Lauren Sisler isn't just a national-award winning sports broadcaster who has a strong passion for what she does. She's also a person with a unique story and a purpose to help and inspire others.
From Roanoke, Virginia, a town with a population size of 100,000, Sisler went to Giles High School where she participated in the school's gymnastics program. After graduation, she was recruited to continue her gymnastics career at Rutgers University in the Big Ten conference from 2002 to 2006.
In 2003 during her freshman year, Sisler unexpectedly lost both of her parents within hours of each other to a prescription drug overdoses. Since the tragic event, she has become a major activist when it comes to spreading awareness about the dangers and devastation of addiction and an overall motivational speaker.
As a Scarlet Knight, Sisler started her college journey as a pre-med major and switched about halfway through her college career and didn't choose journalism or media studies as her new path.
"I actually switched to communication not with an 's,' there's a difference and I always have to point that out. I kind of did the broader rout and wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do."
She graduated Rutgers with a bachelor's degree in communication and a completed internship under her belt for experience. From that point on, she knew she wanted to get into sports broadcasting. Sisler started at the bottom and had to work her way up in terms of television and the foundation that came with it. CNBC, the financial news network in New Jersey helped her do that.
"What was really cool about CNBC specifically was that it was a national news network so I was able to really understand the foundation of how you put a broadcast on the air, book guests, work a teleprompter, do playback ad audio, and all these different things on a national scale."
After she gained a lot of useful experiences and skills, Sisler went back to her hometown’s station at WDBJ 7 as a photographer and editor. The television station knew she wanted to do sports and helped put her in a position where she was able to it all.
"I was learning to be a storyteller as a photographer, and I had the camera and was the one going out and shooting stories. The reporter would kind of piece them together and then I would edit them which gave me some good experience from a different lens which allowed me to start piecing together my own story.”
Sisler received her first job as a weekend sports anchor at WPAP in West Virginia in 2009 where she buckled down on her skills as a broadcaster, reporter and sports anchor. Since she could shoot and edit her own highlights, Sisler learned how to produce her own show and received another job because of that skill.
In 2011, she circled around to Birmingham, Alabama as a local CBS affiliate with CBS 42 for five and a half years. As a sports anchor she was in middle of Alabama and Auburn when the era of Alabama head coach Nick Saban started to take off. Sisler said it was perfect timing in terms of being able to covers some of the best college football as a local sports anchor.
"I love it here [Alabama] and my husband loves it too. It's kind of cool that he's fallen in love with Alabama because neither one of us have any ties here except for my sports career."
After she was hired by CBS 42, she also received a job at AL.com which is also located in Birmingham. Sisler made the transition to digital broadcasting and it is believed to be just as prominent now as television broadcasting because consumers can connect and interact with news and sports on many different platforms.
When she moved into the digital era and started creating content and videos, Sisler really dovetailed into her career with ESPN primarily covering college football and gymnastics while still working for AL.com.
Since March of 2020, sports has taken an incredible turn due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic. It not only has affected players, coaches and programs, but it has also changed the way reporting and broadcasting is now conducted.
Sisler said, "things are obviously quite a bit different in sports because of the coronavirus and the protocols that are put in place to essentially ensure the safety of everyone involved,"
For AL.com, her job during the week primarily consists of conducting a lot of interviews, live talk backs and analysis such as what happened in Alabama’s first scrimmage and bringing light to the social justice movement.
At ESPN since the season started on August 29th, Sisler covered her first football game in Montgomery, Alabama at the FCS conference kickofff which is considered Week Zero. That was her first entry point into what the new normal was going to look like in the upcoming season of college football.
"For my first football game, I was the only person on the ground except for the camera and operations crew because everyone was back in Bristol [Connecticut] which was certainly a huge change. Instead of meeting with coaches in person, we are now doing Zoom called with them and it's been interesting."
Her job has changed in many ways since media outlets are using the available digital platforms to their advantage during this time. People can't travel to studios for in person interviews which has made reporting both convenient and challenging at the same time.
Since the start of her career as a sports broadcaster and even before that, Sisler has covered a multitude of games, events and stories. She didn't realize the magnitude of the FCS kickoff and how it became one of the biggest events in college football history.
"The face of college football looks entirely different now in the 2020 season because of the coronavirus. It's been kind of fun being the guinea pig and having people call me to check in and ask me what it was like. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of college football and I think that's what makes this so big."
Another one of her most memorable and favorite stories she has done was a well-loved and well-received interview between Auburn University alum and NBA star Charles Barkley and University of Alabama's head football coach Nick Saban.
As a producer back in 2016, Sisler was trying to come up with ideas and that was when Barkley was talking with Sisler when he told her that as an Auburn fan, Saban would still go down as one of the greatest coaches of all time.
That was when she asked if he had ever met Coach Saban and he replied that it was only in passing.
Her idea turned out to be an incredible experience and both Barkley and Saban had a good time and seemed to enjoy the conversation which turned into a friendship between the two. Since the interview, Barkley has spoken to the Alabama football program multiple times as somewhat of a mentor despite his Auburn roots.
Sisler's unique story has given her an abundance of advice to share with people and females aspiring to break into the sports industry.
"Always be authentic and authentically yourself because I think a lot of time in society especially through social media, it produces an image of what we should wear and the brands that we should show off. It is so important that we are authentic and are true to ourselves and try to maintain that throughout your career."
Her journey and story as an athlete, activist and female sports broadcaster proves that when someone finds something they love, stick with it and be themselves, that person can achieve great things.
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