Michele Tafoya

Sports reporter and analyst Michele Tafoya had been a self-described sports junkie for most of her life. It was while she was enrolled at the University of Southern California pursuing her MBA that it occurred to her that her love of sports may well translate to a successful career. Born in Manhattan Beach, California in 1964, Tafoya attained a BA in mass communications from UC Berkeley, and eventually set her sights on sports broadcasting, relocating to Charlotte, North Carolina where she became the first woman sports analyst to call UNC-Charlotte men's basketball games. She would also spend some time working in the Midwest at stations such as WCCO-TV in Minneapolis before she took her talents to the national level as a reporter for "CBS Sports Spectacular" in 1994, making her on-air debut at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships. She notably served as a reporter for CBS's coverage of the 1998 National Championship Orange Bowl and won a Gracie Award for "Outstanding Achievement by an Individual On-Air TV Personality" for her play-by-play calling of WNBA games on Lifetime Television. In 2000, Tafoya left CBS for ABC Sports and ESPN, initially working mainly as a sideline reporter for NFL football. She would also work as a drive time talk radio host for WCCO-AM between 2009 and 2012. In 2011, Tafoya grew even more prominent as a sports reporter, becoming a sideline reporter for NBC Sunday Night Football (NBC 2011- ).