Nov. 14, 1997

PBS, Here I Come!

By Hally Cohen
for Purdue Sports Information

I am going to go ahead and be purely selfish at this point and talk about myself. I figure that tennis is over, excluding the 6:30 a.m. practices and afternoon weightlifting workouts. And my other activity, Old Masters, has just finished. So this is an opportune time for me to catch you up on what I did last summer and what I am thinking about doing after I graduate next spring (1998).

This past summer I had the unique and incredible opportunity to work for Merv Griffin Productions in Los Angeles. For the most part, I was an assistant to an assistant of the Vice President of Productions. Basically, I fetched coffee. But for the latter half of the summer I worked on the set of a new children's game show called "Click!" The writers of the show found themselves a few questions short and I immediately suggested that I write a few for them. Needless to say, the majority of questions I wrote were about tennis, but they were used on air. The head writer, a lady who had spent the last six years writing for "Jeopardy," informed me that I now had writer status, as far as Hollywood was concerned.

So now as I contemplate my options for after graduation, the words "writer status" hang over my head. They are great words to say, but I am not sure how to use them. It would be great if I moved to L.A., went straight to NBC and said, "I have WRITER STATUS," and wound up writing for a show like "Friends." However, I think a more realistic look at WRITER STATUS leaves me writing copy for a PBS auction.

Now that tennis and Old Masters are slowly tapering off, I think I'm going to spend the rest of my time trying to manipulate those two words to my advantage. Any suggestions?

- Hally Cohen (El Paso, Texas) is a senior on the Purdue women's tennis team. The telecommunications major's Boiler Bits appear every Friday at this site.

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