well thank you so much for this incredible honor dr fult trustees i am so excited
to be here with you today and congratulations class of 2022 you did it
congratulations to the parents to all of you sitting out there supporters it has been such a
difficult time you have endured you've persevered and now i am so excited to share in this beautiful
day as we congratulate you i don't remember the first time that i stepped foot on this campus
my dad went here and i was raised a trojan like a lot of you guys my brother wes
who was two years older than me he also went here and i do remember coming to visit him while i was
still in high school and being so excited to sleep over at his apartment he lived in an apartment on
menlo with three other guys from the track team and when i came to visit him i was so excited
but it was the first time that i realized that four guys living together in college are filthy
his room was immaculate but as soon as i stepped out of it i went into the kitchen and i realized
that there's no parents here telling you to wash dishes to put things away it was gross
and mom and dad you'll be proud to know that wes didn't take me to any parties on the row and he
kept me away from a lot of the fun things but i still fell in love with this school i'm pretty
sure that the first time i set foot on this campus i didn't feel any magic and that was because i
was probably a toddler running around ruining some of your parents tailgate parties probably
before a ucla game or something like that but i do distinctly remember my first day of classes here
it's something that i'll never forget i drove a 1989 bmw 3 series back then and i probably
am very old to all of you guys but this car was old even when i got it it was a hand-me-down
from wes and he got it as a hand-me-down from my aunt and although it was the small
two-door coupe it was really loud by the time i got it it sounded like a truck
and everybody knew when i was coming and i was really nervous about my first day of school but
the luxury of having a brother who went here i made him do a dry run with me and we came you know
before classes and he showed me around and he took me everywhere i needed to go and i felt really
confident going into that first day but the one thing that he didn't prepare me for was parking
and of course when i showed up feeling confident i arrived in that little bmw and i started to circle
the campus and i couldn't find parking anywhere no meters no lots there was nothing i got desperate
now before the beautiful university village existed there was a parking lot there with the
grocery store and back then we called it the dirty um because it you know it wasn't really that clean
and in my desperation i decided to park there because the dirty had great parking a lot of it
back in those days we also had something called a club now i know that none of you guys know what
that is but ask your parents or google it a club is a device that you put on your steering wheel
and it locks the wheel into place so that if somebody breaks into your car they might get
in but they're not going to be able to take it anywhere so in my desperation when i parked in
that lot i made sure that i put my club on and i was all set i headed across the street to class
classes went great everything went well and i went back to find my car i looked up and down the aisle
where i thought i parked and i couldn't find it anywhere i got really nervous that somebody
broke into my car they must have figured out how to remove my club and they took off and stole
my car i called my brother in a panic i told him all of that and he quickly calmed me down started
to chuckle and let me know that my car had been towed so yeah i will never forget my first day of
classes here and i guess i share that information with you guys because i think in moments like this
where you're sitting here and you're being congratulated for your hard work and your
success you might think that there's something special about your speaker about me but really
there isn't i crammed for tests just like you guys i wish i had more friends i felt misunderstood and
i didn't understand that my brother was trying to protect me by keeping me away from those parties
of course there were a few things about my life that were a little bit different
like missing the first week of school my sophomore year because i was competing at the olympics
or having camera crews come to my graduation because nbc and cbs thought it would be a really
cool story but even those things they didn't feel different to me it was just ordinary and
it was what i knew and i think i probably felt like a lot of you sitting out there
i felt a little lost and just really trying to find my place in the world trying to find
my voice and trying to find my purpose today as you move into the next phase of your life having
just graduated from this prestigious university that we all love so much i want to share with
you an experience that taught me so much and a few things that i wish i had learned earlier in life
my hope is that you'll hold on to these words and that they'll resonate you resonate with you
exactly when you need them most these learnings have really comforted me in moments that feel like
not in moments i feel like the mountaintop but in moments that are really those valleys
all right so here are the things that i wish that i had learned earlier
your voice has power and you have to use your voice even if it shakes there are
times when you'll ask for change and there are times when you'll have to create it
your life has purpose so it's important to live a life of purpose now i want to run that back
for you one more time i know you know you guys are graduating but you know your students so you
might have missed a few things your voice has power and you have to use it even if it shakes
there are times when you'll ask for change and there are times when you'll have to create it
and your life has purpose so it's important to live a life of purpose i want to tell you a story
of how i found my voice how i was able to create some change and how i stepped into my professional
purpose as a professional athlete our lives are based on sponsorship from companies and it's
pretty similar to golf and tennis as a runner i put on clothes from apparel and footwear companies
and i wear them in hopes of selling more product for that company and that's how i make my living
i could win prize money for going to races but 85 of my income comes from those apparel companies
so i've worked with some of the biggest sportswear companies in the world and this particular
story is about what i thought would be my last sponsorship deal i was with nike and i love my
time working with them so to be very clear i don't hate nike nothing like that i've made some great
friends there and i think they do really important work but like all companies and really like all of
us there was just some room for improvement this story focuses on a place where i think
that they could have been better i've always been an athlete that is hyper focused on performance
my first professional track coach told me that to be great at anything
was going to take a lot of time it was going to take patience and dedication and i bought
into that a hundred 100 i worked as hard as i could i dedicated myself i made sacrifices i put
my head down and i did the work i went to four olympic games without really coming up for air
performance medals winning my life was centered around that
i got to the point where i realized i had all the medals i had the accolades but what i didn't have
what meant most to me was a family so i decided i wasn't willing to give up the most important goals
for my sponsor i married my longtime boyfriend and we started a family but a lot of fear
