‘Inside UVA’: Meet Network Sports Broadcasting Star Melissa Stark

Jim Ryan, president of the University of Virginia: Sports journalism at the time, and I think to a certain extent today, it’s pretty male-dominated. How did you rise so quickly?

Melissa Stark, sideline reporter at NBC: It is and it’s gotten better through the years. But definitely, you were under the microscope for anything. I was trying to blend in. I tried to not wear makeup and wear my glasses and not really show my feminine side, because I didn’t want to stand out as a female, but early on, it was really hard. I remember covering baseball, and you’re just standing around at batting practice, and the way you get your information is knowing these players and talking to them. But I remember asking, I won’t name him, but a certain baseball player for his number. And of course, that’s misconstrued. I’m 23 years old, right? So, it was really hard.

Ryan: Hello, everyone. I’m Jim Ryan, president of the University of Virginia, and I’d like to welcome all of you to another episode of “Inside UVA.” This podcast is a chance for me to speak with some of the amazing people at the University and to learn more about what they do and who they are. My hope is that listeners will ultimately have a better understanding of how UVA works and a deeper appreciation of the remarkably talented and dedicated people who make UVA the institution and community it is.

Today’s guest is a journalist who has spent nearly three decades telling the stories behind some of the biggest moments in sports. She’s reported from the sidelines of the Super Bowl, the Olympics, “Monday Night Football” and now, “Sunday Night Football” on NBC. She’s been a correspondent for the “Today” show, hosted “NFL 360” and is known for her sharp preparation, heartfelt interviews and trailblazing role as one of the most recognizable women in sports media. She’s also a proud UVA alum, a mom of four, a UVA parent, and today she’s the one being interviewed. Melissa Stark, welcome to “Inside UVA,” and thanks so much for being here.

Stark: I’m so excited to be on the other end of this, and I can’t wait for all your probing questions.

Ryan: So, let’s start at the beginning. I understand that you were exposed to and perhaps participated in sports from a very young age. And am I right that the former quarterback of the Baltimore Colts, Bert Jones, taught you how to throw a football when you were 7?

Stark: You have done some good research there. Yes. So, my father was an ophthalmologist. He was an eye surgeon at Johns Hopkins, and for fun, he was the eye doctor for the Colts. So, we would go to the games, and I would go down to the locker room with my dad, which was my first entrance into all of it. That’s where I started my love and my interest for sports.

Ryan: So were you an athlete yourself as a kid?

Stark: I played tennis. I played club tennis at UVA, which I was just down there this weekend, and so happy to see all the people out on the courts playing. So, I still play tennis and golf, but I played in high school, a little bit – not good enough to you know, play at the collegiate level.

Ryan: So, where did your interest in journalism, or when did your interest in journalism start?

Stark: Really early. I always loved asking people questions, and I always loved getting information from people, and I was voted most interested in the high school yearbook, and they had something called an externship in high school, where you could do something every Wednesday – which is an amazing program, and I wish all high schools did it – but once a week as a senior, you could go do something that you were interested in and not go to school. So, I did it at the local Baltimore station. I’m from Baltimore and got a sense of how the assignment desk worked, how they prioritized, went on the evening news and went out and, you know, followed them on stories and things like that. So, I knew I was always interested in the news.

I realized very quickly, and I did internships during the summer at “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather” and Connie Chung was there at the time, and Dan Rather said to all the interns, “This is the type of job that you have to give up your life for. Any breaking news, whatever it is, you’re there.”

So, I learned very quickly, when I wanted to have a family, that breaking news did not work for me, and I’ve always had this love of sports, even when I was on the “Today” show and I would be doing the news reading, I’d read the news, and then a sports story would come on and I would kind of come alive.

Ryan: So, did you come to UVA knowing you wanted to be a journalist and a sports journalist in particular, or were you not sure, and how, if at all, did UVA help you with your career?

