Part of Josh Dodd’s last text message recently to Norma Carr
read, “Always nice to validate the notion of a life well lived.”
The two never met. Carr had never heard of Dodd. And then
she dialed a wrong number.
Carr was trying to reach a friend of hers in Arkansas via
text messaging while she watched her Salt Lake Community College women’s
basketball team during the March national tournament in Kansas. Instead, she
found Dodd, who didn’t recognize the number.
Once Carr identified herself to a befuddled Dodd, the
questions started coming.
“Not sure I am the intended recipient,” Dodd wrote back to
Carr. “But not to pry (sic), would you be the Norma Carr of BYU fame,
multiple-sport athlete, and first female athletic director in the entire state
of Utah? I don’t mean to waste your time, but I wrote several papers in high
school and college on the subject.”
Carr had more questions than Dodd at that point.
“Yes, I am that Norma,” she wrote. “So, why would you be
writing papers about me? And may I ask who you are? How do you know about me?”
It turns out Dodd found out about Carr when asked to write a
paper in high school about women in mass media, choosing sports and,
ultimately, Carr for his focus.
“I turned in a variation of that paper all 4 years of high
school and adapted it for 8 years and multiple degree programs in college,”
Dodd replied to Carr. “And then when (I) was 27 you accidentally text me. I’d
say that is irony at its finest.”
Coincidence? Definitely. Dodd absolutely points out a bit of
irony in his next message to Carr.
“The fact that you direct a program that includes the men’s
athletics is, in my opinion, still completely alien to American audiences,”
Dodd wrote. “Most still laugh at the appeal of women in leadership positions,
especially in the male-dominated hierarchies likes sports media, but you have
served as a role model, icon, and a bastion for the argument that women can be
equal/superior to men while holding a charge that is frankly well under
represented in collegiate sports.”
Carr, currently director of athletics for SLCC, recently
announced she is retiring after 25 years at the College. To many, she is and
will always be an icon in Utah sports.
And because of a wrong number, she validated one man’s
notion of a life well lived.
