BALTIMORE, Maryland -- FOX Sports Southeast announced that Coppin State alum Stephanie Ready will make the move from the Charlotte Hornets sidelines to the broadcast booth with Eric Collins and Dell Curry, becoming the first full-time female NBA game analyst.
Ready has been a fixture with the Charlotte Hornets. She will be entering her 12th season with the Hornets telecasts. She was previously the host of Hornets LIVE! and an in-game sideline reporter.
"I've had a love affair with the game of basketball for as long as I can remember, both as a player and a coach," Ready said. "I'm honored and excited to be able to share my passion for this sport with our audience. FOX Sports and the Hornets have always taken pride in being innovative and forward-thinking. I'm extremely proud to be a part of history."
Prior to her broadcasting career, Ready was an assistant coach in the WNBA and the NBA D-League, making her the first woman to coach a men's professional sports team. Ready also spent two seasons as an assistant coach for the men's basketball program under former head coach Ron "Fang" Mitchell. At the time, Ready was the first female to hold the position of full-time recruiting assistant on an NCAA Division I men's basketball staff.
Ready was also a part-time sideline reporter for The NBA on TNT during the 2006 and 2007 NBA Playoffs, and the WNBA Playoffs on ESPN2 during 2006. Also in 2006 and 2007, Ready worked as a sideline reporter during the first and second rounds of the Women's Final Four of college basketball for ESPN2.
"I'm excited about it," Ready said about becoming the first full-time female NBA game analyst. "I look back at my career and the careers of other ladies who are in the same industry and I think of Ann Meyers, who is with the Phoenix Suns organization. She's a vice president there, so she's on the executive staff but she also is a television analyst. She's been on their broadcasts for a while, just not on a full-time basis because, as I said, she's an executive as well. She has proven herself and proven to people out there who might be a little more narrow-minded, that women are perfectly capable of doing the same jobs in this industry that men can do."
A native of Takoma Park, Maryland, by the time she graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in psychology, Ready was ranked in the top-10 on the career women's basketball list at Coppin State in steals (second), assists (fourth), points (eighth) and rebounds (tenth).
The following is courtesy of Matt Rochinski of hornets.com, who caught up with Ready to discuss her historic move.
On making the move to the Hornets broadcast booth:
I am thrilled – I'm over the moon with excitement. When I was a coach and considered getting into television, this was the job that I wanted. This was the reason that I got into sports broadcasting, because I wanted to be a game analyst. Even though I've done it all these years – some college games and some NBA games on a fill in basis – this will be the first time I get to focus primarily on the job that I love the most in television. I couldn't be more excited.
CLICK TO READ THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW HERE FROM NBA.COM
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