by Rachel Witkowski
Staff Writer
Lee Gordon picked the best seat in the house for the last Jaguars home game of the 2004 season. He looked up and saw someone in the Bud Zone that changed his life.
“I saw two cheerleaders and I said, ‘Wow. I need to sit over there’,” he said.
Gordon had just arrived in Jacksonville a few days before on Christmas Day to work as the weekend sports anchor/reporter for TV-30/47 and he barely knew anyone. A co-anchor invited him to the game and when they asked him where he wanted to sit, he noticed two women in the Bud Zone.
One of the cheerleaders was already acquainted with Gordon, so conversation was easy. But the other cheerleader, Karen — and the only who’d piqued his interest — seemed more intrigued by the game.
“I tried everything,” he said. “She ignored me.”
However, Karen was interested and later asked her friend to find out more information about him. Without hearing anything, Karen ran into Gordon two more times the same week. Chance meetings became planned dates which became the ultimate plan: their May 28 wedding at Deerwood Country Club with almost 200 guests, including NFL cheerleaders and plenty of reporters.
Even the iffy weather cooperated.
“I was constantly calling the weatherman,” said Lee, now 30. “It rained everywhere but where we were.”
They honeymooned in Mayan Riviera, Mexico where they snorkeled, kayaked and bargain shopped. But most importantly, they relaxed — something they rarely get to do on a daily basis.
Karen, also 30, is a full-time manager of mutual funds operations at Merrill Lynch. She graduated from Jacksonville University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Karen has danced all her life and was a dance instructor through college — something that paid off when she tried out for the Roar junior year of college. Today, she spends two nights a week and one weekend day with the squad.
“I won’t get home tonight until about 11,” said Karen.
Lee also has a hectic schedule, especially during football season. He doesn’t usually work late, but he rarely knows which two days he will get off during the week. So the Gordons have to plan a lot.
“We try to have dinner together,” said Karen, during her lunch break and the only time she would see Lee for the day. “On weekend mornings we will go to the gym together.”
Before Lee came to Jacksonville, he was a sports reporter/anchor in Billings, Mont., for two years and then in Tallahassee for five years. He was born in Chicago, Ill. and has a bachelor’s in broadcast journalism from Illinois State University. The Montana job caused Lee a major culture shock.
“I will never forget when I got off the plane and I looked to my left, and I looked to my right, and all I saw was cowboy hats,” he said.
Lee slowly adjusted to the rodeo shows and tumbleweeds, and eventually learned to enjoy the vastness and Western lifestyle.
“I learned so much there,” he said. “I would have never got to experience skiing and snowboarding and rodeos if I had not taken that job.”
Lee said he was still mailing hundreds of tapes to stations across the country when he got the call to come to Florida. That offer led him to his two greatest loves — sports reporting and Karen.
“I love doing this. I would love to be able to do this in Jacksonville until they throw me off,” said Lee. “But this is the best because I met Karen.”