For almost a decade, Erin Andrews' presence on a college football sideline with her ESPN mic in hand meant you were watching the game of the week. She was incredible during those college football broadcasts and college basketball. Andrews kept her poise, relaying critical information amid some of the most raucous atmospheres in all of sports.
Despite her skill and success, Andrews admits she wanted more. When the reporter realized she would never get the big prize at ESPN -- a spot on the sidelines of Monday Night Football -- she called some famous friends for advice and made the leap to Fox.
The hierarchy of covering American sports in the media is similar to playing or coaching American sports. Covering college sports is great. But just like the sports themselves, the NFL and NBA are the crown jewels of sports leagues in this country.
That's why, by the end of her tenure at ESPN (2004-12), Erin Andrews set her sights on Monday Night Football.
The Disney corporation moved MNF from ABC to ESPN in 2006. From 2006-10, Michelle Tafoya and Suzy Kolber provided the sideline reporting for the flagship NFL property. Both Tafoya and Kolber are at least a decade older than Andrews and had much more NFL experience at the time.
When a change came on the MNF broadcasting team in 2012, Lisa Salters, a talent with more reporting but less sideline experience than Andrews, got the job.
In an interview with the New York Post's sports media columnist Andrew Marchand, Andrews shared that's when she knew it was time to go. "I knew I was never going to get Monday Night Football. That role was just never offered to me," Andrews shared. "I have this opportunity at Fox. The NFL seems glamorous, cool. It's something I haven't done."
With that, Andrews moved to Fox and the NFL sidelines, where she resides today. However, it wasn't an easy decision for her. A few famous friends and legendary coaches helped her with encouragement and advice.
Working the NFL sidelines with Troy Aikman and Joe Buck in the booth for years and now alongside Tom Rinaldi with Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen upstairs, Erin Andrews has become one of the faces of NFL Sundays.
Wanting Monday Night Football and leaving ESPN for Fox meant she knew this would happen and that pro football would do great things for her career, which it has. However, that doesn't mean leaving ESPN was an easy decision.
Luckily for Andrews, she had some pretty good sounding boards to talk about the move with.
"I talked to a lot of people," Andrews told Marchand about her decision-making process. "I called Coach K because I was working college basketball three times a week. I called Chip Kelly because I had done a ton of Oregon [football] games, and I was really tight with him. I called Dan Patrick. Called [former ESPN executive] Mark Shapiro, who had hired me at ESPN."
Having those names in her phonebook paid off with some good advice.
Mike Krzyzewski said to Andrews, "How many Alabama-LSU games are you going to do? When is it time for you to move on?" And after the move was announced and Andrews was feeling apprehensive about her decision, Chip Kelly told her, "Don't look back. Just look forward."
Pretty good advice from a solid group of sounding boards.