A LEAGUE OF HER OWN

Growing up in suburban Pittsburgh, Suzie Cool, C’15, always knew she wanted to work in the media.

“I ran around with a camcorder and recorded myself doing everything. I thought I was the best anchor this side of the Mississippi,” she recalled.

Fast forward to present day, and the 2015 Saint Vincent College graduate has achieved her goal…and then some.

Though less than seven years removed from her time at SVC, Cool’s career has taken her across the eastern seaboard, working in professional baseball, hockey, and lacrosse. After spending nearly four seasons as multimedia journalist/sideline reporter/in-game host for the Rochester (N.Y.) Americans of the Internation al Hockey League and the Rochester Nighthawks of the National Lacrosse League, Cool recently accepted a new position as director of promotions and entertainment and pre-game and on-field host for the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, a minor league affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Cool’s first taste of working in professional sports came during her junior year at Saint Vincent, when she was hired as a ball girl for the Pittsburgh Pirates. A year later, through her studies in the Communication Department, she landed an internship with the Pittsburgh Penguins, which, she says, remains one of the most formative moments of her professional career.

“What really helped me was the fact that Saint Vincent requires you to have an internship prior to graduating,” she said. “I was pretty stressed out heading into my final semester about finding one, and I went to a couple of interviews and just couldn’t seem to find the right fit. Finally, I landed a media relations internship with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Working with the Pirates made me realize I wanted to work in sports, and the internship with the Pens made it clear to me that I could do this. I’m not just a ball girl. I can actually work inside a sports organization.”

Upon the completion of her internship with the Penguins, Cool was determined to pursue a career in sports and was promptly presented with a bevy of professional opportunities in the Pittsburgh region. She quickly real- ized that this career path would be both mentally and physically demanding, but she remained undaunted.

Between 2016 and 2018, she never held fewer than two jobs at once, serving in such capacities as media production intern with Root Sports Pittsburgh, in-gamehost for the Wheeling Nailers hockey team, in-game host and team reporter for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds soccer team, on-field/ in-game host for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and social media coordinator for AT&T Sports Pittsburgh.

Jim Berger

Following this baptism by fire in the Pittsburgh region, Cool moved south, accepting a position with the Salem Red Sox, a minor league affiliate of the major league team of the same name. She began her tenure in the southern Virginia town in a role that she was accustomed to: on-field host and media assistant. Less than halfway through her first summer in Salem, Cool was thrust into the role of color commentator for Red Sox broadcasts, becoming the first female broadcaster in the history of the Carolina League. The next season, her broadcasting role with the Sox grew, as she teamed with longtime announcer Melanie Newman to form the first all-female announcing team in professional baseball.

While she remains grateful and humbled by the experience, Cool doesn’t view herself as a history-maker.

“I have never really seen anything I’ve done as being ‘the first,’” she said. “I’ve always just gone and done the job that I’ve wanted to do while hoping that I’m doing it justice along the way. It’s just a little bit of a bonus to say barriers were broken. There’s still a lot more work to be done, however, and you can’t get lost in the hype of a history-making moment for too long.”

Cool’s fondest memories from Saint Vincent remain her experiences as a four-year member of the Bearcat softball team. And while it allowed her to form memories, inside jokes, and lifelong friendships with her teammates, her softball career also led to an unexpected opportunity in the summer of 2021.

A year after making headlines for her accomplishments in Salem, Cool was cast for the Pittsburgh-filmed Amazon TV series A League of Their Own, a remake honoring the 1992 hit film of the same name starring Tom Hanks and Geena Davis that chronicled the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the early 1940s.

“It really was a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” said Cool. “In the summer of 2021, people kept sending me the application to be in the show. After it got sent to me about a dozen times, I decided to put together a video of myself going through baseball drills in my backyard, along with some highlights of my time as a ball girl. I think about 3,000 people applied, and I was one of 76 asked to try out in person. After a two-day tryout, 40 of us got picked.”

Cool was initially cast as a baseball-playing background extra who would appear on the various teams featured throughout the show. Shortly into filming, however, traveling so much to New York because I still had to do my job in Rochester. I’m definitely glad I had that experience, though.”

While she admits that having worn so many hats has at times been overwhelming, she credits her time at Saint vincent College for preparing her for such a hectic, fastpaced career.

“Saint Vincent gave me a very well-rounded education,” she said, “which has helped me every day in my career path. At SVC, you learn to be open to whatever opportunity may be in front of you. The core classes and my education in the Communication Department really complemented each other well, both with the things I was able to learn and the time management. I have a lot of different skillsets that I utilize to this day that I’m sure I wouldn’t have learned had I had gone to another college.” she added the role of body double for one of the main characters, played by Molly Ephraim, who was pregnant throughout the course of filming.

“We got mistaken for each other every single day,” said Cool. “At the beginning of filming, I was primarily still just a background player for all of the teams, but it didn’t take long before I was Molly in all the scenes in which she didn’t have a close-up or a line. Anything she does baseball-wise on the screen over the entire season, it was actually me.”

Throughout filming, Cool maintained her employment as multimedia journalist for the Rochester (N.Y.) Americans of the International Hockey League and as on-field host for the Rochester Redwings, the Triple-A affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Washington Nationals, which led to dozens of round trips to Pittsburgh. While grateful for her time on the set of “A League of Their Own,” she’s not sure if she’d want to do it all again.

“Toward the end of the summer, I was treated almost like a principal actor,” she said. “I had my own trailer, they tailored my own outfits, I had fantastic hair and makeup people. But I would never know what the shooting schedule was week-to-week. It could be frustrating. I was

From Saint Vincent College to PNC Park, from Salem to Allentown, Pennsylvania, and from hockey arenas to TV sets, Cool’s professional journey has been a whirlwind that has allowed her to build an impressive résumé. But as far as her end goal?

“If you would have asked me in 2014 when I started as a ball girl, ‘How long will it take to be a sideline reporter?’ I’d have said maybe three to five years,” she said. “And here I am, nine years later. Do I still want to be a sideline reporter? Or do I want to be a play-by-play announcer? A color analyst? Something else? How much longer will it take me to get there? How much more work? The dues never stop. The hard work never stops. And for me, even if that end goal comes, there will always be a new one that follows. And a new one that follows that.

“After I moved to Rochester,” she continued, “I remember telling my dad that every day that I’m away from home, every day that I’m working, I’m one day closer to being able to call him and tell him that I made it. Every day you stay in the game, you’re one day closer to that dream. Never give up on that.” ♦