They are on television every night. They’re on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium after Indianapolis Colts games. They’re outside Assembly Hall before Indiana plays Purdue and at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They cover high school football games on Friday nights.
Taylor Tannebaum and Olivia Ray work for Indianapolis stations WTHR and WISH-TV, respectively. Larra Overton is a reporter for the Colts. Tricia Whitaker covers the Tampa Bay Rays as a sideline reporter for Bally Sports Florida. Meghan McKeown is an analyst for the Big Ten Network.
But there’s so much you don’t see.
IndyStar spoke with nine women who have spent time as sports reporters and anchors in Indiana. We asked them about the struggles they face and the hurdles they’ve overcome to get here. They spoke with pride about advancements in the industry, and how they know they belong in locker rooms dominated by men. They also told stories of sexism by colleagues, nasty emails, threatening social media messages, a whisper in their ear, handwritten notes and threatening phone calls that can’t be traced.
When Title IX was passed 50 years ago, women could only dream of the opportunities that are available in sports media today. But there’s still so far to go.
“I want the next generation to understand what it took to get to this point so that we never have to go through something like this again, and so that nobody is ever excluded on the basis of sex or race or anything like that,” Whitaker said. “The only reason you should be excluded is if you’re not qualified.”
‘Those jeans fit you perfectly’
They all have stories about clothes.
When Tamar Sher got her job as the sports director at 14News in Evansville, Indiana, she had to completely revamp her wardrobe — and on her own dime. She has 10 different dresses to wear on the set, and a slew of other items to wear when she’s covering events.
“If I had to guess, I’d say I’ve spent just shy of $1,000 building my wardrobe throughout school, interning and now into my first role as an anchor and reporter,” she said.
Bri Shackelford is the sports director at WLFI, the CBS affiliate in West Lafayette, Indiana. She has 75-100 outfits, “but the closet is always growing.”
“I’ve spent over $500 just on clothes alone for this gig and I’m nowhere near done yet,” she said.
(As a point of comparison, Indianapolis sports reporter/anchor Chris Hagan told IndyStar he buys new suits “about every three years”…
..
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Golfweek…