlimited is awesome, right they're bringing a different product.
Speaker 2:It's not just basketball.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:They have multiple sports, that they're doing it and they bring their athletes and the sport to a particular city and they're in that city for like six, eight, 10, 12 weeks consistently playing their games, growing the fandom around it at a, at a facility in in whatever city, so in this case, in basketball it's.
Speaker 2:Dallas, right, but they do the same with volleyball, they do the same with softball, they do the myriad of sports that they do, so their product is really cool in the way that they're kind of mixing it up and giving more opportunities for those specifically college basketball players who are coming out, and giving them options to not have to go play overseas because they're also paying all their expenses.
Speaker 1:They're paying some of their. You know they're paying them, um, so it's a really cool product of what they're doing. Yeah, no, it's really great, it's it's. I mean, honestly you said this it's really nice as a woman, yeah, and as a woman of a time like who knows what it's like to have to not have women invested in it's really nice to see women be invested in, um, yeah, so it's really cool and the product's good right like the product's great like yeah. I'm eating it up, I can't wait. I cannot wait.
Speaker 2:Uh, swimming trials swimming trials not diving, not diving, just swimming trials, uh, this summer june june, june 15th to the 23rd.
Speaker 1:Yep, I'm so excited. It's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be so cool so, um, for years and years and years, uh, the natatorium at iu, indie, um, hosted the olympic swimming, olympic trials for swimming. So it is the swim meet that picks the US swim team for the Olympics. And in 2000, they hosted the last one, because the venue was too small and keep in mind that our natatorium is the largest natatorium in the country and it became too small. So for several years, they went to different basketball venues and went to um different basketball venues and they would build swimming pools in basketball venues. So they've been in Omaha, nebraska, for several cycles, um, and really believed that they were ready to move to an NFL facility and a stadium and that they could, that they had a product that was good enough to sell that many tickets. So, um, right in the middle of COVID. I will never forget this because the the RFP for this event came out on March 1st of 2020.
Speaker 2:Um, 17 days before the world Right Exactly, and so um, I have the, I have the RFP and it's due in the middle of July. I'm like, okay, we got plenty of time, we're doing, we got some things happening, but then I got like two and a half months to put this bid together. Then the world ends, Right, and so, or the, everything shuts down and they moved up the deadline. So I'm like it's still, it's okay. We're like we're only going to be home for two weeks and we'll be back in the office and I can work with my graphic designer. It's going to be fine. I can work with the stadium, It'll be no big deal.
Speaker 2:No, we didn't go back to work for a really long time and we had to break in, break into the quote unquote break into the stadium and do sort of a site visit, because we needed to lay out where everything was going to go, and so we had to put all that on a map. For we built all the maps, we built all, we built the entire thing virtually and then had to I mean, my graphic designer and I would sit on a team's call for hours on end during a day just because he was working on stuff and I was saying, yes, no, like this is where we want things, Anyway. So we put that bid in the middle of COVID and so, no, then typically in the next thing in the process you put in the bid, the organization comes back to you and says well, we want to do a site visit. So then we'll, you know, fly them out and fly them in, We'll do a whole fam tour. We'll show them around, We'll show them all the stuff they need to see. We'll let them.
Speaker 2:They weren't, they weren't allowed to fly Right it's like so for the first time ever, we had to do a virtual site visit, so it was a two hour long site site visit that was virtual and it's like, how do we do this? And it just forced us to really be creative, which I think spoke to how this event was going to go in the go the rest of the time, because it's going to have to be creative like this is the first time we've ever built pools in an nfl stadium, right? Um, that turf doesn't come up ever.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize that so monster jam motocross, that turf never comes up once it's installed. It doesn't come up until it's taken out and replaced, so they put this decking stuff over it, which is how they then they put dirt on top of it whatever, whatever they're doing well that the pools weigh so much that they would crack the decking, which would then destroy the turf, right.
Speaker 2:So we got super lucky that this is when the Colts are scheduled to change out the turf between the 24 and the 25 season, or the, you know, this season. So, which is a blessing. So the turf um, now that combine's over the turf will come up and they'll be able to build the pools on concrete, because we're building three pools on the floor of Lucas Oil Stadium.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize it was three. I don't know why. I thought it was just two.
Speaker 2:It's three so there's one Olympic, there's one Olympic size which is 50 meters and that's the competition pool, and then on the other side there's a 50 meter and a 25 meter warm-up pool, so it's technically three.
Speaker 1:They the other two are connected, but yeah so no, that's super cool and like we are talking about the olympians that will be watching in paris, we're talking about katie ledecky. We're talking about it's a moment, you're still swimming.
