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There’s arguably no better place to watch the action on the field than in the student section at Sanford Stadium. Still, Michella Chester often found her eyes wandering off the field, seeing if she could spot the game’s sideline reporter.

She dreamed that person would one day be her. Chester’s dad believed it would be. She says when it came to possible career paths, he taught her and her siblings to pick something they were talented at because they could always learn the rest.

“I knew I was good at storytelling, good at connecting with people, good at asking questions, was always curious, and knew what I was passionate about. There was never a moment of doubt,” Chester says. “We picked Georgia for its sports program to combine these strengths, and I never once wavered.”

But knowing her end goal didn’t necessarily mean getting there would be simple. Chester’s career began with plenty of disheartening rejections that would have made many people call it quits.

“Your whole life, you wait for the moment and wonder: ‘Is it ever going to happen?’” she says.

“But I just kept going, kept making the next connection, and got to a point in my career where the no’s stopped affecting me as much because I did start believing in myself,” Chester says.

Chester hustled with on-campus sports journalism opportunities such as Georgia Bulldogs Sports Marketing, The Red & Black, and Grady Newsource, but she also went (and drove) the extra mile to get any experience she could—unpaid reporting gigs, story production that took her back and forth from North Carolina in a day, or on-camera practice that never aired.

These efforts paid off with a job as a volleyball beat reporter with the NCAA after graduation. But even then, she knew she needed more on-air experience to vie for her dream job. So she successfully pitched the addition of on-camera video segments to her digital reporting duties, which brought her to the NCAA Volleyball Championship, Big Ten Softball Tournament, and even the Men’s College World Series.

Returning to Sanford Stadium in the second week of the season as the reporter she had once searched for from the stands was surreal. But she can’t dwell on it too much. She’s too busy running from end zone to end zone, listening for injury reports, and trying to grab Kirby Smart before halftime.

“Sometimes everything can change at the drop of a pin, and what you prepared is out the window, so it can be nerve-wracking,” Chester says. “But I have nerves because I care. This is what I’ve waited for my entire life.”

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Before Marion Crowder joined SEC Nation as an on-air reporter, she was known as an ESPN soccer commentator. Now, she does both. But she never expected to excel in this field at all. What she always knew best was soccer.

“I knew what my strengths were, and I knew what my entry point was going to be, and soccer was going to be the backbone of that,” Crowder says. “I feel like I got my own identity on air. Now, every single Saturday, I try to have this genuine, authentic fun.”

Crowder was an attacker (otherwise known as forward) for Georgia Bulldogs soccer starting as a freshman. She chose UGA not just for its soccer program, but also for the educational opportunities it offered. That choice took on new significance after she tore her ACL in her first spring practice. 

She was fortunate, she says, to return to play the following summer, but the injury gave her a new perspective on her ambitions beyond soccer.

Following a degree in sport management, Crowder assumed she would pursue her intended pro career, and trialed playing for The Washington Spirit. If that wasn’t the right fit, then Crowder considered becoming an agent for female athletes. It wasn’t until Stephanie Ransom, UGA deputy athletic director and highly-decorated UGA soccer player in her own right, encouraged her to take up broadcasting that she earned another degree in mass media studies.

She called her first game, the UGA soccer team’s Red & Black Scrimmage, with Jeff Dantzler, who now does play-by-play for the football team. Although there were a few bumps, Crowder began to see a future in broadcasting.

“The first game you ever do will be your worst one,” she says. “The more practice you get, the more comfortable you end up getting on camera, but you also understand how much it takes just to get one show on the air.”

She continued getting her analyst reps in on the side while working in public relations for organizations like the Greenville Triumph Soccer Club. Her connections from playing and working in soccer gave her opportunities to provide commentary on United Soccer League, USL Super League, and National Women’s Soccer League games across streaming services, including ESPN’s platforms.

Crowder wanted to make sure she was confident in her abilities before making the leap to full-time broadcasting, and finally, that moment came. ESPN, which had been broadcasting her work already, offered her an additional contract with SEC football.

Making the transition from fútbol to football undoubtedly has its differences. But for Crowder, what matters most is engaging with the fans.

Through the grind of football season, she’s doing her homework to know the ins and outs of each matchup, but her ultimate goal is to make each community feel proud of what their chosen team represents.

“It has nothing to do with football,” she says. “It has nothing to do with if your team wins or loses. It’s the fact that you have a tailgate with your friends that you go to every weekend. How can we make college football memorable in those ways?”

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Growing up, Jamari Jordan used to rank his top 25 college football teams in a notebook every single week.

“I thought I was the AP poll myself,” he jokes. “I always had a passion for sports. And I think as I grew older, I realized it doesn’t just have to be a passion. It can actually be a career as well.”

Now, as a producer for The Paul Finebaum Show, he’s still looking to the AP Top 25 college football poll. It’s just one of many pieces of SEC content he uses to keep the conversation going on the popular radio broadcast.

Jordan is responsible for pitching content to fill four hours of programming, five days a week. The job requires spending hours staying up to date on all things college sports as well as coordinating guests and guiding the production crew before the show is even off and running.

For the last 10 years, Jordan has worked his way up at ESPN, beginning as a production assistant.

“I’ve always been a big fan of the mindset: ‘If it doesn’t exist, just make it exist.’ You don’t have to wait for your turn. You can make it happen,” Jordan says. “I think seeking out the right connections definitely helped me get a job right out of college, and I always want to help people know how to make the same kinds of relationships.”

As one of the first students in the Carmical Sports Media Institute, Jordan learned that hands-on experience is crucial to have a chance to see yourself in the industry. He spent three years as a production manager for the Grady Sports Bureau and participated in the ESPNU Campus Connection program, where he produced real-world sports segments from a control room.

One of his favorite projects on The Paul Finebaum Show is its Back to School Week. Each year, 16 student reporters from all 16 SEC member schools get to conduct on-camera interviews during a jam-packed cross-conference tour.

“The ability to let the next generation come in and have a voice is really special,” he says. “There’s no point in me being in this position if I let the door close behind me.”

In addition to the hard skills—audio editing, handling breaking news—Jordan credits his instructors at the Grady College for teaching him the importance of integrity and honesty.

“Part of me has always thought that I could become a professional like Professor Vicki Michaelis or Dr. Welch Suggs and continue to give it back, because without them, I wouldn’t be here,” Jordan says. “The standards and integrity they gave me, I still teach people here.”