If you look carefully at the crowd during a Cleveland Browns or New York Giants football game, you might spot Olivia Goodkin gazing at her iPad instead of the action on the field.
It’s not that Goodkin is bored – she’s a mother of two National Football League offensive linemen. Her older son, Geoffrey Schwartz, starts for the Giants and her younger son, Mitchell Schwartz, starts for the Browns.
“We added a great room to our house recently and installed two large side-by-side screens so we can watch them play at the same time,” Goodkin, 59, said. “About half of the games are on at the same time. If we are attending one son’s game in person, we watch the other son’s recorded game later, even if we caught some of it in on the iPad.”
Despite the sweet setup at home, Goodkin said she prefers to attend games in person.
“It is easier to follow what my sons are doing because the TV camera stays on where the ball is, and my sons may not be anywhere near the ball,” said Goodkin, partner at Century City law firm Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger.
Goodkin’s husband, Lee Schwartz, has a unique method to help ensure they catch as many in-person games as possible.
“As soon as the football schedule comes out, my husband prepares his now-famous football schedule spreadsheet showing the time and place of all the games, and also the UCLA games, as we have season tickets,” she said. “We need to factor in other events on the spreadsheet, such as weddings, and the Jewish holidays.”
Mountain High
Mark Lipis decided in 2008 that the best way to celebrate his 60th birthday would be scaring himself nearly to death.
Lipis had already jumped out of airplanes, so next on his list was climbing the upper portion of the mountain of granite known as Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. The climb up Half Dome’s nearly sheer east face using minimal cables is a test of nerves, confidence and skill.
“I had this goal and I wanted to do it before I got too feeble to try,” said Lipis, now 67 and managing director of Lipis Consulting Inc., a Westwood designer of compensation plans.
Lipis and one friend climbed the big rock. Pulling himself up the cables on the nearly sheer rock face while dangling over Yosemite Valley, Lipis said his heart was racing. His legs cramped – but he didn’t stop.
“It was what you expect when you finally get a chance to do something you always have wanted to do,” he said. “I was very much aware that people have died doing this hike. I didn’t dwell on it, but it was a sobering thought.”
At the summit, Lipis shared a birthday toast of scotch from a small bottle he carried up.
Climbing back down the rock on the cables was fun, Lipis said, compared to going up.
“I was so giddy; I was just over the clouds,” he said.
