What It's REALLY Like Being A Lady In The Locker Room

You will usually be the only woman in the majority of your work photos! 

As graduation approaches, I am doing my tour of college and high school campuses speaking to sports broadcasting, sports management or sports marketing classes about careers in the sports industry. I love visiting with young professionals and hearing their questions.

RELATED: 5 Things You Need To Get Out Of Your Sports Media Internship

Inevitably, I am always asked about being a "woman" working in sports media. The questions are generally these two:

• How do you handle the feeling of having to prove yourself working in a male-dominated business? 
• How you handle being a woman in a guy's locker room? It's not just students who ask. I get this question. All. The. Time. 

I was asked one of these questions today.

Let's pull back the curtain and discuss what too many professors, teachers, mentors and hiring managers won't:

What It's REALLY Like Being A Lady In The Locker Room.

14 Things You Need To Know If You Want A Career In Sports Media

Sometimes you WILL get handed a beer...on live TV

With graduation only a few months away, this is the time of year my inbox fills with requests from students (and parents of students) who want help, insight and guidance on landing a job or internship in sports media.

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Truth be told, it's one of the most exciting, challenging and downright fun career paths anyone can choose. You're covering games. You're interviewing All-Stars. You're traveling around the country, many times the world, to attend sporting events. You're doing things stuck-in-their-cubicle 9-to-5ers only wish they could do. Indoor sky diving with the Dallas Cowboys? Flying on a billionaire's private jet to watch his favorite football team play? Touring NBA players' mansions? Done. Done. And done.  It's the coolest of cool jobs.

But it's not all jets, games and glam. A career in sports media requires more than just a passion for your favorite team, reading ESPN and trolling Twitter. It's work. Hard work. It also takes a fair amount of resilience because you will make mistakes, you will get criticized and you will get scooped on a story.

RELATED: 5 Things You Need To Get Out Of Your Sports Media Internship

I have learned a lot during my sports media career which started in 1994 as a media services intern with the Houston Rockets and included stops in Guam, Knoxville, my hometown, Dallas and most recently Los Angeles. From truths about myself and the nature of individuals considered icons to the rhythms of a season and how to pose a question after a terrible loss, sports media is very much a business about people and relationships. To that end, there are certain things you should consider if you want a career in this industry.

Here are 14 things you need to know 
if you want a career in sports media: