Azzi wellness seminar is today

It's hard to think about eating right or exercising when the finances are going south or if there's an emotional issue hanging overhead.

"It's so interrelated," said Olympic basketball gold medalist and former Utah Starzz player Jennifer Azzi, a Salt Lake City resident who is bringing one of her wellness days to Westminster College today.

She figures that's what's a little different about her wellness days. They incorporate not only fitness and nutritional experts but also others who contribute to people's overall well-being, including a financial mentor, a woman who "inspires the spirit" and other motivational speakers, including Azzi.

Azzi and former Starzz strength coach Richelle Lund, who's been with Franklin Covey's wellness center for 10 years, cooked up the idea for sponsoring wellness days, and, "It morphed into a three-hour comprehensive program," said Azzi.

Tickets are $30, and Azzi said if there is any profit, it will go to the Children's Hunger Fund, an international group that she said puts most of its income directly to work and not into administrative costs.

The Courage to Change Salt Lake City Wellness Day 2006 will be from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Westminster College, with registration at 9 a.m. Registration can also be done by calling 801-282-2717 or at www.azzitraining.com

It is part of the activities of Azzi Training, for which Azzi won a top-10 award from Overtime Magazine last June. The magazine is for former athletes making a difference through community service, entrepreneurial adventures and charitable contributions.

The wellness days - she and Lund have done about 15 of them so far - are a way "for me to do something that's really positive for other people," said Azzi, long interested in lifetime fitness.

"It's an educational day. It's exciting to see people get ignited and provide that jump start for people to make change for their health and to live their lives healthier in a lot of different ways."

She said the past seminars have drawn from perhaps 70-200 people, mainly women aged 25-65 but a lot of men, too. Some don't even know of her basketball background, which she says is good. "If my name as a gold medalist helps, great, but if they come for star power, it's not for the right reasons," she said.

Speakers include personal finance mentor Alan Williams, inspirational speaker Lori Chandler Thurston, wellness coach and weight-loss author Lucy Beale, motivational speaker Glenn Dutton and Azzi.

Azzi, the Stanford graduate originally from Tennessee, has been busy as a motivational speaker, traveling to Washington, D.C., Tennessee, California, Chicago, Texas and Arizona in 2006 and with a possible trip to India to talk to IBM employees there about teamwork. She also works with Utah-based Usana, speaks on behalf of PR For Life and is on the directors' board of USA basketball.

---

E-mail: lham@desnews.com