This article appeared in the Marin Independent Journal on October 3, 2011.
ANN KILLION HAS COVERED nine Olympics, five World Cups and more than a dozen Super Bowls. Along the way she became one of the pre-eminent voices in the national sports scene, while thoughtfully studying the evolution of women’s athletics.
So when softball superstar and Olympic gold medal winner Jennie Finch wanted to write her first book, it made sense to make a pitch to the award-winning sports writer and Marin native.
“The publishing company found her, and when they told me Ann had covered the Pac-10 and the Olympics — and I found out she was a mother of a young female athlete in high school — it was too good to be true,” said Finch, whose book “Throw Like a Girl: How to Dream Big & Believe in Yourself” had long been a dream of hers. The 31-year-old pitcher recalls her own childhood when there was virtually no information available to young women aspiring to be athletes.
“Who she is in her profession and all she has done “… it was a tremendous honor for me to work with her. It really came together magically,” Finch said. “She’s a true game-changer and a pioneer in the sports world and all that she’s done and accomplished. It was truly a perfect fit all the way around. “… I couldn’t have dreamt for it to have been any better, or be written by anyone else.”