came along with that part of my life i was in the middle of an almost two year long contract
negotiation with nike and their initial offer was 70 70 less than what i had previously been
making and that was even before they knew about my pregnancy i felt worthless in track and field
getting pregnant has been called the kiss of death there was a culture of silence around pregnancy
and i'd watched teammates and women that i respect hide pregnancies since i was a teenager i had seen
some of my best friends struggle between being a mother and being a competitive athlete and not
because they weren't capable but because they weren't supported so when i became pregnant
although i was so excited about that part of my life i was scared because i knew i still wanted
to compete but i also knew that i could lose everything so i started to train in the dark i
would come out at 4 00 am at 5 am when i knew that nobody would be around i would do my workouts and
then i would go back home i would stay inside i would wear baggy clothes rarely go out what should
have been the most celebrated time in my life it turned into a lonely and isolating experience
and i was scared because of everything i had witnessed growing up in this sport i thought about
the consequences of my decision to start a family eventually when i told nike about my pregnancy the
difficult negotiations continued and they offered me 60 percent less than what i had been making
the money it felt like a slap in the face but i could handle that what i asked for
was maternity protection a typical nike track and field contract has performance reductions and they
have bonuses built in if you win a medal you get a bonus if you don't win a medal you get a reduction
so i asked them not to reduce me if i didn't get a medal at the world championships that year
and they were great about it they were quick to say no problem they were ready to support
me but when the contract came back for review there was no mention anywhere of
that it was because i was having a baby they were willing to give me maternity protection
but they weren't ready to give it to all female athletes so here's where we are i was pregnant
and i was scared i was staring at a contract that provided me with exactly what i was asking
for but in a way that would only benefit me and not all of the women who came after me
i thought about my daughter hi cammie i don't know she's still still with us i thought about her
and the life that i wanted her to live in the world i wanted her to grow up in
and that all women and girls deserve i knew what i had to do but i knew that i was scared
i knew that i had to use my voice but i knew that my voice would would shake so i sat down
and i wrote an op-ed in the new york times telling the world about my experience and the change that
i believe needed to exist i wrote and i used my voice but i was scared and i was unsure and
without a doubt my voice definitely shook i knew that i needed to do something to be the woman that
i wanted to be to be that mother that i knew i could be and my daughter was that motivation she
gave me that courage to push for a better future for women and what's absolutely incredible is
three weeks after i wrote that op-ed nike did the right thing they changed their maternity policy
and like i mentioned before i never hated nike i never thought thank you
i never thought that they were bad and i think their willingness to change
their policy really reinforced that i used my voice and change happened
you have to use your voice even if it shakes well i went on and i found a new apparel sponsor and
the female-led female-focused athleta and i saw value far beyond financial terms i was focused on
wanting to create change and advocating for women and our goals really aligned with their mission
i saw business done in a different way and i had a seat at the table i felt empowered
i wanted to approach sponsors they wanted to approach sponsorship from a different angle and
really to support me and celebrate me holistically as an athlete as a mother and as an advocate
and i was more motivated than ever to make it back to the olympic games and when somebody tells me
that i can't do something that's really all i need to hear i felt like i had been told that but i
felt also like all women had and i eventually came to the point where i was really frustrated because
i was training for my fifth olympics and i had this amazing apparel sponsor but i didn't have
a footwear sponsor and i'm a sprinter so you know it's kind of essential i need shoes to wear
and i was talking with my brother and i was really just venting to him i was exhausted of just asking
companies to see my value and my worth and he looked at me and he said well what if we did
this ourselves and i looked back at him i thought he was absolutely crazy in that moment i mean
everything i had been through we were in the middle of a pandemic it felt just so big but
the more i sat there and i sat with it and thought about it i realized that it was an
opportunity to create change instead of asking for it so we created space a lifestyle brand for women
and a lifestyle brand for women is just brand talk for a community of women
that we want to create products for i believe more than anything that we have a desire and
a need in this world to be seen to be known to be loved and that's why we created sage
and when i spoke about my experience at nike what was most amazing and incredible to me was
the community that supported me and told me that they experienced things that were similar to mine
and i knew that i wanted to build something that made a difference and if any of you all graduates
out there you have ideas on creating an engaging community of women and you're passionate about
creating shoes definitely shoot me an email at ceo sage.com we're always looking for amazing
trojans and i'd i'd love nothing more to see say shoes around this campus after all of that
i did make it back to the olympics i made it to tokyo and it was the highlight of my career
because i was competing and it wasn't about the medals it wasn't about the time on the clock
it was about being a representation for women for mothers for anybody who had been told that their
story was over i crossed that line and i remember looking down at my feet and for the first time in
my entire career i wasn't wearing adidas i wasn't wearing nike i was wearing face there are times
there are times when you'll ask for change and there are times when you'll have to create it
each one of us can create change and you do not have to be an olympian or even have your life
all figured out to be able to start we all can start exactly where we are when i was sitting in
the seats where you guys are today at graduation i was excited to pursue my passion i wanted to
win gold medals i wanted to be the best but what all that led to was finding my purpose
and it didn't happen right away it was a journey i had so many defeats and failures i had heartbreaks
and all of those lessons they helped me grow it took me a long time to find my voice and that's
absolutely okay on the other side of your passion lies your purpose so pursue it relentlessly
focus do the work that got you here but do it all with the understanding that you can have
a greater impact on this world and don't expect that creating change will be all about yourself
because it will probably be to provide a better future for someone else which is a beautiful thing
remember your voice has power and you have to use your voice even if it shakes there are times when
you'll ask for change and there are times when you'll create it your life has purpose
so it's important to live a life of purpose and i cannot wait to see the
impact that you'll all have on this world congratulations class of 20 22 and fight on