Stark: It was everything. UVA was everything. I came knowing. I thought I wanted to be Christiane Amanpour and be in the war zones and things like that. Thank goodness, thank goodness in retrospect, I didn’t do that, but I came to UVA. And another thing Dan Rather said was you don’t have to major in journalism, and they had the rhetoric and communications major at the time, but then it was being phased out. He said, “Just get practical experience in the summer and a major with a lot of writing.” So I majored in foreign affairs or international relations, and with a minor in Spanish, thinking, again, along the lines of news.

But fourth year at UVA I was lucky enough to get an internship on the coaches show. So, it was Jeff Jones, was the basketball coach, George Welsh for football, and I interviewed the football players and basketball players. So, when I graduated, that was my tape. I had a tape, and I took it to all the local news stations, but they said, “I can see how you cover sports. I don’t know how you’d be in the local town council meeting or something like that.”

There were so few women at the time, so I got a job in D.C., sort of Maryland, amazingly, covering all the teams. I mean, I grew up 10 minutes from where the Orioles played, and so I was covering those teams, the local teams there and then ESPN News was launching. So, within a year, I was at ESPN, and I was very fortunate, right? I think if you knew sports, if you were smart, if you had good interviewing skills, I quickly rose to the top.

Ryan: That’s kind of incredible, in part, because sports journalism at the time, and I think to a certain extent, today is pretty male-dominated. How did you rise so quickly, other than your obviously extraordinary talent? But you know, that’s a challenging environment.

Stark: It is, and it’s gotten better through the years. But definitely, you were under the microscope for anything you did or any fact you had that was incorrect. But I feel like just through hard work and preparation of being there for the right reasons and making the contacts and getting those connections, that was all the key.

And it’s funny, because I always tried to blend in. I tried to not wear makeup and wear my glasses and not really show my feminine side, because I didn’t want to stand out as a female. But early on, it was really hard. I remember covering baseball, and you’re just standing around at batting practice, and the way you get your information is knowing these players and talking to them. But I remember asking, I won’t name him, but a certain baseball player for his number. And of course, that’s misconstrued. I mean, I’m 23 years old, right? So, it was really hard.

And I remember being interviewed by USA Today, and he asked me, you know, how many players’ numbers do you have and whatnot, as if that was sort of the standard, and how you knew if you were going to be a good journalist? And I sort of say, you know, it’s really hard to walk that line and let them know that I’m there to work.

Ryan: So walk me through your career until you took time off for your family. Was it a hard decision for you to leave?

Stark: So, like I said, I worked at kind of a regional cable network in the Baltimore/D.C. area, Home Team Sports. And then I got the job at ESPN, and I think they thought that I was more well-versed than I was. They had me sort of doing highlights, and I didn’t even know how to move the shot sheets or do anything. And I said, “Oh, I guess I failed that.” And they said, “Well, no, we want to find a place for you here at ESPN.”

So, they had a tape show called “Scholastic Sports America,” which was all the best high school athletes in the country, and I would go around and interview them. And that was great. And then I started covering football there. And the nice thing about ESPN is you can cover all the sports. I was there for a couple of years, and then I was at the U.S. Open in Pebble Beach in 2000 when Tiger Woods blew through the record books.

And I got a call from Donald Meyer, who was the long time “Monday Night Football” producer back in the ’70s during the Cosell days. And they were bringing him back to sort of revamp “Monday Night Football,” and he called me, and I was offered the job at 26 years old, the highest-rated show in television. And I mean, it was definitely intimidating, because I have so much advice for people now that I was 26 years old and sort of on this national stage before I knew if I was ready for it. And that was when he hired Dennis Miller, and he had this, he had Eric Dickerson, so he wanted a Hall of Famer. It was me. I was the female voice, Dan Fouts, quarterback, and Dennis Miller, and it was Al Michaels, who’s just legendary.

That didn’t last that long. It was an experiment, but at least it got “Monday Night Football” back in the headlines and then I was there, and John Madden came in, and that was incredible to work with John Madden. I mean, to have someone, he was really instrumental in my career, because to believe in me at that young of an age, someone who had that football background and was that revered in the sport. And he did, we just connected.

And then I was there for three years on “Monday Night Football,” and I left because I was pregnant with my first child, who is now at UVA. He’s a third year at UVA, and I remember Al Michaels calling and saying, “You can come back a month later, two months later, we’ll find a replacement. You know, no one leaves ‘Monday Night Football.’” And I say, “You know, I just don’t know how I’m going to feel when I have this first child.”

