Biography & Career Of Michele Tafoya

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Biography & Career Of Michele Tafoya

Michele Joan Tafoya was born on December 17, 1964, under the sign of Sagittarius, in Manhattan Beach, California, USA. She is a 55-year-old Emmy Award-winning sportscaster and reporter. She is well-known worldwide due to her eight-year stint as a reporter for NBC Sports, which put her in the spotlight at most of the country’s most important sporting events. She has also had many other accomplishments in her often lucrative journalism career since 1993.

Michele Tafoya: Early life – Her father’s daughter

Michele was brought where she was born by her father, Orlando Tafoya, an engineer, and mother, Wilma Conley Tafoya, whose profession is unknown. Michele’s childhood was sporting from the outset, thanks to Orlando’s insatiable passion as an avid sports fan. The future star spent much of her time watching TV with her father, learning about rules and regulations in various sports, memorizing individual players, and soaking up other information that would later prove vital to her career choice. Regarding education, Michele attended an unspecified high school in her birthplace, matriculating from there in 1982. Afterwards, she enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in mass communication/media studies in 1987.

Two years later, Michele expanded her academic resume even further, enrolling at the University of Southern California and graduating from there with a master of business administration degree in 1991.

Michele Tafoya: Career

Tafoya started her extensive career in sports broadcasting in March 1993 by joining WAQS-AM alongside Gerry Vaillancourt in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was known as Mickey Conley at the time, commentating on the University of North Carolina (UNC)-Charlotte men’s basketball games, effectively becoming the first female reporter to perform that task. She moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in December of the same year, having gained a reporting job at KFAN sports radio, where she aided broadcasts involving the Minnesota Vikings American Football team and the University of Minnesota women’s basketball team.

Michele Tafoya: CBS Sport

In September 1994, Michelle joined CBS Sports as a reporter and host for the CBS Television Network’s sports anthology show CBS Sports Spectacular and college basketball coverage. She also served as a host of At The Half and as a reporter for college football games, making her on-air debut at the 1994 U.S. Open Tennis Championships.

Michelle made history as the first woman to call television play-by-play of an NCAA tournament game on CBS in 1996. Tafoya was honoured by The American Women in Radio and Television with a Gracie Award for “Outstanding Achievement by an Individual On-Air TV Personality” for her play-by-play calling of WNBA games on Lifetime Television in 1997.

She was a reporter for CBS Sports coverage of the NFL and college football – including the 1998 National Championship Orange Bowl – and was late-night co-host with Al Trautwig of the 1998 Nagano Olympics in Nagano. She also hosted CBS’ NCAA Tournament selection show, Goodwill Games, and the U.S Open Tennis Championships coverage. After five years with the network, she left CBS in 1999.

Michele Tafoya: ABC Sports and ESPN

In January 2000, Michele joined ESPN and ABC Sports as a sideline reporter for ESPN Monday Night Football beginning in the 2006 NFL Season. From 2004 – 2005 she was the sideline reporter for ABC Sports’ Monday Night Football. She was a co-host for the Mike Tirico show on ESPN radio. She helped ABC in their coverage of Super Bowl XL in Detroit as a sideline reporter with Suzy Kolber. Tafoya has worked as a sideline reporter since 2006.

Michele was loaned to NBC Sports for the 2000 Sydney Olympics as a Reporter for Rhythmic Gymnastics and a play-by-play woman for softball.

Michele worked at NBA games on ABC and ESPN but resigned from her duties as head NBA sideline reporter on 21st October 2008. At the end of the 2010-2011 NFL Season, she left ESPN for NBC Sports.

Michele Tafoya: WCCO

On 20th April 2009, she was announced as the new evening drive-time talk radio host for WCCO-AM. The show began on June 1, 2009, and ended on January 27, 2012.

Michele Tafoya: KQRS Radio

On 8th September 2016, she joined “The KQ Morning Show” on KQRS-FM as co-host with long-time KQ morning personality Tom Barnard

Michele Tafoya: NBC Sports

Tafoya joined NBC Sports on 4th May 2011 as the new sideline reporter for NBC Sunday Night Football, replacing Andrea Kremer and rejoining former co-worker and announcer Al Michaels.

Michele Tafoya: Husband

Tafoya married Mark Vandersall, a financial adviser and a fan of Minnesota sports,  in 2000. She is seven years older than her husband.

Michele Tafoya: Children

Tafoya and her husband welcomed their first child in 2005 and later adopted a daughter just over two years later.

She suffered from a miscarriage and decided to do invitro, luckily, together with her husband, they got one good embryo which split and had identical twins, although they later died. They did a second round of invitro but got no good embryo. They started investigating donor eggs, but luckily enough, they got pregnant without the doctor’s egg, and she gave birth to their son Tyler.

Michele and her husband wanted more kids, and since they didn’t want to undergo what they had to get their biological son, they decided to adopt.