Tagged: ‘Osi Umenyiora’

posted by on February 20, 2013 12:00 PM

I Follow: Sarah Spain

Sarah Spain (Allen Kee/ESPN Images)

Sarah Spain (Allen Kee/ESPN Images)

Editor’s note: I Follow is all about ESPN employees on Twitter: what they tweet, whom they follow and how you can interact socially with anyone and everyone.

Today we visit with Sarah Spain. She works for multiple ESPN platforms: Spain is an espnW columnist, a SportsCenter anchor for Chicago’s ESPNRadio 1000, and a reporter for ESPNChicago.com. She is an honors graduate of Cornell University, where she was a heptathlete and captain of the track and field team.

Twitter handle: @SarahSpain
Followers: 38,725
Following: 706
(*as of 2/20/13)

When did you join Twitter and why?
I joined in late 2008. I had just moved back to Chicago from LA and I was working at a start-up sports Web site. My bosses there urged us to check it out and I became pretty active on it almost immediately.

What’s your favorite Tweet you’ve received or your favorite Twitter moment?
Definitely two tweets I received from Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora after I wrote an espnW story that was critical of his continued use of the words “woman” and “girl” to insult other players. He wrote “@SarahSpain is absolutely correct in her article. I wasn’t thinking about it from that perspective. I apologize to any woman offended” and “@SarahSpain I always try and look at things from someone else’s perspective when it’s called to my attention. Your article is the truth.” I was so proud my article really made him think and his response got the piece picked up by several other outlets, further spreading a really important message that being a woman isn’t inherently wrong or inferior and words like “woman” and “girl” shouldn’t be interchangeable with “weak” or “less than.”

Explain your lighthearted approach to storytelling in your “That’s What She Said” series on espnW. continue reading…

Filed in: I Follow: Inside Twitter

posted by on November 9, 2012 4:57 PM

Chris Morris on illustrating rockin’ John Clayton’s ‘musical’ midseason look at the NFL for ESPN.com

Assignment: Illustrate Senior Writer John Clayton‘s NFL midseason report on ESPN.com, but do so with a nod to his wildly popular This Is SportsCenter ad depicting him as a long-haired, heavy metal fan.

Illustrator: Chris Morris, by day The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s art director, by night a trusted artist various ESPN platforms have used to bring ideas to life.

Result: Morris draws axeman Clayton “jamming” with the caricatures of NFL stars including Tom Brady, Andrew Luck and Drew Brees to address the “musical genres” the 32 teams are in.

Let’s just say you’d rather your team be considered “heavy metal” instead of “elevator music.”

“I have worked with Chris off and on for about 20 years,” said John Banks, ESPN.com’s Senior Deputy Editor, NFL, who drafted Morris for this assignment. “We used to cook up some neat stuff at The Dallas Morning News.”

Morris is a bit of a “mad scientist,” Banks says.

“He’s fast, fun, easy to work with — and a terrific illustrator.”

Morris’ work has been showcased on various ESPN platforms, including an E:60 segment featuring two NFL superstars engaged in a Twitter battle. Front Row spoke with the illustrator:

Chris Morris’ visions of “John Clayton” and “Tom Brady” for the ESPN.com Hot Read published Wednesday.

What was your reaction when you were given this assignment to depict Clayton and NFL stars as rock music icons?
I’ve drawn John Clayton probably three or four times now. This year, we went for a different angle instead of “The Professor with mid-season report card,” which we’ve used before. This was a fun assignment, based largely on the awesome ESPN commercial he’s in.

What challenges were involved in this assignment? continue reading…

Filed in: Behind The Scenes

posted by on February 2, 2012 3:27 PM

Fast Break: Rachel Nichols at SB XLVI

Rachel Nichols with New York Giants linebacker Mark Herzlich.

INDIANAPOLIS — In her role covering the New York Giants, reporter Rachel Nichols has been an invaluable asset to fans who turn to ESPN for news and information about Super Bowl XLVI.

Based at ESPN’s New York City bureau, Nichols has been mostly assigned to New York’s NFL teams and in the postseason, she has focused on the Giants.

“Because we serve a primarily sports-savvy audience, our reporters must be curious enough and adept at uncovering good stories,” said ESPN NFL senior coordinating producer Seth Markman.

“Rachel and Ed [Werder, covering the New England Patriots] are two of the best at digging for and telling multiple stories to keep our viewers informed.”

Nichols, a former South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Washington Post reporter, reports regularly on SportsCenter, ESPNEWS, NFL and NBA studio programming and other shows.

She is one of five lead correspondents on E:60, ESPN’s award-winning and critically acclaimed newsmagazine. This season, she was added to the regular rotation of Monday Night Football sideline reporters.

ESPN Front Row caught up with Nichols Thursday, and she shared some insight on her role covering the Giants at Super Bowl XLVI.

Her thoughts:

On a typical day (Wednesday) at Super Bowl XLVI Week
Nichols: The days get pretty busy here because we’re trying to provide information for a lot of different arms of ESPN — plus mix in some fun stuff with some more long-range storytelling as well.

I’ll give you my day on Wednesday: I started at the Giants media availability, where I was trying to gather information for the day’s reports on ESPN, as well as some information that we’ll use over the weekend, when the teams have no more official media access. It got a little hectic at the end of the hour, because Osi Umenyiora did not show up for his scheduled session. It’s my job to find out why: Was he sick? Hurt? Did he just oversleep or decide not to come?

In asking around about what might be wrong with Osi, one of the Giants’ coaches ended up telling me a different player on the team, Jimmy Kennedy, had, in fact, been sick, so I scrambled to report that. The day before, the Patriots had been struck by a flu bug, with several players falling ill, so any sickness anywhere was being taken pretty seriously. We did a live shot with the 12-3 p.m. SportsCenter, and then taped a segment that could run through the rest of the early afternoon.

By 4 p.m. ET, I was on the NFL Live set, first to give a report on the Giants defensive gameplan against Tom Brady, then to do a second segment talking zip line. I had an hour-long break before the next live shot, so I went up into the office and recorded some voice tracks for a feature piece on Justin Tuck that will run on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s a pretty touching story about how Tuck became close with a young fan and his family — that kind of thing takes you out of the X-and-O mindset for a little.

But as soon as that was done, I had to switch gears again to talk more football. I did a live-shot for NFL 32, talking about the Giants’ afternoon practice. Then, I did another but similar live-shot for the 6 p.m. ET SportsCenter.

Finally, around 7:30 p.m., we put together two reports for the 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. ET editions of SportsCenter.

Once they were taped, we were wrapped for the day, although if any news on the Giants broke through the evening, I was on-call for that, too.

continue reading…

Filed in: Behind The Scenes