So, that’s when I started my family, but that’s when NBC reached out because they had heard that I had interest in news, and so I was hired for the “Today” show to be a national correspondent. But like I said, the news was incredibly difficult once you have a child and family. So I was there for a bit and did the Olympics and things like that. And then once I had four kids in three years, because I had twins. So, finally I covered the Olympics, it was amazing. I covered Michael Phelps, especially being from Baltimore, you know, in the Athens Olympics. And that was incredible. And then once I had all these kids, I decided to walk away.

So, I left in 2008, and I said to myself, “I’m fine just being a mom and not knowing what the future holds if I never go back, that’s fine with me, too.” So, I did that, which I’m not sure nowadays. I don’t know, I don’t know how that works, because a lot of people come to me, there’s a lot of women and there’s a lot of people in business, they keep sacrificing, right? Because it is a sacrifice, you know, always on the road, or you’re always doing things. So, it is hard to start a family. No, isn’t that interesting? I mean, I had already had, I thought I’ve already had this incredible career. I’ve already been the sideline reporter for “Monday Night Football,” and I’ve worked at the “Today” show and covered the Olympics and Super Bowls and things like that, and NCAA finals and U.S. Open golf.

So, I just, I come from a really tightknit family, so having kids was really important to me, so that wasn’t hard.

So, part two of my story is my old boss at ESPN went out to work at NFL Network, and he called in 2012, and so my twin daughters were 3. They were in preschool. So, he said, “If you want to work one day a week, if you want to work two days a week, if you have a kindergarten thing that you have to go to, we totally understand.” And I thought, “OK.”

It still sounded overwhelming, because how are you going to balance it all? I remember being at the “Today” show and always having one foot kind of out the door saying, “OK, I need to be here, and I need to be doing my work, but I need to be going home and being a mom.” So, I’ve always been asked the question, how do you have it all? And I don’t, I don’t know if you do ever have it all, right? I think that’s the answer to that. But so, I slowly eased back in, one day a week, two days a week, and then quickly got the bug and really got back into it.

Ryan: So, you’ve had the chance to interview a lot of people. Are there one or two interviews that really stand out to you as especially memorable?

Stark: Well, it’s hard to narrow it down, but I do remember when I had my first job at Home Team Sports in Baltimore, and I was going to opening day for the Orioles, and my boss said President Clinton is going to be there for opening day. And I said, “Oh, can I interview him?” And he said, “Oh, no, no.” He said, “You know, that has to be set up. He’s going to be with Secret Service. You don’t just, you know, interview the president. It’s not like, it’s something precedent.” And I call my dad, and I said, “Dad, I’m going to interview the president.”

Ryan: OK, tell me how old you are?

Stark: I was 22 years old, and I still have this great picture of me reaching across and him reaching across, and we shook hands. And sure enough, I interviewed him. It was, yeah, softball questions. “What does baseball mean to America?” You know, “What’s the joy of opening day?” But I didn’t, and I think the big thing I learned, you know, this is a job and a profession where you have to have confidence, right?

I came back recently, before I got the “Sunday Night Football” job, and I came back to UVA and spoke to the journalism class there. And I said, “You know, I wish I knew then what I know now.”

And one of the students, as all UVA students are so smart, raised their hand and asked an awesome question, and said, “Well, what would you tell yourself?” And I said, “That I belong.”

I remember “60 Minutes” and Andy Rooney, I think in his closing comments, he said something like, a woman should not be on the sidelines telling me about football, and that was right when I got the job. I mean, it was clearly directed at me, right when I had gotten that job. And I, you know, all that stuff was really intimidating, but it’s been incredible, and I’ve learned so much along the way, and it’s so fun to be back. So, my career kind of came full circle when I was hired again. After having four kids that were all teenagers that I was able to raise, I was able to step away and walk away and come back to this profession, and I feel so lucky to have been able to do that

Ryan: Well, it’s a remarkable story, and certainly unusual, if not unique. You mentioned confidence earlier, but you’re also very well known, and justifiably so, for the amount of preparation you put in. So how do you prepare for the work that you do, and in particular the interviews that you do?

