A Quote by Michele Tafoya

I never went into it [the business] thinking 'I'm a female sports reporter'. I just went into it thinking 'I'm a sports reporter'. No chip on the shoulder, no feeling like a victim when you walk in, no feeling entitled when you walk in. You've just got to do your job and work extremely hard. I think it's very basic. There's no magic to it. I think honestly it comes down to how badly do you want it. How hard are you willing to work?
Yes, I did move to New York when I was eighteen to do sports broadcasting. I didn't know how I was going to do it, so I got a job at ESPN Zone, thinking I would meet people in the business. People give me a hard time for it, but they don't realize that they shot 'Sports Reporter' there and that folks from ESPN and ABC were in there all the time.
A lot of people don't realize that I started my career in sports and was a sports reporter long before I was on television. I used to be an NBA reporter and an NHL reporter.
I made a sort-of living in the beginning of my acting career as a reporter. I think my very first job was 'Early Edition' as reporter no. 1, and for 'Light It Up,' I was reporter no. 2.
I didn't go to university. They offered me a job as a junior reporter and I went off to work for the Southern Reporter. They sent me to college to do my NCTJ, which is a professional exam for journalists, and I started work as a print journalist purely because I was just a pest. They couldn't think of anything other than giving me a job to stop me hanging around.
You get hate in this business growing up. When you're a young performer, you just don't get the credit for the work that you did. And it is what it is. You can't walk around with a chip on your shoulder.
Obviously, I'm a female in sports. You work really hard, you prep really hard, you put a lot into the show, so when you have certain comments, and people are saying, 'Oh you add nothing,' or, 'You got your job because of this.' Really? Why don't you look at my master's degree?
I totally love my job, and I wake up every day basically thinking about how can I do my job better. It never feels like a job. It's hard, and it's exhausting sometimes, but it never feels like - I would do this even if they didn't pay me to do it. That's a pretty amazing feeling.
It's kind of funny to read the work of ex-Marines and soldiers because what they said to me as a reporter was only a fraction of what they were thinking and feeling and saying to one another.
A police reporter walks into the worst moment in someone's life on every single story that he covers. It's not like being a sports reporter. That's a great job and all that and takes certain skills. But, you know, they're glad to see you when you show up to cover the football game. Nobody is ever glad to see a police reporter when he shows up.
My parents put me in sports when I was 5 years old, and they put my sisters in sports. So that's what I grew up with, that mentality: "It's OK to want to be the best. Aggression is good." You have to have that little walk on the court or down the track. I love to put that into my female characters, because I don't think enough girls are taught that at a young age.
All I want to say to people, man, is, "Yo, you see me walking down the street and I got a little bop in my walk, don't think because I've got a bop in my walk I'm trying to be all that. The bop in my walk is because I'm just like you, man. I bop when I walk." Know what I'm saying? I'm proud. If you see me smiling, standing straight up, gold around my neck, it's not because I'm conceited. It's because I'm proud of what I achieved. I made this. I worked hard for this. That's all this is about.
I still audition a lot and work really hard to get work. So I don't really walk around feeling like I've made it. My short term goals are really just to be creatively stimulated and to be excited about material I might be working on.
I was just feeling really down and didn't want to play tennis anymore and when I was feeling down like that, what helped me is that I went back to my culture. To walk the Earth.
Maybe there is a feeling that women get judged more about how they look and how they present themselves visually as opposed to what they are thinking and feeling. Especially as a female performer that happens a lot, and I think that is regressing even more, which I find really sad.
All in all, we'll just do well as a team. We've got a great group of guys, and they're just willing to work. That's what I like being around, just dudes who want to enjoy it and just work really hard.
I just tried to make as many plays as possible to try and show them how hard I work and how hard I prepare and that I am willing to do whatever it takes to win football games and to accept whatever role they want me to be in. I think that has helped me throughout my career.
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