Behind every great pro athlete, there’s a woman. Better yet, according to Gena Pitts, alongside him. The wife of Mike Pitts, a former NFL defensive lineman and currently an assistant coach at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Gena is the founder and publisher of Professional Sports Wives magazine. An entrepreneur, wife, mother and businesswoman, Pitts recently took off her many hats and sat down for a chat.
Anthony Cotton: The first issue looks very nice.
Gena Pitts: Thank you! We’ve been working hard. People think this was an overnight idea. Uh-uh. I got married 20 years ago and I thought of this when I first married him.
AC: What was the first clue that being married to a pro athlete would be something different?
GP: When my husband started asking me to talk to his agent and give him detailed messages and discuss his contract negotiations, or call the front office to take care of insurance and benefits. As a rookie wife, you feel like a doe caught in the headlights – it could be overwhelming. The wives today are probably better equipped to deal with it, but it wasn’t like we had a manual back then. We just found our way through.
AC: So, in essence, you’re providing this manual now.
GP: Exactly. It’s an honor and a blessing. It’s 360 degrees to come back to this and provide this idea. I’ve been pregnant with it for 20 years.
AC: Man, that’s some labor!
GP: That’s what we say: We’re pushing this preemie out.
AC: What sort of things will be provided in the magazine?
GP: It’s loaded full of resources that wives can use, really use. First of all, it’s a family magazine for our industry. We don’t want an atmosphere of wives trying to take over and get into the spotlight. No one knows the image of a sports wife. We didn’t know; we still don’t know. We want to provide resources for wives to be better helpmates in areas like financial planning and management, not just fashion tips and other superficial stuff. The life is stressful. You might have to pick up and move to another state in a day’s notice. We want to provide help with managing that kind of stress.
AC: Are you at all concerned that this will be considered strictly a niche publication? If you look at the four major sports, there can’t be more than a few thousand families. How do you grow circulation for this?
GP: We’re not trying to be a public magazine. I’ve done my homework: In 16 professional sports, there are over 700,000 professional athletes. We think about 500,000 of those are married. There are single women, fiancées; we think there’s a base of about 1.4 million people. We’re not trying to be Oprah, although people are starting to call me Oprah Jr. I’ll take that any day. She’s been my inspiration.
AC: In the first issue, there’s an interview with Christina Lurie, the wife of the Philadelphia Eagles. owner. She said something that I’d be interested in your reaction to: “Just because your husband plays a sport or is on a professional team, it doesn’t mean you have to give your life up to that world.” But that seems unavoidable, doesn’t it?
GP: It is unavoidable. Their career becomes our career; we’re silent partners. It’s very hard to juggle all these duties and have your own career, unless you have massive amounts of help.
AC: Which everyone thinks you must have, because every pro athlete is a multimillionaire.
GP: I have a nanny agency, and I know you have to be careful who you let into your home. Rarely do you stay with a team for four or five years; you’re transients. If you can afford it, you can get help, but you have to be careful. And you still have to manage your family. I interviewed Phil Mickelson, and the first thing he said was he couldn’t do what he does without his wife’s support. I’ve always worked, from the time my husband was a rookie until now.
AC: There’s also a “marriage fitness test.” Where did the idea for that come from? I’m not sure, but I’m guessing there aren’t many pro athletes who are going to step up and volunteer to take that one.
GP: Maybe not, but the wives will. It’s no secret that there’s a high rate of divorce in professional sports. I’ve seen a stat that said 80 percent of pro athletes are either more than $250,000 in debt when they retire or they’re divorced. That’s sad. It’s devastating. These are broken families. Money can buy you everything, but not a family. If that’s gone, what do you have? It’s all management – the stress, the career, the high profiles. The wives are the ones who have to create the foundation for the marriage.
AC: You could say that, and provide that, but there are still athletes who, when they leave home, and go out on the road …
GP: The sin is there. The temptation’s there. It’s going to happen. A wife can’t – and shouldn’t – worry about that to the point where it destroys the marriage. It comes with the territory – the long distance, the female fans, the pressure, the loneliness. Some of the wives aren’t prepared for that.
AC: Do you address that at all?
GP: Oh, sure. We’ll give them information that will help them understand the phases that the wives and players or coach go through. You have to have understanding and wisdom. You perish without knowledge. If you understand it, you can withstand it.
AC: You have a 9-year-old daughter. Would you want her to marry a pro athlete?
GP: I would say she could marry whomever she wanted to marry. She’s aware of the lifestyle. I wouldn’t discourage her from marrying a pro athlete. The poor guy is going to catch it, though. I feel more sorry for him.
AC: Are you responsible for “Pro Sports Wives Day” next year (Feb. 11)?
GP: I am! I went to McGraw-Hill and told them about our plight. I wrote a letter. I poured my heart into it, and they didn’t even edit a word. They called us and said they awarded us a day. We freaked out. We were bawling and crying, it was such an amazing feeling.
AC: Maybe Congress will be next.
GP: We’ll go there. We could make this a national holiday.
Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
