Pacers reporter fights to overcome personal loss - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

A new face on the Indiana Pacers broadcast team is trying to rebuild her life after a devastating loss.

Thirty-year-old Brooke Olzendam knows sports. Whether it was her first job right out of college for Fox Sports, her own show covering the Pac-10, or reporting college football for CBS, she's comfortable talking game.

"There are a few things I'm passionate about. Sports is one of them," Olzendam said.

She learned early from her father. Dave Olzendam was a Hall of Fame high school boys' basketball coach for over 30 years.

"I really grew up in the gym. I went to every game. I can just remember going into the locker room when I was 8 and praying, just let them make it to state, so I can go to state, like that was the only thing I cared about, going to state and following my dad's team," Olzendam said.

By all accounts, Brooke had a picture perfect life. Great jobs in a field she loves, she had it all, except for the one thing that really matters. That all changed when she met Andy Collins in a bar in California.

"We met at a bar in Venice, where love happens," she said. "Hit it off, next day called, had one of those long conversations, we started dating."

Collins, a stand-out athlete, played college and professional arena football. Both grew up in Washington state, loved sports and family. They were young, in love and looking forward to a great future.

"He really wanted to go away together, 'Let's get married, let's hightail it out, start our life, let's do it together'," Olzendam said.

After a two-year romance, the happy couple married in a beautiful Catholic ceremony in Seattle last July. They put the honeymoon on hold and headed straight for Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Brooke would start a new job with CBS.com as Mrs. Andy Collins.

But in an instant, the dream crumbled.

Just 10 days after their wedding, Andy collapsed and died. He was just 27 years old.

"We were there for...the fourth day is when he...we were going to work out and I couldn't, because we had a dinner that night and he went to work out and he was on a treadmill and...perfect vision of health, but he had a heart attack," Olzendam said. "I don't remember a lot about what happened that night or the next day, but my mom flew down and got me and my aunt and my cousin. We flew back up to Spokane.

"I laid in my mom's guest bed for a month straight. I couldn't get out. I didn't want to. It was just one moment, I remember laying there, thinking Andy would not want me to be doing this, because he was my biggest support, my biggest fan," she said. "Just always so proud. Always so proud. So I was laying there and it was almost...I felt it. Get out of bed, you've got to figure something out, you can't do this forever. I don't want you to do this forever."

But first, she had to move past the "why" and "how," a man as healthy as Andy, could die so suddenly. An autopsy revealed he had an undiagnosed condition where the arteries near his heart were smaller than normal. Doctors say there was nothing that could have saved Andy.

"I had to stop thinking about why or how, because it just, in circles, it would have happened anyway. There was no way of getting around it," Olzendam said.

Brooke walked away from the job in Florida, unable to bear life there without Andy. She relied on some friends in the business, who helped her get back on the sidelines, doing football for CBS College Sports Network.

"I did the first game and it was difficult, but it was satisfying, that 'You can do this.' I know this sounds cheesy, but I really felt like he was there with me through the whole thing," she said.

Two-and-a-half months after the death of her husband, her agent told Brooke about a job in Indianapolis with the Pacers.

"I felt like, if this is being offered to me in this time, there is a reason for it and I think I am supposed to take this and do it for us. He's not here, but I feel like I am doing it for us," Olzendam said.

It's only been 10 months since Andy died. With her wedding ring now on her right hand, and Andy's around her neck, Brooke is still working through her grief. She says being here, in Indianapolis, with new friends and colleagues at this point in her life has helped her start to heal.

"I hope at one point, I can feel as though I've repaid or given back what they've given me and the Pacers Sports and Entertainment in general, because I feel very blessed and taken care of by the city and I've been vulnerable and weak and struggling and they've just been there for me," she said. "People I don't even know, and it's really moved me."

Brooke says she could never have imagined she'd be traveling with the Pacers during such an exciting time. She says the team's run through the playoffs is the best way to keep her on the road to healing.