Weekly Newsletter, Oct. 28, 2026: The Origin Story I Rarely Tell
HAPPY WEDNESDAY
They say it’s good to start things off with a joke, so here you go. I recently came across a talented cartoonist, Jerry King, who pitched the idea of a cartoon series about a sports agent (me) working with young athletes (my clients). I suggested a cartoon of me giving sound personal branding advice and the athlete taking “diligent” notes to follow up on. Below is how these meetings usually go.
Joking aside, it was quite flattering to have Jerry follow our journey as a sports agency and I look forward to more work with him in the future.
Pre-orders just went live for our next CG Sports Publishing title, and it might be my favorite underdog story we've ever put into print — a one-game NBA career that took the long way around to happen. I'm also about to have one of the busiest stretches of the fall — the LA28 Partner Summit kicked off Monday, and our swimmers hit the water this week at the Short Course World Championship Trials.
In today's newsletter, we'll look at:
This week's biggest client news: pre-orders open for our next book deal, a new Olympic icon joins the roster, plus what's ahead at the LA28 Partner Summit and Short Course Trials
A personal story
Cejih's Corner: the meeting you keep skipping is the one that actually saves you
CG Sports Publishing: the full story behind our newest title
CG Sports Client Events
This week's biggest client news
The big one: pre-orders are officially live for The Longview Longshot, our next CG Sports Publishing title — Sam Perley's biography of former NBA player Michael McDonald. It's a genuinely remarkable story (full details down in the Publishing section below), and the book hits shelves four weeks from today, on November 27.
Also this week: we officially welcomed five-time Olympian and USA Basketball Hall of Famer Teresa Edwards to the CG Sports roster.
My Thoughts on the Market: Balancing Your Olympic & Paralympic Talent Roster with “Legends”
With LA28 getting closer, demand for retired Olympic and Paralympic "icons" — for corporate hospitality, speaking engagements, and brand partnership appearances — is already climbing, and it's only going to keep going. That's a big part of why a diverse client roster matters so much right now: the more range we have across sports, eras, and regions, the better we can actually serve what the market is asking for, instead of turning down opportunities that don't fit who we have.
Teresa's a great example of the regional piece specifically. She's from Cairo, Georgia, played her college ball at the University of Georgia, and later starred for and coached the Atlanta Glory, plus a stint as an assistant coach with the Atlanta Dream — about as Atlanta-tied an Olympian as you'll find (she even took the competitors' oath at the Opening Ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Games). That regional tie matters more than people think: companies headquartered in a given city often specifically want an Olympian or Paralympian with a real connection to that city, not just a recognizable name. Having clients rooted in different parts of the country — Atlanta being a perfect case in point — means we can actually say yes to those asks.
Also this week, Jack Wallace wrapped a school-visit double-header in Bloomingdale, NJ, speaking to students at both West Ridge Elementary and Walter T Bergen Middle School.
Looking ahead: I'm heading out tonight through Friday for the 2026 Short Course World Championship Trials in Westmont, IL (Oct 28–31) — the last major domestic step before the Beijing Short Course World Championships in December. Excited to cheer on our athletes as they qualify for Team USA and secure a spot to Beijing to close out the year.
Personal Story: How CG Sports Actually Got Started
Funny timing that we just signed Teresa Edwards this week, because it's got me thinking about how this whole thing started in the first place — and it wasn't with shiny active Olympians headed to their next Games.
When I got my start as an agent, I didn't have a single client. Not one. So I started where nobody else was really looking: retired Olympians. I was booking them for paid speaking gigs, the occasional brand photo shoot, and generally helping them figure out life after competition — because "what do I do now" is a real problem when your entire adult life has been built around one event every four years. A lot of that work actually turned into helping them rebrand and build new businesses, something that could earn them an income that didn't depend on how fast they swam or how high they jumped.
We had some early wins that I'm still proud of — speaking gigs at ESPN (see above circa 2017) Starbucks HQ and Comcast, a deal with UGG, and a handful of new business ventures we helped stand up from scratch. And here's the part that actually built the company: active athletes started noticing. They'd see a retired teammate landing these deals and think, "Wait, how is she getting all this, and I'm not getting anything?" (Humbling for me to admit, but also exactly the word-of-mouth I was hoping for.) That's genuinely how I signed my first active Olympic and Paralympic clients — not a cold pitch, just the reputation our legacy athletes were building for us.
What I learned from that is something I still believe is one of our biggest advantages: a strong roster of legends and legacy athletes opens doors that nothing else can. Companies at the Olympics or Paralympics would come to us wanting a VIP talent who actually competed in that sport — someone who could host a social hour before the swimming finals, or run a fireside chat with their medals on the table, talking about what the ready room actually feels like, or what it's really like trying to balance living in the Olympic Village with four years of training riding on one race. Business executives eat that stuff up, and for good reason — it's a story you can't get anywhere else.
