Taylor Rooks

thumb Taylor Rooks (born May 22, 1992) is an American sports journalist and broadcaster. She appears on Thursday Night Football (on Prime Video), Bleacher Report and TNT Sports. Quotes I was never elite at any sport, but I was surrounded by the love and emotion of it. The joy of winning, the sting of losing, and how deeply people connect to their teams. At the same time, I was nurturing my love for people, questions, and storytelling. I’d set up a camcorder and deliver fake newscasts, obsessed with the cadence of anchors I’d watch with my mom. By the time I got to college, I realized how much I loved everything about production, the travel, the access, the adrenaline of live sports, and I dedicated myself to building the foundation to become the best broadcaster I could be. I’ve always seen style as an extension of storytelling. I choose colours that pop on screen, silhouettes that feel interesting, and pieces that honour my personality in a space that can feel uniform. People sometimes dismiss broadcasters’ fashion choices as frivolous; I think it’s the opposite. What you wear is part of what makes you memorable. It’s how the viewer sees you. It makes people stop, pay attention, and hear what you have to say. It’s another layer of performance, just like sports. I prefer to call it a male-heavy industry as opposed to a male-dominated one. I don’t believe men are the dominant ones in space. This space is dominated by those who do the job at a high level. One of the hardest parts about working in a male-heavy industry is that you’re constantly navigating an invisible scale… Trying to weigh being assertive without being labelled “difficult,” being confident without being called “cocky,” being stylish without being deemed “distracting.” You learn to exist in the nuance of perception, and you eventually realize it doesn’t matter what people think of you when you know who you truly are. I’m really proud that I’ve been able to cross over into cultural spaces without losing the integrity of the journalism. I’ve been name dropped in different rap songs by some of my favorite artists, I’ve had cameos in movies and even got to have a discussion with President Obama. Sports don’t exist in a vacuum. They touch everything — music, fashion, politics, identity. The fact that people see me as both a sports journalist and a cultural voice means the work is resonating in many different spaces. Use the internet, don’t let the internet use you. Social media has become a place where people lose themselves. It has introduced metrics into our lives that don’t have any real effect on our careers. Whenever I meet younger people now, I tell them to prioritize being great and skilled at the job, not being able to go viral for a photo or outlandish opinion. Create something lasting. Make yourself last. interview | taylor rooks External links Category:Sports journalists Category:Women journalists from the United States Category:Living people Category:Television presenters Category:1992 births Category:Women born in the 1990s Category:African Americans