{"id":45307,"date":"2016-01-23T17:46:57","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T17:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45307"},"modified":"2016-01-24T01:32:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-24T01:32:43","slug":"sage-steele-opens-up-about-being-a-biracial-woman-in-sports-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45307","title":{"rendered":"Sage Steele Opens Up About Being A Biracial Woman In Sports Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sage Steele Opens Up About Being A Biracial Woman In Sports Media<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Huffington Post<\/a>
\n2015-01-21<\/p>\n

Justin Block<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Sports Editor<\/p>\n

Juliet Spies-Gans<\/a><\/strong>, Editorial Fellow, HuffPost<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nJoe Scarnici<\/a> via Getty Images<\/em>
\nSage Steele<\/a> speaks onstage at the 2013 espnW: Women + Sports Summit at St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort on Oct. 9, 2013, in Dana Point, California<\/a>.<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The ESPN<\/a> host talks sexism, racism, NBA Saturday Primetime on ABC <\/a>and that infamous moment with Bill Simmons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Picture the scene: It\u2019s a sweaty, crowded NFL locker room a handful of miles from the heart of Baltimore<\/a>, a little over a decade ago. There\u2019s a scrum of reporters, trying to inch closer and closer to the prize interview: Ray Lewis<\/a>. And as the voices shout over one another, urging the linebacker to look every which way, one journalist\u2019s tone differentiates itself from the rest.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the voice of Sage Steele<\/a>, and as the only woman amid the horde of media members, the octave of her voice allows her to be the one to grab and hold onto Lewis\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n

Today, the 43-year-old Steele is known as both the face and the voice of ABC and ESPN\u2019s NBA Countdown<\/em><\/a>. Come Saturday, she\u2019ll be speaking to millions of us through our TV sets, as the host of the new NBA Saturday Night on ABC package. And come June, she\u2019ll ring in the NBA Finals as emcee of the biggest show of the season, working with names like Jalen Rose<\/a> and Doug Collins<\/a> to introduce and analyze the league\u2019s marquee event.<\/p>\n

But it hasn\u2019t always been like this for Steele. A self-described army brat<\/a> bullied throughout high school for her biracial background, Steele has dealt with a unique blend of discrimination in her time. One day she\u2019s too white, the next she\u2019s too black. Her curly, un-styled hair is considered either an asset or a detriment, depending on the week. And even as she has received rave reviews for her work with ESPN, she\u2019s anticipating the day when her increasingly grey locks age her out of her job in a way that simply wouldn\u2019t happen to a man.<\/p>\n

In a word, she\u2019s surrounded on all sides by -isms<\/em>. Ageism, sexism, racism — you name it, Steele has felt it. But today, in her 21st year in the biz, the longtime journalist is able to reflect on her time on studio sets and in locker rooms, and decipher where and when those constant currents of isms<\/em>, don’ts<\/em> and can’ts<\/em> have made her stronger, sharper and more apt for the job.<\/p>\n

Steele recently spoke with The Huffington Post about everything from the discrimination she\u2019s faced to her relationship with Stuart Scott<\/a>, from the importance of having thick skin to that<\/em> GIF of her and Bill Simmons<\/a>. She\u2019s spent the last two decades in the trenches — those grimy, Gatorade-stained locker rooms of Indianapolis<\/a> and Baltimore — and now she\u2019s explaining how she was able to stay on her feet through it all, remaining humble, hungry and happy, no matter what…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sage Steele Opens Up About Being A Biracial Woman In Sports Media The Huffington Post 2015-01-21 Justin Block, Associate Sports Editor Juliet Spies-Gans, Editorial Fellow, HuffPost Joe Scarnici via Getty Images Sage Steele speaks onstage at the 2013 espnW: Women + Sports Summit at St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort on Oct. 9, 2013, in Dana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8413,13743,8,20,25],"tags":[9251,10108,22766,22765,22767,7222,2425],"class_list":["post-45307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-communications","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-espn","tag-huffington-post","tag-juliet-spies-gans","tag-justin-block","tag-sage-steele","tag-sports","tag-the-huffington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45307"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45310,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45307\/revisions\/45310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}