Stark: Yes, so, I always tell people I really loved being in school. I loved studying for a test and having sort of a certain goal, right, that you needed to accomplish. My job is so much about that you are covering the Olympic Trials, right? So, you have to dive in and learn all these swimmers, and which so many of them are UVA swimmers, which was so incredible to come to the Olympics this summer, you know. And you want to learn everything about them, and you want to, you know, Katie Ledecky had just written a book. So you go, you read her book. I always tried different angles. You know, even on “Sunday Night Football,” you can have a Patrick Mahomes, or you can have a Josh Allen that people think they know everything about. But if you go talk to their mom, or you go talk to their dad, or their brother or something like that. I always try to just arm myself with as much information as you can.

And now there’s so much information, right, with all the social media and everything now, but every week now, for “Sunday Night Football” is like studying for an exam, and then you’re on to the next and there are things that, you know, carry over if you have that team again later in the season. But I think for interviews – just talking to as many people as you can. People tend to like talking about themselves, right? So, if you, if you show up, and you either make a connection. I remember Charlie Steiner, he was an anchor at ESPN, way back when, and I was about to go do one of my first interviews, and I said, “What’s the key?” And then he said, “Just establish a connection right away. Call that person’s agent, and then when you sit down, say, ‘Oh, I talked to your agent yesterday, and he said, this, this, and this.’ Just to put them at ease, and also to show that you’re really interested in them, and that you put the work in, too.”

Ryan: So, you’re also in a world where there’s a good deal of unpredictability. I mean, when you start talking to someone, you’re not quite sure where it’s going to go. How many times have you been surprised? How do you stay fast on your feet and nimble?

Stark: That’s one of my strengths. I think the skill, right, to have a quick wit. My favorite thing is the postgame interviews on “Sunday Night Football,” when you just sort of get the players really engaged, and you never know where it’s going to go. And I do so much preparation for these games, I would say the amount of people I talk to in the preparation, 90% of it falls on the floor every game. So, you never know when in that postgame interview, something, you know, hey, you told me earlier this week, you know, say it didn’t get on during the game, but you can utilize it there.

Ryan: I have to ask you about Taylor Swift and football. They’ve become intertwined over the last few years, and I wonder, what do you make of it? How much, if at all, is it changing how people think about football?

Stark: I love it. You know what it’s doing? It’s getting all these young teenage girls watching football. All these dads are saying, “OK, now my teenage daughter will come watch football with me.” And so, I know that the hardcore football fan has a really hard time with it and doesn’t like it. And I know, you know, we always had the discussion of, we had that first game, Chiefs at Jets. We knew she was coming. The news had broken the week before, but the whole question from the director was, “How many times are we going to show her?” Well, the Swifties can’t get enough of her. The hardcore football fan says, you know, “I’m here for a football game. I don’t need to keep seeing Taylor Swift,” but I think it’s awesome. I think she’s so well-respected, and she’s so talented, and she’s amazing, and if you get more female football fans, I’m all for it.

Ryan: What do you think about college sports these days and all the changes that are happening with respect to the transfer portal and revenue share?

Stark: I think it’s so difficult. It’s funny, I have a daughter who’s a runner and about to go to Stanford, and she has a high school NIL deal. Who would have thought it, right? And it’s nowhere close to football or basketball or anything like that. But one of the great things about college sports is the team spirit, and it’s your school, right? And so, if you lose all that loyalty, I think it’s obviously great for the athlete, but hard on the schools. And, you know, it’s interesting, we were, we just did all these, you know, we just had March Madness, filled out all the brackets. And it used to be these upsets, you’d pick a 16, or, you know, whoever, and it was all number 1 seeds. I mean, that’s the way we’re headed, right?

