TALLAHASSEE, Florida – The most formative year of Madison Fitzpatrick’s life involved tears. Lots and lots of tears.
“I cried pretty much every day for a month or two,” she recalled, laughing.
Here was Fitzpatrick, a 22-year-old who knew little other than success, fresh off a senior year at Florida State that saw her leave as the program’s No. 7 all-time wins leader (86). She was All-Tournament on a team that finished runner-up at the NCAA Championships, All-Academic, all pretty much everything.
“My last year was the best year ever,” she said.
And now she was having arguably her worst year.
Like most of her peers in Tallahassee, Fitzpatrick applied to every job that bore a reasonable resemblance to her prospective career. In her case, this meant broadcasting jobs across the country, including a small outfit in Little Rock, Arkansas that wanted her as badly as Brooke Niles once did when the head coach recruited Fitzpatrick out of Lincoln High School five years before. The difference here is that where Fitzpatrick had little hesitation in committing to Florida State, she was hard-pressed to find any enthusiasm about the potential move to Arkansas. Then again, what other options did she really have?
None, as it turned out.
To Arkansas she went.
“Craziest year of my life,” she said. “I had no training at all, but they really needed someone. I thought it would be easy, but no, I was editing, producing, directing. I hosted my own 30-minute talk show. It was the most growth I have ever experienced in that first year.”
She recalls her experience in Little Rock with the fondness of, say, an athlete who endured a particularly difficult freshman year, understanding, with the 4K clarity of hindsight, how valuable that difficult season was. Was it brutal at the time? No doubt. Was it the most expedient path to development? Absolutely.
“It was so uncomfortable, it was so painful, I was so embarrassed constantly,” she said. “I remember running from my computer in the newsroom to where I would anchor, just crying, because I was so ill-prepared. I did not get comfortable until four or five months in until I accepted that it was OK, that this is why I’m here, I’m here to fail, and it’s not going to be a detriment to the rest of my career, this is just part of the process. Then I started to get comfortable with it.”
There is a common refrain in sports that you either win or you learn. This is essentially what Fitzpatrick was doing in Arkansas, and it is that cliched framework of sports that enabled her to approach mistakes and perceived failures with grace and acceptance, that they are a necessary aspect to improvement.
“If I wasn’t an athlete, I wouldn’t be anywhere close to where I am today,” she said. “As far as hard work is concerned, pouring every single ounce of yourself into a goal. The National Championship, when I was an athlete, that was all that I thought about, every single day, every workout, that was for that. Same with pursuing storylines, pursuing coaches running to the locker room, demanding the most from yourself.”
She’s always had this mindset, well before she ever donned the garnet and gold of Florida State. When she was just three years old, there was Fitzpatrick, head full of those unmistakable bouncing curls, armed with an old school camcorder, pretending to be the weather girl, pretending to host interviews, pretending to deliver the news, unknowingly preparing for a career that would eventually have her doing those very things – save for the weather report – in front of millions on national television on a monthly basis.
“I’ve always been obsessed with public speaking, entertainment, engaging with people. I always knew I wanted to get into it,” she said.
And, make no mistake, she is deep into it. During this year’s Indoor Volleyball NCAA Championship, there was Fitzpatrick, stunning in a glittering dress, delivering one bite-sized nugget after the next as a sideline reporter for ESPN. There she was, interviewing Penn State coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley, interviewing Louisville coach – now Nebraska coach – Dani Busboom Kelly.
There she was, on the sport’s biggest stage, doing exactly what she’d envisioned 23 years before.
“Dream come true, honestly,” she said. “I grew up playing volleyball, I love it with all my heart, I know exactly how it feels to play in high stakes situations, and I knew I wanted to get into broadcasting, so it was just the natural progression for my career to go.”
At just 26 years old and already at the pinnacle of her profession within the sport of volleyball, it is only a matter of time before Fitzpatrick jumps to higher levels in other sports. The dream goal? Sideline reporting covering multiple sports – football, basketball, volleyball – for ESPN. It isn’t nearly as far as the tear-filled girl in Little Rock could have imagined just a few years ago.
“It’s been a lot of hard work,” she said, “but it’s been worth every second.”
