First lady of the Phils: an interview with Heidi Hamels

January 9, 8:11 AMPhiladelphia Phillies ExaminerPatrick Gallen

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Heidi and Cole Hamels in Sydney, Austrailia (from
Colehamels.com)

Behind every great man, there is a great woman.  In this case, it’s Heidi Hamels who sticks behind her superstar southpaw husband from the Philadelphia Phillies.

Both Heidi and Cole Hamels were gracious enough to grant me an interview as they drove through the sleet and rain from their home in West Chester, Pennsylvania, to Clearwater, Florida.  The reasoning behind the drive is to get a leg up on the competition.  Cole is starting up his strict offseason routine early in hopes of getting to that magical number of 20 wins, and of course, back-to-back world titles.

As for Heidi, she’s not just tagging along. She is the driving force behind her husbands’ success. Sure, she may have gained fame from a stint on the CBS reality show “Survivor” and her sultry spread in Playboy.  But what defines Heidi Hamels is her willingness to travel to the ends of the world to assist others.  Part businesswoman, part philanthropist, Hamels is busy with her new athletic apparel company, Sistasshirts.com, as well as her efforts in Africa to help build a new school for girls.

Pat Gallen: Now that Cole has been the MVP of the World Series and the NLCS, how much has life changed in the last few months since all of that went down?

Heidi Hamels: “Oh gosh. Well we love where we live, West Chester. We love it, the people there are amazing and everything about it is amazing, they treat us like normal human beings.  But since the World Series, we have to go in the back door at every restaurant and just getting bombarded by every single person.  But we both know that they are just excited and they’re excited to meet Cole and just see that he’s real.  Some of the people we meet are just funny; some are in shock.  We know where all of this is coming from, but sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming for the both of us.”

PG: Do you ever worry about your personal safety?

HH: “I do a little bit when Cole isn’t home. One thing is, people don’t realize you don’t see each other very much; really we see each other one week a month. Sometimes, during the other three weeks (when Cole isn’t around), I’m wondering, ‘is someone going to try and break in, because I’m the only one here.’  I’ve never really feared for my safety, but we have had a couple of people with stalking situations, but no one has tried to break into our house.”

PG: What is it like to be married to a star player in the Major Leagues? What are some of the downfalls? Obviously he travels a great deal during the summer.

HH: “Everyone thinks it’s a glamorous lifestyle. But I don’t know too many women, the women who are married to these guys (athletes) that are that trusting, that secure with themselves to say ‘oh, you go off for three weeks a month for nine months a year and I’ll just stay here with the family.’  It just takes a lot of honesty, and of course we’re protective of our husbands. It’s a careful-what-you-wish-for situation. And as many downfalls as there are, I got very lucky.  I’m married to a great, great guy and I don’t worry about anything. There’s an unwritten rule between us that, you do your thing, I do my thing; we’ll meet in the middle. We both respect each other.

It hurts me a lot when people say bad things about him.  When it’s someone you love, it’s a direct attack on you as well. Everything is almost too good to believe (with athletes).  They can’t really be that good of a person, and be successful.  And not just Cole, but there are several, several guys on the team that really are that good, and they just happen to be very successful.  And they happen to be happily married and have great kids.  I’m not saying there aren’t other problems, but people don’t want to believe there are people like that who really exist. But I’m glad they do exist, because they are great role models for kids.”

PG: Tell me about your new company, Sistasshirts.com.  

HH: “Its designer shirts, but they all have athletic sayings on them.  These shirts promote being healthy, that you’re running; you can also wear them with jeans or skirts, but a lot of people still work out in them too.”

PG: What made you decide to start up this company and website?

HH: “My sister and I, we go to these running expos to run marathons and we saw all of these shirts there and they were boxy and they had basic sayings on them.  We said we can make this so much better.  The next day, we started getting a hold of printing companies, clothing companies, and it took us about six months to get all of that together.  So we started it, and we’ve been going to running expos, we’re getting ready to hit retail stores in April, so that will be huge for us.”

PG: What do you think has been the most challenging part of running a business like this?

HH: “One of the most challenging is figuring out, what are people going to buy? Because what you think might look good; you know the saying ‘one mans garbage is another persons art.’  We had a shirt that we didn’t think was going to sell very well at all; and those were sold out in two minutes. And then a shirt we thought was going to sell really well, hasn’t sold at all.  It’s challenging knowing exactly what people want.”

PG: Tell me about the Hamels Foundation that you guys have started.  

HH: “That is my huge, huge project.  The Hamels Foundation is all about helping kids who have AIDS or HIV or have had a parent die from AIDS or HIV.  We’ve done this specifically in Malawi. And we are also getting ready to partner with a school, and by school I mean dirt benches, no walls to the school, no ceiling, nothing. We are partnering up to build a girls school. So that’s huge to get these girls off the streets so that they don’t get raped and so they don’t get AIDS.  

But also, in order for the Philadelphia community to get involved, we are donating between 20-30% of everything the Hamels foundation makes to one school per year, an inner-city school in need.”

PG: What is it like to be put in a situation where you have the opportunity to help so many people?

HH: “It’s amazing. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to do this project, but at first I thought it was going to be a much lower scale.  I thought, ‘oh, I’ll go to Africa every year and we’ll give a certain amount of money to kids that need shoes and clothes.’  I never imagined that I would be sitting here right now getting ready to build a girls school in Africa. So, it’s really amazing knowing you can affect 300 to 600 kids lives, and you are saving them from AIDS and malaria and HIV. Our biggest goal is hopefully to save a whole congregation of people so that they do not get AIDS or HIV by the time they are 7-years old. And if you can give education to these girls, that’s what going to help change Africa.  If these girls don’t have those diseases, they stand a phenomenal chance of getting out.”

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