This year’s Tower of Fame Award winner led a 41 year career in the NBA with two different franchises.

After Julie Fie graduated from Jefferson High School in 1977, she went onto Iowa State University where she wasn’t sure what career path to take, and one of her options came to an end with the newly started College of Business. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio there were more students that wanted to take those classes than professors available to teach them, so she changed to communications.

After she graduated in 1981 from ISU, Fie explains she didn’t waste any time trying to get a job by sending out at least three resumes to available positions every week in the summer, until she got her big break in the NBA.

“The assistant SID (Sports Information Director) at Iowa State came running in one day he goes, ‘This is a really good one for you. The assistant PR (public relations) person at the Kansas City Kings is leaving, she’s going to the University of Kansas.’ The rest is history. I sent out the resume, heard back from them, and that was the start.”     

She was with the Kansas City Kings when they moved to Sacramento and remained there until the Phoenix Suns hired her as their media liaison for the team and its players and management. Fie gives some advice to younger folks who are looking to start their career or make it to places like she did with her 41 year career in the NBA.

“The students that are out there, it’s now so much more competitive that you really do need to have your experience. You need to have that internship, you need to get that experience wherever you can. But I also know that being from a small town in Iowa is not a bad thing. Being from Iowa is a very good thing. And if you can backup the qualities that everybody knows that Iowans have, then you’re doing okay.”     

Fie adds when she started her career, she wasn’t sure how long she would be there for, but appreciates all of the experiences and moments that it gave her.