Speaker 2:I'm not positive about that here's what I lily, king lily king caleb dresser ryan murphy, all the people from there's a really amazing kid from carmel yes that, um, it will, will be on the olympic team again. Why can I not think of his name at the moment? But yeah, I mean like there's some amazing, some amazing athletes from indiana that will be yes yes qualifying here so and I'm sure michael phelps will be there doing commentate like will be a commentator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure he's already signed on for that, so it's going to be a really cool time, a bunch of really cool stuff and, like Melissa was sharing earlier, a bunch of really cool stuff in the community.
Speaker 2:We are making sure our community is water safe and learning to swim, right, yeah, and across the board, in black and brown communities and just everyone, because swimming is the only sport that can save your life, right. So we are really making an effort to work with boys and girls clubs and YMCAs and just clubs across the state to make sure that they are getting through as many people, anyone that wants to learn how to swim or even to just be water safe, so that if you fall in water, you know how to get to the side or get yourself out.
Speaker 2:We don't want there to be any sort of barrier to access for that and so we've worked really hard to make sure that everyone that wants to can access that um. And then there's really fun stuff, like we're building an Eiffel Tower that will be downtown yeah, because the Olympics are in Paris yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2:there'll be an amazing um space set up in the convention center called aqua zone um. That will have all kinds of opportunities for people to engage with athletes and and maybe get wet in the convention center.
Speaker 1:It's fine I don't know tell me and just like indy does.
Speaker 2:There'll be lots of parties downtown, yeah, and lots of you know djs and concerts, and lots of it's nine days of swimming. So how do I get tickets? What do I do? Uh, you can go to our website, which is indianasportscorpcom, and, like, there's one of those banners that pops up and single day swim trials it literally does.
Speaker 2:It does, um, but yeah, you can. Um, single day tickets are on sale so you can look at the schedule and if there is a particular stroke or race or something that you're very interested in, somebody you want to see, you can buy tickets for that day. But yeah, it's going to be amazing. And so the way swimming trials works, the way swim meets work, you have prelims in the morning, so you may have three or four or five heats of prelims and then they cut it down to you and the finals are in the morning. So you may have three or four or five heats of prelims and then they cut it down to you and the finals are in the evening. So, um, your ticket will get you into both.
Speaker 2:Right, like there's going to be enough stuff happening outside that if you don't have a ticket to to be inside and, frankly, swimming's not your thing there's still plenty of you know, there'll be plenty of fun stuff happening downtown. That's totally free. That I mean, for goodness sakes, we're building an eiffel tower. Yeah, I mean it's gonna sit right on the corner of washington and meridian, like it's kind of don't, don't tell the police department. No, unfortunately we already had to.
Speaker 1:But, um, but yeah, I mean like there's really cool opportunities for people to to get involved what's up gang trinisha english from the things you should know, podcast here reminding you to to get involved can we talk about my other passion?
Speaker 2:yeah, no yes, let's do it wise, absolutely. How did we not think? Think about yeah, I have no idea.
Speaker 1:So melissa is working hard not only just to bring these really cool events to the city, but also to make sure that women have really cool opportunity. Women in, actually, no just women in the community, honestly one of the areas that you do. This is as the chair of the indianapolis chapter of is as the chair of the Indianapolis chapter of wise.
Speaker 2:I want to back up a little bit though, talk to people about what wise is, because I had never heard about wise until you yeah, you were sharing about it so wise is a national organization called women in sports and events, and it really was designed to connect women in the sports and events industry that don't know each other but also give them an opportunity to mentor each other, to be mentors, to be mentored, and to network and just learn about um and share their experience, their shared experiences about working in sports, because it can. It's not easy, um, it's been an industry that's been male dominated for so long and breaking into that can be difficult, and so you need to have a network that can support you through that, and so somehow the organization is like almost 30 years old and somehow Indianapolis, with our rich history in sports, has never had a chapter. This was also one of my COVID projects.
Speaker 1:You really got busy during.
Speaker 2:COVID. I didn't have anything else to do. I was kind of bored. I'm not meant to work at home every day, so it there was a group of us that had, before COVID had started having conversations about it, and there was some people that were having conversations with the national organization and then, during COVID, one of my coworkers came to me and she's like we really need, we should really do this, and then she goes and you should be the president of it, and I was like, well, she's like, but you know how to start a nonprofit, and I was like I've filled out some forms before, so so yeah, but that that started the journey of building a board, and our board is incredibly diverse, when it comes to both ethnicity but also diversity within our sporting organizations. There's a lot more sporting organizations in this city than I think people realize.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:We quickly became probably the largest chapter in the country. If we're not the largest, we're number two or number three. We have almost 400 members. Oh, I didn't. And they're all women, right, come on. Yeah, I mean huge. I think that people forget there's a lot of women that work on West 16th Street. Yeah, it's shocking to me and shocking to me, that ecosystem that is there, that I don't think we ever think about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, we think about the women that work for indycar or the indianapolis motor speedway, but all of those race teams are located here they have their offices here, and so just the Penske Entertainment system itself like massive, like 125 of those members come straight from West 16th Street but they never got the chance to connect.
