Alumni She’s Got Game: Sarah Spain ’02 Is a Star of Sports Journalism Stories You May Like Fantasy Sports Media Business Helps Fans Create Dream Teams From the Sun to CNN: Journalist and Commentator S.E. Cupp ’00 Pulitzer Prize-winning Alumna Explores the Human Stories Behind Global Migration The ESPN veteran hosts the first-ever daily podcast on women’s athletics—and she just published her first book By Melissa Newcomb Sarah Spain ’02 grew up playing sports—and loving a good joke. For two decades, the sports journalist has forged an award-winning career by combining the two, while paving the way for other women to thrive in her male-dominated industry. The Arts & Sciences alum hosts Good Game with Sarah Spain, the first-ever daily podcast devoted to women’s sports. The show features Spain’s wide-ranging conversations with her guests—on topics from life after pro soccer to the allure of a WNBA fantasy league. She also delves into social issues, on subjects like mental health, juggling athletics and motherhood, and the intersection of women’s sports and LGBTQ rights. Podcasting during Super Bowl LIX. Spain does it all while being her own witty self. She calls her fans “Slices”—a callout to the orange slices that are a standard snack for youth sports teams—and closes each episode with the same salty sign-off. “At the end of every game in sports, you’re going to say ‘good game’ to most people—but there’s that one player you don’t want to say it to, because you hate them,” Spain explains with a laugh. “So we say ‘good game’ to our guest, ‘good game’ to a team that won something—and ‘f-you’ to whatever we’re mad about that day.” With tennis legend Billie Jean King, and holding the WNBA championship trophy. The show launched in July 2024 on the iHeartRadio network; it’s also available on Apple Podcasts (among other platforms), where it boasts a 4.6-star rating with hundreds of reviews. Spain has also spent more than 15 years working for ESPN as a writer, TV panelist, and radio and podcast host—tackling topics both lighthearted (say, tips on how to beat the NFL’s bag policy) and serious (the obsession with female athletes’ attire). “We do too much mythologizing in sport,” she observed in a 2020 essay for ESPN, reflecting on the death of NBA star Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash a few days earlier. “Athletes are invincible, games are war, wins are moral currency, and the greatest among us are gods who will never be forgotten. But life is not made up of simply heroes and villains, good and evil. Sometimes—often—people can be both.” Spain has spent more than 15 years working for ESPN as a writer, TV panelist, and radio and podcast host. A Chicago native, Spain majored in English on the Hill and was captain of the track and field team. While sports journalism may seem like a natural career path for her in hindsight, she says it never crossed her mind until her mid-20s. She moved to L.A. after graduation to pursue a career in comedy; her success at a football-related assignment in an acting class prompted the teacher to ask if she had any interest in working as a sports broadcaster. “I said, ‘No—there are hardly any women, and the ones I see are all supermodels,’” Spain recalls. “I wanted to be snarky and funny and opinionated.” But after taking a course on TV sports reporting at UCLA, she fell in love with the field. Her first job was at Fox Sports—where she was tasked with selecting and writing about game plays for highlights segments. She covered sports for local outlets in Chicago before landing at ESPN. But Spain’s rise in a male-dominated field hasn’t come without a few curveballs—from battles over locker-room access to criticism for her clothing choices to snide, sexualizing remarks about how she’d get scoops. cornell athleticsSpain once held the Big Red record in javelin throw. Stories You May Like Fantasy Sports Media Business Helps Fans Create Dream Teams From the Sun to CNN: Journalist and Commentator S.E. Cupp ’00 “I felt like I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and I was still being prevented from doing my job,” recalls Spain. “You have to be so good, and do such good work, that they can’t say no to you.” Like many women in fields from sports journalism to video gaming, Spain—who now has more than 250,000 followers on X/Twitter—has been frequently targeted by online trolls. In 2016, to draw attention to the harassment she and colleagues endured, she co-produced a Peabody Award-winning video titled #MoreThanMean. In the video, which has since amassed nearly 5 million views on YouTube, Spain and another female journalist listen as men (volunteers, not the actual trolls) read aloud some of the messages the women had received. You have to be so good, and do such good work, that they can’t say no to you. They range from the merely annoying (“Sarah Spain sounds like a nagging wife”) to the utterly horrible (“I hope your boyfriend beats you”; “I hope your dog gets hit by a car”). And while Spain says the trolling has hardly lessened nearly a decade later, at least these days there are more women in her field to support each other. “Women can have every job now: owner, general manager, sideline reporter,” she says. “I always say the ceiling is higher than ever—but the basement is the same.” In April 2025, Spain published her first book, a collaboration with former pro football player turned coach Deland McCullough. Titled Runs in the Family: An Incredible True Story of Football, Fatherhood, and Belonging, it details how McCullough’s life was upended after his adoption records were unsealed and he learned about his birth parents. “Even non-sports fans will love this incredible story,” says a review in Booklist, calling it “a book about trauma, family, and hope, threaded with moments of profound sadness and unbelievable joy.” Spain had originally reported on McCullough’s dramatic personal history for ESPN in 2018, winning Sports Emmys in two categories for her work. “I had to earn his family’s trust, and prove to them that I could bring real care and empathy to their story,” she says of the book project. “It was important to me that I provide context and nuance, to make each person multifaceted—so that if somebody may come across as a villain, there are still reasons for how they might have ended up that way.” During her own days as an athlete for the Big Red, Spain specialized in the heptathlon, which combines seven events—100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200-meter sprint, long jump, javelin throw, and 800-meter run—over two days. As she has long liked to joke, the event is an apt metaphor for her career. “It’s the ‘jack-of-all-trades, master of none,’” she says. “I needed to do all seven things—and that’s how I feel about life.” (All photos provided, unless otherwise indicated.) Published July 11, 2025 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Alumni Hearts on the Hill Campus & Beyond What Does It Take to Heat and Plow the Ithaca Campus? Ask the Expert Conflict Resolution Tips from a Veteran Divorce Lawyer