Second of two parts
Black females historically have been underrepresented in sports broadcasting. But Cindy Brunson as a youngster found a Black woman who would serve as an inspiration for her to eventually go into broadcasting herself.
“The first person I saw that looked like me on TV talking about sports was Jayne Kennedy,” recalled Brunson of Kennedy (now Overton), the first Black woman to host a national sports broadcast, CBS NFL Today in 1975. “I just thought she was stunning. Oh my gosh, she’s there and she’s talking about football,” Brunson recalled.
Then, after seeing Kennedy’s successor Phyllis George, a White woman doing the same job, that convinced her that one day she could do the same. Brunson talked about it with her father, and the two visited colleges that had a broadcasting curriculum.
The Seattle native said, “We landed at Washington State because Keith Jackson had gone there,” continued Brunson. “He was the soundtrack of my college football-loving youth. That’s going to be a good foundation for me.
“I graduated from Washington State [in 1996 from the Murrow College of Communications]. and within six months of graduating I had my first on-air TV job in Spokane [Wash.] as the weekend weather person and working reporter.”
Brunson moved on to a Portland, Oregon station to do sports. “I got a call from ESPN in 1999,” recalled the veteran broadcaster.
She anchored the network’s famed SportsCenter as among the few Blacks to hold the nightly sports desk. “I was in the right place at the right time, and I was at ESPN for 13 years, met my husband there, and I had a blast,” said Brunson.
“I got to work with people like [the late] Stuart Scott. I was so blessed to have my cubicle across the office space from Stu. I did my first SportsCenter with my future husband — I had a crush on the guy [I was] sitting next to,” she pointed out.
Her broadcasting experience over the years includes play-by-play for Texas Tech women’s basketball, TNT Sports, University of Arizona sports, Fox Sports, and Pac-12 Networks. She also is the first primary voice for Athletes Unlimited women’s basketball telecasts.
“Not very many people get to say they’ve had two dream jobs, and I have,” said Brunson. “I achieved my goal of being at ESPN and SportsCenter, and when I left ESPN [in 2013] it was my goal of being the [WNBA’s Phoenix] Mercury broadcaster [2022-2024].”
“I knocked on that door every single year,” she said.
There aren’t that many Blacks doing play-by-play on a regular basis. Brunson is among a handful of Black women announcers.
“I built it through reps, because in play-by-play you just have to do it, to find your voice, to find your comfort level, and to learn how to work with a bunch of different people,” explained Brunson. “One of the most valuable lessons I learned at ESPN was to teach them something they didn’t know before they tuned in,” she stressed.
Besides being the best she can be, Brunson wants to model for the next generation of Black females. “I always want to show them what’s possible. You’re the lead, you’re the voice that’s going to be heard the most, and you want to have that calm about you, but also the respect. I want to instill that anything is possible.”
Brunson said she was taken aback that she also was setting a standard like Jayne Kennedy and Robin Roberts did for her decades ago.
“I had no idea the impact I was having when I was hosting SportsCenter or when I was calling games for the Pac-12,” she said. “People were really paying attention and they were looking at me as a role model.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.