Kathryn Bertine needed no introduction to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s home last week during the NFL virtual draft.
She, in fact, considers Goodell to be living in her home in Bronxville, New York. Such is the nostalgic tug of childhood.
Bertine, 44, of Tucson grew up in the 6,400-square-foot house for almost all of her first 21 years. She walked all of three-tenths of a mile to attend school from kindergarten through 12th grade, setting a foundation for a life in sports in the same basement where Goodell called out the names of the next wave of NFL talent April 23-25.
“People look at someone like Roger Goodell as an untouchable figure in some regard,” Bertine said. “I like to bring the human element to the table and say that man cave is where I used to play Atari. You can imagine how many childhood friends who know that house. It was really fun to see their responses on Facebook. I’m just smiling.”
Goodell moved into the house in 2005, a 30-minute train ride outside Manhattan, paying $4.8 million per public records. Bertine kept the connection to her family quiet out of respect for Goodell and “not to come across elitist.”
Because that’s not how she sees the house or her time there from 1977-97 until she was a senior at Colgate.
“A lot of people have the assumption that someone who makes that many millions must live in a castle or a palace,” she said. “I can attest first hand that I did not grow up with turrets and drawbridges.
“It has elegant qualities to it, but it’s not a Kennedy-era compound of any sort. It’s a beautiful yet humble house,” built in 1928 and designed by architect Charles Lewis Bowman.
When Goodell posted a video of where he would be headquartered for the draft, the memories for Bertine were too thick to resist her own social media commentary on the basement where she first rode a giraffe-shaped tricycle, set up her drum set and played Atari 2600 with her brother Pete. She also recalls her father’s rowing machine down there and a small television, modest compared to Goodell’s three-screen set-up.
Bertine was a figure skater into her 20s but by the late 1990s, when she moved to Arizona first to obtain a master’s degree, gravitated to triathlon and cycling, competing professionally in both. She tried unsuccessfully to qualify for the 2008 and 2012 Olympics as a cyclist representing Saint Kitts and Nevis, the first attempt while working on assignment for ESPN. She won three Caribbean cycling championships and competed at eight World Championships as well as five years on the pro tour.
She co-founded Le Tour Entier to lobby for reinstatement of the Tour de France Féminin and leading to creation of La Course by Le Tour de France, a women’s criterum. Her 2014 women’s cycling documentary “Half the Road” was well received at film festivals. She’s written three non-fiction books including “All the Sundays Yet to Come,” which includes details about growing up in Bronxville.
Peter Bertine Sr. was a local lawyer specializing in wills, estate and elder care. His wife Diane worked too as an interior decorator. That’s how they could afford the house on Hemlock Road, with its tree swings, the spacious basement playroom for Kathryn and her brother and two cats and a dog.
Bertine pointed out on social media her favorite hiding place in the basement, near the laundry chute that covered all three levels of the house. “As a kid I loved that thing because you could parachute GI Joes down the chute and see if they would make it,” she said. “If there were dirty clothes in the hamper, you could bury yourself (during hide and seek).”
Peter Sr. was an acquaintance of Charles Goodell, Roger’s father, who served in both houses of Congress from 1959-71. Roger, 61, and his four brothers went to the same school in Bronxville that Kathryn would attend with the next generation of Goodells.
Bertine’s parents now live in Tucson, though her mother’s health is failing. She and her father, 83, once shared triathlon competition and still occasionally work out together. She wrote an entertaining essay about their relationship for the book Fathers & Daughters & Sports.
Kathryn is working on her fourth book, about her activism in cycling from 2009-16 and the large application of “what happens when we stand up and fight for what we believe,” she said. Most recently that work includes the non-profit Homestretch Foundation, created to assist female professional athletes with housing while training in Tucson.
“We were both totally interested and nostalgic,” watching the draft, Bertine said of her father. “We would have loved to have seen more of the basement to have a better idea of renovations down there. There was something about the windows that really brought back a lot of memories for us and a tiny glimpse of the back yard. Just the stairway (to the basement) itself was wonderful.”
A pathway to the birthdays and sleepovers of long ago.