Ryan: Well, it was very chalky this year, for sure. What I’ve noticed, too, is I think it’s hard to sustain the interest of college fans if they don’t get to see players year over year, right? If the roster changes from one year to the next. I mean, I remember when UVA won that national championship. I mean, I had been watching the players who participated from the time they arrived at UVA, and a number of them were fourth-years, and that just adds to the dedication and loyalty to the team. And I worry that we’re going to lose that a little bit when rosters change over so much.

Stark: We’re definitely going to lose that, and it becomes more, obviously, it becomes less about the allegiance to the school and that team spirit that we were talking about, and more about the individual player. And I think it’s hard for coaches, right? We’ve lived it with Tony Bennett, right? If coaches don’t know how to handle it, or don’t want to handle that, it’s changing the landscape so much for them.

I cover professional sports. I cover professional football, and it makes it one of the joys of college was the difference between the two. You weren’t dealing with these paid athletes. And the joy of college football was that team camaraderie and the school spirit, which, you know, I was just at UVA this weekend. And one of the things I love about UVA, everybody kept commenting there, is everybody who’s at UVA loves that they are at UVA. And I know I’m changing the subject a little bit here from sports just to. just to being there and seeing the students, and I was just so, I was so impressed. I don’t think I was that competent or well-rounded or spoke so well to adults when I was in college.

Ryan: Well, they’re an incredibly impressive group of students, and I, too, am struck by how many students I run into who say, just flat out, that they love this place. So, what’s it been like to be a UVA parent?

Stark: So much fun, but it’s gone way too fast that he’s already a third-year, but it’s been amazing to see how involved he is. The one thing I said to him was, “Just get involved and do a bunch of things while you’re there.” And he’s the president of Habitat for Humanity, and he started a golf club, joined a business fraternity, is in the business school, and it’s just fun to see how, how much he loves it, like I did, and just to be able to continue that on. It’s been fun to come down and see, you know, you could be overly academic and standoffish. I was there when you practiced with the band, right? Didn’t you learn an instrument? I mean, you throw yourself right in there. You’re inviting the students over, you’re running with them, and you’re in the band, basically.

Ryan: I had a short-lived time as the conductor for “The Star Spangled Banner.” And the funny, the funny part of that is the person who leads the band, I was saying, “I’m not sure I can do this.” And he said, “Look, don’t worry. I’ve told everyone in the band to follow you when it makes sense and to ignore you when it doesn’t.”

So, one last question, if you don’t mind, and you hit on this a little bit. So, if you were to give one piece of advice to students who are interested in following in your footsteps in journalism or sports journalism in particular, what advice would you give them?

Stark: Well, I think it’s definitely a job where you have to have thick skin and you have to have confidence, you know. And with social media and everybody reacting to things, I think that’s very difficult these days. But I think you have to know that you fully prepared, that you have studied, talked to the right people, put in that hard work. Our job is to get that a-ha moment, that nugget you know that nobody else has as a journalist. So, I think having the confidence to be able to do all of that, but also that you can go up and talk to anybody – you know, if you mess up, kind of move on and recognize it and learn and grow from that.

Ryan: So, I hadn’t appreciated that. I mean, you need thick skin if you’re going to be the president of a university, but I hadn’t thought about members of the media. You’re probably critiqued all the time as well.

Stark: You are. There’s things written about me or said, and you know, you don’t want to go into the Twitter comments or the X comments, that’s a dark hole that you don’t want to go down, but you’re definitely under the microscope every word you say. And I do analyze that. That’s part of my job. I go back with the producer and my sideline team, and the day after the game, we go back over every single thing I said, or how I said it, it’s we analyze it.

Ryan: Well, listen, it’s been a total joy speaking with you. I really appreciate your taking the time, and I’ve learned a lot of tips just from this conversation.

Stark: Thanks for having me.

Ben Larsen, producer of “Inside UVA”: “Inside UVA” is a production of WTJU 91.1 FM and the Office of the President at the University of Virginia. “Inside UVA” is produced by Kaukab Rizvi, Benjamin Larsen, Mary Garner McGehee, Matt Webber and Jaden Evans. Special thanks to Maria Jones and Jane Kelly. Our music is “Turning to You” from Blue Dot Sessions.

You can listen and subscribe to “Inside UVA” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back soon with another conversation about the life of the University.