“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.
All great achievements have many underlying virtues that align to produce success: diligence, commitment, focus and, as Emerson stated, enthusiasm.
Karen Uhler, a former Panther volleyball and softball student-athlete and EIU communications graduate in 1980 “(and ½),” has been fortunate to be involved with the following successful ventures:
-- Lisle High School’s 1985 IHSA state championship volleyball team
-- The University of Illinois’ 1988 volleyball team that reached the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament
-- Being the first sports marketing degree recipient at the University of Illinois
-- Max Factor makeup’s cross promotion with the film Titanic
-- The partnership between Allstate Insurance and the Olympics
-- The 2002 reunion of the 1980 USA “Miracle on Ice” gold medal hockey team
-- The Allstate Brickyard 400
-- Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympiad
The cheeky “½” stems from Uhler’s December 1980 graduation. At that time, Uhler’s travels down her twisty-turny – yet always full-steam-ahead – career path had already been nudged by individuals she calls “inspiring and influential.” Her coach at EIU, Margie Wright, planted the seed that perhaps Uhler would be better suited to teach rather than to major in zoology, as she had planned. Shortly thereafter, the department head of the speech communication program, Dr. Janet Norberg, encouraged her to pursue a position at a summer camp that strengthened speech and communication skills. Thanks to the assistance of Dr. Calvin Smith, Uhler later became the track and field and volleyball coach for Charleston Junior High School. Soon a custom-created leader complete with broad, marketable and transferable skills was born.
And the Karen Uhler success archives began to pile up. Looking through them, one finds a professional that is equal parts coach and manager, student and teacher, visionary and innovator. Uhler credits her time at EIU for providing the foundation. “At EIU, I was given the idea from many people that ‘I can.’ My combined experience as an educator and athlete occurred at a school that wasn’t the largest institution in size, but was in teaching potential and the ability to think big.” Think “big” Uhler did… and did… and did...
Uhler Success Story #15: Uhler taught speech courses and coached the volleyball, basketball and track and field teams at Lisle High School in her first position out of college. As the momentum grew with her teams year to year, “Little Lisle,” as they affectionately called themselves, rose to the height of volleyball excellence in the state of Illinois, culminating with a 1985 state championship played, ironically, on the court Uhler had spent so many hours: Lantz Arena at EIU.
Uhler Success Story #23: Following that outstanding season, Uhler looked to augment her professional skill set as an educator by heading to the University of Illinois to continue her studies and assist then-head coach Mike Hebert with the institution’s volleyball program. No sports marketing postgraduate degree was offered, so Uhler went knocking: on the doors of the journalism, kinesiology, psychology, and business departments and customized her degree, laying the foundation for sports marketing degree-seekers for years to come. The volleyball team went from a 3-30 record the year prior to Uhler’s arrival to a 25-5 1988 season replete with a Big Ten championship title and NCAA Tournament Final Four appearance.
Uhler Success Story #41: After graduating from Illinois, Uhler moved on to become the head coach at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and University of Virginia. During her career as a college head coach, Uhler learned that the perfect moments are not winning the big game, but in that calm perfection found when the gymnasium door is closed and the team is unified and focused on achievement. These moments transcend into life – the primary reason Uhler took her athletics background and forayed into the advertising world.
She earned a coveted position with the Leo Burnett agency in Chicago. (Most advertising associates were, seemingly, Ivy League grads. When asked how Uhler came to join the agency, she responds: “Well, it must be that I went to EIU!”)
Her “beer-ey” résumé, as one industry executive liked to call it, made her a fit with accounts like Miller Lite, Reebok and McDonalds Sports while she earned her advertising stripes. Turns out, those accolades and the skill set that accompanied them aligned perfectly with her athletics and academic background: “Managers were like administrators, my creative team like athletes and clients like colleagues. I had learned to be my own brand when I taught and coached and, in advertising, found that it was so easy to make the connection between the brand we were tasked to raise awareness of and its market.”
That’s where Kate Winslet and the Academy Award-winning Titanic came in. Max Factor makeup, another Leo Burnett brand, was the product of choice by lead makeup artist Tina Earnshaw and led to the cross-promotion of the brand with its star. Uhler’s interaction with the film, music, and sporting elite grew to include Allstate’s spokesman and actor Dennis Haysbert (pictured with Uhler), singer Alison Krause, skater Kristi Yamaguchi, swimmer Summer Sanders, speed skaters Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen, figure skater Brian Boitano, racecar drivers Mario Andretti and Elliott Sadler, chef Charlie Trotter, photographer Annie Liebowitz and countless others.
Uhler Success Story #66: During her time as a volleyball coach, Uhler had the opportunity to build a relationship with the National Volleyball Federation; a union that would appoint her the Volleyball Secretariat and responsible for all volleyball logistics of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. This experience with the Olympics whetted her appetite. When Allstate, another Leo Burnett client, expressed interest in aligning with the Olympic movement, Uhler jumped at the new professional opportunity. Starting out as a one-woman-force responsible for all things Allstate and athletics, the position has grown into managing a team responsible for the strategic alliances, sponsorship activation plans, promotions, negotiations and advertising of Allstate’s sporting ties. Karen Uhler, the volleyball and softball player that found her home and her drive on the grounds of Eastern Illinois University is now Allstate’s Senior Marketing Manager.
Uhler Success Story #78: Not one to start anything “slowly but surely”, Uhler’s first task at Allstate was to reunite arguably the most historical team in United States Olympic history: the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” hockey team. 22 years after their historic defeat of the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, New York, Uhler brought the team and legendary coach Herb Brooks together at a time that coincided with the 2002 Salt Lake Games and catalyzed Allstate’s partnership with the Olympics for many years to come. Allstate’s sponsorship portfolio grew rapidly from that point and now includes the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, the Mexican National Team, the American Football Coaching Association, the Allstate Sugar Bowl and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. One more success story, though; this perhaps the one that truly tells the story.
Uhler Success Story #100: In 2008, Uhler received a phone call from Erin Whitley, an Indianapolis resident who heard a woman named Karen Uhler was leading the marketing efforts surrounding the Allstate Brickyard 500. Whitley was but a girl the first time she and Uhler met; she was a member of Uhler’s 1979 Charleston Junior High School volleyball team. Whitley had become an educator, nudged in that direction by her former coach, the coach who thought big and went on to augment that role at Charleston Junior High School with roles that always allowed her to stay true to her passion: her belief in people. Over the past 20 years, student-athletes Uhler interacted with at all levels – junior high, high school, college and even U.S. National – have tracked her down just to let her know what the sports experience has meant to them later on in their life. Uhler feels the same way: “If you put everything you had into (it) then, somehow it keeps giving back.”