ESPN College GameDay: Behind the scenes with Maria Taylor
The first big week of ESPN College GameDay means lots of long hours and planning, and for the new kid on the block of the flagship show, it means even more.
The clock is approaching 10:00 am in an Atlanta hotel meeting room. Producers, assistants and others mull around the food tables and coffee makers, gathering breakfast morsels and satisfying the mid-morning caffeine fix.
But there is an air of expectancy filling the room, and everyone down to the last runner in flip-flops and cargo shorts feels it. The college football season is here, and that means College GameDay is back on ESPN.
One by one, the show’s more familiar faces enter the room. Rece Davis takes his seat in the center of the room as Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and others greet the group with smiles and hugs.
The jokes (mostly inside) and overfamiliar japes begin whizzing around. Nothing is off limits – wardrobe, eating habits, challenges with technology – to zing back and forth between this coterie, who act more like a band of tightly-knit siblings than a television crew.
But there’s a new face at the table, one who hardcore college sports fans may be familiar with, while much of the nation needed an introduction. A face who is intently studying an eight-page show rundown while glancing at her phone to confirm interview appointments and on-camera hits while the rest of the team casually saunters around the room.
As the others bask in trivial conversations and the ever-warming Atlanta sunlight beginning to stream through the thick hotel window treatments, this new face remains fixated on the task at hand…
Preparing for the the big opening week College GameDay show at Atlanta’s shiny new Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Maria Taylor is the fresh new face, and she has joined the team at ESPN College GameDay and ABC Saturday Night Football in 2017. The former University of Georgia two-sport star has made her presence immediately felt on the set and the sidelines, as she will throughout the season on both shows.
Taylor, who had been part of the SEC Network traveling pregame on-campus show, SEC Nation, is stepping in for Samantha Ponder, who has moved into the chair once occupied by the legendary Chris Berman on ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown.
Is this a huge opportunity for Taylor? You better believe it is, and she’s fully aware of what it means for not only a female, but a young African-American female to have a prominent role in a show which has become the flagship college football show in the nation.
It was a bold, impactful hire for ESPN, and Taylor knows it.
“I’m so blessed with so many good things going on right now,” Taylor told me as we spoke prior to the meeting. “Everything moves so fast here, and there are things expected of me from a scheduling basis that I’m just not used to, but I’m enjoying it.”
It is indeed a big change for a young woman who has already built a tremendous name for herself, not only in sports broadcasting but in the community. In 2015, Taylor co-founded a non-profit organization called The Winning Edge Leadership Academy.
From Maria’s personal website, MariaTaylorTV.com:
"The mission of the Winning Edge is to educate, foster professional mentoring relationships, provide networking opportunities and enrichment scholarships to ethnic minorities and women who are seeking careers in the sports industry. Since 2015, the academy has helped 16 students work towards job or internship placement and provided mentoring and funding for professional enrichment trips. To Learn more or get involved visit: http://www.winningedgeleadership.org/"
So how does a young woman juggle so many roles? Meticulously and with an incredible sense of purpose.
As Taylor and I chatted, places were taken around the conference table, and it was clear the real work was about to get underway.
The meeting began, and the show rundown was the first priority. If you’ve ever thought working on set for a show like College GameDay was simply parking your keister in a comfortable chair, reading a teleprompter and cracking a few jokes with Lee Corso, you’re sadly mistaken.
There is so much going on behind the scenes it’s almost surreal.
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Every detail, every movement, every on-screen graphic, every camera shot and commercial break is accounted for, and then accounted for again.
The one thing not planned? The dialogue.
The veteran team at College GameDay knows part of the magic of this show – and what has made it so successful for so long – is what they like to refer to as those “unscripted moments”. They want the real reactions, facial expressions, jokes, and yes, even mistakes. This is live television, and the producers don’t want the show to seem like a scripted talk show.
It’s in this area where Maria Taylor will shine and fit in perfectly. She has a relaxed demeanor, and a warm personality, yet she’s still armoured enough to deflect David Pollack’s barrage of pointed questions and devil’s advocate responses with ease.
(For the record, Pollack can be brutal when trying to facilitate a topical debate)
“It’s so strange and so different than what I had been doing on the SEC Network,” Taylor said. “Everything was kind of done on the fly, almost purposely improvised at SEC Nation, but here my time management skills are really being put to the test.”
“I’m really going to miss those guys – Paul [Finebaum], Marcus [Spears], Tim [Tebow] and Joe [Tessitore] – we were like a family you know? We built it from the ground up and turned it into something incredible.” she said speaking of her former co-hosts on SEC Nation.
Having spent time on the set of SEC Nation with that group of people in past seasons, I can attest that there was a certain amount of controlled chaos, and the control usually stemmed from Taylor reigning in her colleagues when things would begin to derail.
Now, rather than afternoons spent sending Finebaum and Spears to separate corners, Taylor’s schedule is filled with every infinitesimal daily detail imaginable – meetings, one-one-one interviews, makeup checks, more meetings, media availability times – you name it, it’s been scheduled out to the nth degree.
But to watch her bouncing from place to place, never looking harried or even slightly frazzled, you’d think Taylor had been doing this for years instead of weeks.
Need a quick hit for a local television station? No problem. A question and answer session at a college football kickoff luncheon? All in a day’s work. A meeting to discuss possible technical and sound issues in a brand new stadium? She’s got this.
However, Taylor is more than just a successful former athlete and broadcaster with a rising star. She’s someone who genuinely cares about her profession – not just the people in it now, but the future of sports broadcasting and journalism. Her goal is to be the example for young women to see that the societal predetermined traits for a female sports reporter can be overcome.
“I love being on the sidelines and talking to the coaches and players,” Taylor told me. “I want that to really come out when I’m on camera. Asking the right questions, you know, and not letting that moment just slip by.”
Taylor looks as comfortable holding a microphone as she did sinking jump shots on the hardwood at Georgia. Her banter with fellow Georgia alumni Pollack looks natural and unforced. The sense of camaraderie between Taylor and the rest of the team is already apparent.
She even managed to ask Nick Saban a few questions and came out unscathed. Her ease of transition into this role is something which can’t be taught.
The job of co-host and sideline reporter has evolved for women. It’s much more than just “look pretty and tell cute stories” now. It’s in-depth knowledge, having no fear of tackling the tough issues (or coaches) and becoming a voice in the industry. Maria Taylor is proof of that evolution and how powerful women in sports media are becoming.
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If you watched Taylor’s national TV debut on both shows (and from the stellar ratings, it seems many of you certainly did) you saw a young woman who looked at home, and that’s where Maria Taylor is within the scope of her new roles at ESPN…home.
As they like to say in baseball circles, “Welcome to the show, kid.”