Speaker 2:You know, you got another 60 women that work for the Colts, because they're out on 56th Street they don't come downtown as much. So this organization is giving them the opportunity to connect with other women in the community and in their industry. So it's been amazing. I think we've had, we've now gone through one full year of programming and I think everybody that has been a part of it has enjoyed it. We're starting to launch some new sort of mentoring relationships and programming programming and just giving people more opportunities to network, because you never know when you have a conversation that that person may be your next boss or it may help you get your next job. And it's not about, you know, taking people from one organization or not, but it's about how do we help each other advance and how do we help each other continue to learn and grow in in this industry that has been so difficult to advance in.
Speaker 1:So yeah, no, I really appreciate it. Um, I'm actually a member of wise. Yes, you are shout out um and have come to like a number of really cool events. We just had the women in nfl luncheon last week, two weeks ago it was last, it was like that feels like a long time ago, um, and then the other thing that's coming to my mind that was really impactful was the title nine oh yes, at the NCAA which was really cool, so a lot of really cool things.
Speaker 1:And even to name like you talked about a lot of it, but I also want to name, like sometimes there's so much power in just having a conversation with someone who has had a similar experience as you have had and comes from a similar background, like there's so much that I have to explain to men, right, like, oh, this happened and there's so much context and so much other stuff that's in it that you're not getting, because you don't have to sit in what it means to be a woman every day, or you don't have to sit in what it means to be black every day, right, um, and so, like the power of that I often say this at work like there's so much power and talking to someone and realizing like, oh, I'm not crazy, I am not the crazy one and I don't have to explain it yeah, and I don't.
Speaker 2:I can just say this happened and it sucked, and they know what I mean, they know what all that context is.
Speaker 1:It's yeah, it's helpful so, yeah, it's super cool, a really great organization. Uh, how do people get connected? How do we um connect with wise?
Speaker 2:yeah, so wiseworksorg, uh, and then look up the indianapolis chapter, um, there's tile, there's our chapters at the top. You know, just click on indianapolis, um, and there's membership information there. And you know, we're always looking for new, looking for people to become members, and it's. I just think it's an amazing opportunity for people in our industry to to connect, and so the more people we can get involved, the more the better.
Speaker 1:So and if you don't know, like they're like you talked a little bit about when you were talking about Penske Entertainment but there are a lot of women in high positions in sport in Indianapolis and Indiana like a lot of women at the top. So a lot of women who have clawed their way through this.
Speaker 2:So well, and I think about, like I mentioned, penske and and the Colts, but, like USA, track and field is here and they have an incredibly powerful, inspiring woman at the top of their organization she's the number two. And USA Gymnastics is here and there's an incredible woman that leads that organization. So there are just amazing. There's some amazing women from the NCAA that are doing great things. The woman, the, the team that that leads the men's final four in March Madness is led by a woman who's amazing, and so we've got these strong influences and you know, and they're willing to be there and to be a resource for other women, which is awesome.
Speaker 1:Melissa, thanks so much for being here today. Thank you all for listening. Don't forget to like, subscribe and share and I will talk to you next time. Okay, bye, I wanted to have you on here so I can make this point. The thing that I think people should know is like Indianapolis is actually a really great city to work, play and live in. Yeah, but it's people who are from Indianapolis. Is Indianapolis? Do we have a name, indy I?
Speaker 2:was about to say Hoosiers but that's a state Anyway people, people from Indianapolis, people from.
Speaker 1:Indianianapolis. Visit indy, get that figured out. Um, we have to stop like ragging on our city like we have like a lot of really cool things.
Speaker 1:We literally host the largest sporting event every single year every single year, the largest sporting event in the world happens right here in indapolis at the Motor Speedway Every year, like we live, work and play in such a really really cool place. So one stop getting on the Internet and talking about India, ain't nothing, because that's not true. It's true and come do it Like, come out, do the stuff, experience the things. There are a lot of people who are working really really hard and really intentionally to not only bring these events to the city but make sure that they're accessible and there's things for folks.