Wake Forest Athletics
Gold Rush Feature: In the Political Arena
4/13/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
This article was originally published in the April 9 edition of Gold Rush.
One day in January, Erin Boyle had 500 people waiting to talk to her -- most of them ready to complain about something she had no control over.
That was in her second week working as a staff assistant to Speaker of the House John Boehner. The health care debate was in full swing, and Boyle, a 2010 Wake Forest graduate who was a member of the women's golf team, was just doing her job, fielding calls from citizens across the country eager to support or criticize the nation's top elected Republican.
That has been one of Boyle's busiest days, but she certainly has stayed active. Most congressional offices deal only with calls from their home district (and keep a staff of one or two people for that purpose). As House speaker (and a political lightning rod), Boehner gets calls from all 50 states. Boyle is one of a staff of five tasked with answering those calls.
"Our goal is to make sure the American people know what position he has in mind on any specific issue," Boyle said. "It's usually tied to whatever he's doing that week. For example, right now (late March), we're dealing with the budget and have to let people know we in the House are not in favor of a government shutdown."
It's a heady position for someone 10 months out of college. Boyle has worked hard to get where she is, but she admits to plenty of lucky breaks along the way.
A Communication major, Boyle always had a love for politics, and she credited two freshman classes -- Interpersonal Communication and Introduction to Sociology --with helping her understand how her own skills could be applied in Washington.
"In Sociology 151, Dr. (Earl) Smith told us that politics is as much the art of policy as the art of persuasion," Boyle said. "That really exposed me to this world."
Boyle loved it so much that she left Wake Forest without a job, just a dream of working on Capitol Hill. She moved in with her aunt and uncle in the D.C. suburbs and started looking.
"I was picking up my cousin from school and started talking to this lady," Boyle said. "I told her I was a Wake Forest grad looking for this job, and she said, 'Small world. My husband works for a lobbying firm, and they're looking for an assistant. Send me your resume. So I did."
Last June, Boyle started a six-month assistantship at Petrizzo Strategic Group, a firm that speaks to elected officials on behalf of corporations. She said it showed her how Congress worked, but it did so from the perspective of the private sector. All the while, she was reading influential magazines The Hill, Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call, trying to learn about the lingo and the policy.
"Last spring, I barely could tell you what an earmark was," Boyle said. "Now I know all the regulations of earmarks, how many are out there, which ones we support..."
In January, when she learned through a friend who was a congressional staffer (again, it's who you know) that Rep. Boehner needed an assistant, she was ready
"It was as though I had a guardian angel on my shoulder," Boyle said. "If I had tried to do this in June right out of college, I couldn't have done it. It was still overwhelming. Besides the phones, here I am running to get coffee for the president of Australia. My second week at the front desk, (NBC News anchorman) Brian Williams came in. I spent all this time reading about it, but living and experiencing it is so different."
Through it all, Boyle remains unflappable, at least on the surface. For that, she credits her time as a student-athlete at Wake Forest.
"That taught me structure and discipline," Boyle said. "I learned to put my head down and fight through it when things get tough. I had people tell me, 'When I started, I cried for two weeks straight.' But I transitioned a lot easier than your average college kid. I'm used to the long hours, and I've got a thick skin for criticism."
Boyle still lives with her aunt and uncle, though she's looking for a place closer to Capitol Hill. For now, though, there are more phone calls to take, more work to do in the power center of the United States.
"I have a surreal job and a surreal lifestyle," Boyle said. "It's nice to know that that light at the end of the tunnel is actually a light and not a train."
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