Her Platform: How Women in Sports Media are Changing the Game

TRANSCRIPT

Geno Auriem­ma soundbite: 

“I’ve been to these Final Fours for 24 years. This is the most women I’ve seen at a press con­fer­ence since I start­ed this 40 years ago, and I’m just real­ly, real­ly proud of you all. Really.” 

Hi every­one. Wel­come to Her Plat­form, a pod­cast that focus­es on female college 

stu­dents in sports media. 

MUSIC TRANSITION 

I’m Sam Cal­houn, a junior jour­nal­ism major here at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut. The sports media world is a lot dif­fer­ent than it was 20 years ago. The media room has become more diverse. 20 years ago, that room is like­ly full of men. Now, while it is still a male-dom­i­nant field, women with a pas­sion for sports media are more com­fort­able putting their foot in the door. In this pod­cast, I con­duct­ed two sep­a­rate inter­views with female col­lege stu­dents who have made a name for them­selves in the sports media world already: Avery Beck­er and Bel­la Tomaino. I began with a sound­bite from leg­endary UConn women s bas­ket­ball head coach Geno Auriem­ma because I thought when I saw that, this would be the per­fect segue into a great pod­cast episode. Both of these peo­ple, Avery Beck­er and Bel­la Tomaino, actu­al­ly went to the 2025 NCAA Divi­sion I Women s Final Four for women s bas­ket­ball in Tam­pa, Flori­da at Amalie Are­na. In this pod­cast, they will talk about their expe­ri­ences, as well as what got them into this busi­ness in the first place. Let’s hear from Avery first. 

Avery: I’m a sopho­more here at UConn major­ing in jour­nal­ism, and my role here in sports 

media at UConn is I’m the asso­ciate sports edi­tor at The Dai­ly Campus” 

Bridge: She’s also one of the two wom­en’s bas­ket­ball beat writ­ers for The Dai­ly Cam­pus and involved at UCTV Sports as a reporter. She talked about how she ini­tial­ly want­ed to be a vet­eri­nar­i­an but real­ized that she did not care for that field and turned to the sports world that has been her pas­sion ever since she could remember. 

Avery: It wasn’t until like my sopho­more, junior year of high school where, like I said before, I kind of noticed that I didn t real­ly want to be a vet­eri­nar­i­an any­more. I was watch­ing the New Jer­sey Dev­ils, and this was after COVID, and I was strug­gling with a lot of anx­i­ety, and I would watch hock­ey to kind of help me get over it a lit­tle bit, help me with it. So, I would watch my favorite team, the New Jer­sey Dev­ils, and I look up to their reporter Aman­da Stein. And grow­ing up going to those games, like I said with my dad, I nev­er real­ly saw a woman report­ing on sports, so it nev­er real­ly occurred to me that play-by-play or like side­line report­ing or writ­ing for a paper for sports was some­thing that a woman can do.” 

Aman­da Stein sound­bite: “With Kova­se­vic out, Den­nis Cholows­ki goes in. The Dev­ils will also be with­out Luke Hugh­es and Bren­dan Dylan. For Dev­ils Minute, I’m Aman­da Stein.” 

Bridge: Avery said that Aman­da Stein helped her dis­cov­er this pas­sion. Avery end­ed up 

doing a camp at Quin­nip­i­ac Uni­ver­si­ty the sum­mer before her senior year of high school. 

That is where this pas­sion sky­rock­et­ed from a maybe to a def­i­nite. She now knew that she 

was meant to be in sports media. 

Break: Avery hopes to help oth­er women get into such a com­pet­i­tive and male-dominant 

field and hopes to work for ESPN, RDS or TSN out of col­lege. Now, let’s hear from Bella. 

Bel­la: I’m a sopho­more here at UConn, I m a com­mu­ni­ca­tions major and in sports media, 

I do things with the radio, I get to broad­cast and I also have my own pod­cast called “Hoops Cap Pod” which is part of some­thing called “Big East Ener­gy” on YouTube or wher­ev­er you can get your pod­casts. And I also do some Tik­Tok for them, doing social medias.” 

Bridge: Bel­la went on to tell a sto­ry about her begin­nings in sports media, which began when she was 10 years old. She was on WFAN with John Ster­ling and Susan Wald­man at a New York Yan­kees game. How­ev­er, she does not feel sat­is­fied yet with her role in sports media and wants to get bet­ter and bet­ter while also prov­ing the doubters wrong. 

Bel­la (sound­bite): “The Huskies—they down the No. 1 seed UCLA Bru­ins! They say ‘2 seed? Nuh uh, nuh uh. We’re going to the finals!’” 

Bel­la: That was great as a woman in sports, though. It’s real­ly cool, because women s 

bas­ket­ball hasn’t always been as pop­u­lar, and I think now it’s real­ly start­ing to get its 

recog­ni­tion. And so to be able to be a part of that, be part of some­thing big­ger than just 

myself in announc­ing was spe­cial to see. We talked about it just now, how you mentioned 

that Geno said there was the most women in the press con­fer­ence that he’s ever seen. Just 

to be a part of that is incred­i­ble. You know what I’m say­ing? To be part of that kind of 

move­ment as a woman in sports is special. 

Out­ro: No mat­ter what role they are play­ing in sports media, women are con­tin­u­ing to put 

their foot in the door. Avery and Bel­la aim to help women who want to get into this industry 

and hope­ful­ly make an impact on the next gen­er­a­tion of women with a pas­sion for sports. 

So that will do it for this episode of Her Plat­form. I hope you have enjoyed lis­ten­ing! I’m 

Sam Cal­houn, thanks for listening! 

SOCIAL POSTS

LINKS

https://x.com/SNYUConn/status/1908588083152400545

https://www.tiktok.com/@whusradio.sports/video/7489994737261301034?_r=1&_t=ZT-8w05shwpKkE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNVsLrLMjnY