In college, while most of Bermuda Tashae Thompson?s fellow economics students went straight to the business section of the newspaper, she turned to the sports section.

?I was pursuing a master?s degree in economics at the University of Central Florida in Orlando,? said Miss Thompson, 26. ?I got my bachelors in economics so I thought that was the most feasible thing to do.

?I really wasn?t too passionate about it. Everyone around me was watching CNN while I was watching ESPN. There was clearly a difference between me and my classmates.?

Luckily, through the director of her programme, Miss Thompson learned that she could actually combine economics with her love of sports into a sports management masters business degree.

?Growing up in Bermuda the jobs that were the most prominent were in accounting, or finance or banking,? she said. ?So I grew up thinking I would do one of those fields. Going into sports management was actually something that just happened. I really had no intention of doing sports management, but I am glad I did.?

Miss Thompson now works in communications for the Sacramento Monarchs, a Women?s National Basketball Association (WNBA) team in Sacramento, California.

They are one of the most successful WNBA franchises in the United States. They won the WNBA finals for the first time last year.

When she signed on, Miss Thompson was no stranger to basketball; she had been a fan of the game since she was little.

?I have played basketball since I was nine years old,? she said. ?I played for Berkeley Institute and then I played for the Bermuda College, and then I played basketball at the University of Florida, a division two school in North Florida.

?So I have been playing basketball for quite a while. I was a Sacramento Kings fan, but I did follow the careers of WNBA players like Ticha Penicheiro and Yolanda Griffith. They were two of my favourite players. I grew up watching them.

?Not every NBA team has a WNBA team associated with it, so I was happy to work for Sacramento.?

She said that although early on, women?s basketball didn?t get the attention or credit it deserved, all that is changing. ?I think it is getting better,? she said.

?I think Donna Orender, the WNBA president, is doing a tremendous job to promote the WNBA. They have more sponsors and more teams. She is just pushing it and giving it her all.

?Women?s basketball is now getting a lot more television time. With the new youth coming into the WNBA they are doing a great job to promote and enhance it. ?I think in the past it wasn?t getting as much attention as it should, but now as it goes into its ten year anniversary it is doing a lot better.?

Miss Thompson said that whenever she arranges events for the women basketball players, they are hugely popular with hundreds of people turning out for them.

?These girls are most definitely role models in the community,? she said. ?We recently did a player appearance at the Shriners Hospital For Children. The kids were very excited to see the Sacramento Monarchs.

?Just the love that the Sacramento Monarchs get from the community is remarkable. The Sacramento Monarchs have a bond with the community. They are so down to earth. When we get them out in the community, girls and boys are just drawn to them.?

Miss Thompson said it is great to see the Sacramento Monarchs interacting with kids in the community, and the kids themselves seem to appreciate it.

Miss Thompson works in the community relations department and helps with publicity initiatives such as Read to Achieve or Get Fit. She also helps to coordinate appearances for members of the team.

?We get the players out in the community,? Miss Thompson said. ?We want to make the players more approachable. We organise different events.

?We recently did a day of volunteerism. The whole organisation picked a group home and we did an extreme makeover to it. The other thing is the reading and literacy part.

?We also did a reading and literacy centre for kids in a group home.

?We also do an auction for our foundation which allows us to finance what we do in the community. We might auction off Sacramento Kings (the NBA team) and Sacramento Monarchs paraphernalia to raise money.?

Although Miss Thompson works for the team, she doesn?t really interact with the players on a personal level.

?We do get to interact with the players but it is always on a professional basis,? she said. ?We do anything from helping them with public service announcements and anything you see on commercials that they do.

?It is cool that I get to see and interact with them, but it is definitely on a professional basis. I guess that is one of the perks of what we do in community relations. We are one of the few departments that get to meet with the players as opposed to strategic alliance or marketing or finance.?

Although Miss Thompson enjoys living in California, her heart is still in Bermuda.

?I would love to come back to Bermuda,? she said. ?I really like California and the opportunity I have been afforded, but my heart has always been on the island.

?If I get an opportunity to do anything with sports, youth development or enhancement, anything that I can make applicable to what I have learned I would love to bring it back here and get a job in sports here. That would be fantastic. So my goal is to come back to Bermuda.?

Miss Thompson was home for the Cup Match holiday, and when the Royal Gazette met up with her, hanging out with her niece.

?This Cup Match I will be at the beach on the first day and check out the festivities on the second day,? she said. ?I haven?t been back to Bermuda at Cup Match in three years. It seems like in the past I was always doing something related to school such as looking for an apartment.

?For the first time I am going to go to a game and get a fish sandwich and do all the local stuff that I haven?t done in years.?

@EDITRULE:

For more information about the Sacramento Monarchs go to the official team website at http://www.wnba.com/monarchs/ .