And the ripple effect was the best part: brands who had a great experience with one of our legacy athletes would turn around and ask, "who's the next up-and-comer we should be backing?" That's how a lot of our active-roster relationships actually got started — built on trust our retired clients had already earned for us. Which, all these years later, is exactly why signing someone like Teresa matters as much as it does.
Cejih's Corner
The habit: put the meeting on the calendar, every month, no exceptions.
A lot of client problems don't start as emergencies — they start as small updates nobody shared in time. The fix is simpler than it feels: put a recurring meeting on the calendar and protect it.
Pick a cadence that's actually sustainable. Daily or weekly check-ins sound thorough, but between travel, deadlines, and the dozen other hats everyone on an agency team wears, those slots get skipped first. Monthly is the sweet spot — frequent enough to catch issues early, infrequent enough that it survives a busy quarter.
Make it live, not written. An email update is easy to postpone — a scheduled call or in-person sit-down (video works fine) is much harder to blow off. That built-in accountability is the real value: it forces progress to get said out loud on a set date, instead of quietly drifting.
Use the time for three things: report where each project actually stands, flag anything that needs a decision or input, and agree on next steps before you hang up. Keep it tight if there's not much to cover — length isn't the point.
The bottom line: it's not about how long the meeting runs. It's about making sure the check-in happens, every time, on a schedule everyone can count on.
Read the full post: The Importance of Monthly Meetings
CG Sports Publishing: Pre-order The Longview Longshot now — on sale November 27.
If you only know Michael McDonald as a guy with one line in an NBA box score, you're exactly who this book is for. Michael grew up in Longview, Texas, and played his high school ball right there at Longview High before heading off to college — where things didn't exactly go to plan. He started at Utah Valley State, transferred to New Orleans, and had to sit out a full season of eligibility for it. His junior year was forgettable. Then, as a senior, something clicked: 11.1 points, 9.7 rebounds, and an eye-popping 81 blocked shots.
That senior year was enough to get him picked 55th overall — second round, practically an afterthought — by Golden State in the 1995 draft, who immediately shipped his rights to Toronto in a trade for B.J. Armstrong. He got two weeks in the Raptors' preseason camp. Then he got cut.
Most guys' story ends there. Michael's didn't. He spent years grinding through minor-league and international basketball — Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, a stop in France — picking up a CBA Defensive Player of the Year award along the way with the Grand Rapids Hoops. And then, on January 21, 1998, he signed a ten-day contract with the Charlotte Hornets. He played one game. One NBA game, after years of being told no. He kept playing professionally for another eight years after that, all over the world, long after most people would've called it a career.
Sam Perley first connected with Michael back in 2023 for what was supposed to be a short piece for Hornets.com. Three years later, it's become a full biography — and I don't think there's a better definition of "longshot" than a 55th pick who turned two weeks of training camp into a decade-plus pro career and a single, hard-earned NBA game. Pre-orders are live now on Amazon: reserve your copy here.
Also in the pipeline: Uplevel Your Tennis (Matt Anger) just cleared a big milestone of its own — the manuscript edit is complete and it's moved into layout, with the cover already finalized. Still a ways from a release date, but it's officially in the home stretch of production.
CG Sports Client Events
Oct 28–31, 2026 (Westmont, IL): 2026 Short Course World Championship Trials — Cejih in attendance.
Nov 3–4, 2026 (Colorado Springs, CO): USADA Athlete Panel, Jack Wallace.
Nov 7, 2026 (Mesquite, TX): Clinic with Rodeo Aquatics, Lilly King.
Nov 14, 2026 (Rocky River, OH): Clinic with Lakeshore Swim Club, Levi Sandidge.
Nov 15, 2026 (Bay City, MI): Clinic with Bay City Aquatics Club, McKenzie Siroky.
Nov 18, 2026 (Baltimore, MD): Speaking engagement at Bryn Mawr School, Emily Oberst.
Dec 3, 2026 (Wilton, CT): Leadership keynote & Captain's Workshop at Wilton High School, Elizabeth Beisel.
Jan 10, 2027 (Issaquah, WA): Clinic with Issaquah Swim Team, Hali Flickinger.
Apr 10, 2027 (venue TBD): Clinic with Border Swimming LSC, Phoebe Bacon.
May 1, 2027: Beyond the Blocks 2027, Ohio Swimming.
That's the week. See you next Wednesday.
Cejih and The CG Sports Company
