Tag: Sage Steele

Sage Steele talks to Nick Saban and Alabama football program

Former SportsCenter anchor, Sage Steele, addresses Crimson Tide football program

When you join Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide football program, you get to experience a lot of really unique and exciting things. For example, one of my favorite things Saban does is bring in guest speakers to address the team. In the past, Saban has brought in guests like Stephen A. Smith, Kobe Bryant and many more high-profile names.

This past week, former ESPN anchor Sage Steele came down to Tuscaloosa to chat with the fellas in Crimson. Steele is no longer with ESPN, but she continues to pave her own path in this new and uncertain world of sports media. For a lot of kids growing up over the past decade or two, she is one of the most recognizable faces on ESPN and has done everything from NASCAR to the NBA Countdown.

Steele is a very driven individual as she is a board member of the Pat Tillman Foundation and in 2019 she joined the board of the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer research. Steele’s message to the Alabama program  is to find out your “Why?”

Why do you want to be in Tuscaloosa? Why do you play this game? What drives and motivates you to be the best player you can be? I believe it is a really important message and one we should all be asking ourselves on a more regular basis.

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Sage Steele announced her ESPN exit with an odd tweet about First Amendment rights

We know what that means …

Over the past few months, ESPN has had major turnover with some of the network’s most notable personalities seeing their jobs cut in layoffs and contracts not renewed.

It turns out that the exodus of on-air talent isn’t quite over yet, but the latest departure was under far different circumstances.

On Tuesday, longtime SportsCenter anchor Sage Steele — who had filed a lawsuit against Disney and ESPN last year — announced that she was leaving the network after 16 years. While Steele had framed the exit as her own decision, ESPN issued a statement that the two parties agreed mutually to part ways.

Steele had said her departure was motivated by her desire exercise her First Amendment rights freely, which was also the focus of her lawsuit that she had initially refused to settle.

Steele alleged that her rights were violated when ESPN disciplined her for anti-vaccine comments on Jay Cutler’s podcast. Of course, First Amendment protection applies to government entities and not private corporations that are allowed to uphold rules on acceptable speech — particularly for public-facing employees. But the lawsuit was settled nonetheless.

Basically, it was a strange tweet as Steele admitted she was giving up her job to pursue a career in saying things without consequences. As of late, that has entailed her and ESPN personality Sam Ponder spreading transphobic talking points about women’s sports.

Steele’s last appearance on ESPN was in July.

ESPN’s Sage Steele returns to work after being hit by a Jon Rahm errant tee shot at PGA Championship

“I feel like the luckiest person in the world to still be here.”

ESPN’s Sage Steele returned to work on Wednesday for the first time since being struck in the face by a Jon Rahm tee shot on May 19 during the second round of the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Steele, 49, who had just finished her live reports from the course, was following the action with her SportsCenter co-host Matt Barrie when she was hit in the face by the errant drive.

During Wednesday’s Noon episode of SportsCenter, Steele said her “entire life passed through her eyes.”

Once she went to the ground, Steele said she didn’t know what happened to her and she was scared. “I just looked at Matt and said, ‘Please don’t leave me.’ I grabbed his ankle with my bloody hand. He said, ‘You’re going to be good. You’ll be fine.’ I don’t know if you believed it but you said it. It meant the world to me,” she said.

Barrie helped her on a stretcher and then escorted her to the hospital.

“I’ve been to a golf course my entire life,” he said. “I told a couple of people it was a 1 in 50 million. I’ll say this and I’ve said this before, you took that like a champ. Most people would’ve passed out.”

Steele received medical care at a local hospital before returning to her Connecticut home to consult with her doctor and dentist, who she thanked on air and called out for being her new best friend.

“I’ve never seen anything like that and I don’t want to see anything like that again but here’s what I want to see is you back at work,” Barrie said.

“I feel like the luckiest person in the world to still be here,” she said.

An emotional Steele held back tears and asked her co-host to provide some levity and he didn’t disappoint.

“Will you go as that next year for Halloween, by the way?” Barrie wondered. “What are you? Oh, I’m Sage at the PGA.”

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ESPN’s Sage Steele after getting hit in the face by a Jon Rahm drive: ‘I hope to recover quickly’

Steele said via Twitter on Saturday that she’s hoping to recover quickly.

ESPN anchor/reporter Sage Steele had finished filming a segment on Friday from the PGA Championship when she decided to pop onto the course and catch the group that included Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler.

Unfortunately, Steele picked an inopportune place along the fairway and Rahm hooked a drive during the second round at Southern Hills Country Club. The Spaniard frantically waved to alert fans the ball was coming, but Steele wasn’t able to heed the warning in time and was struck between her nose and mouth.

Steele was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa after a gruesome scene in which she was seen with her face covered in blood. The anchor, who has been with ESPN since 2007, left the hospital and flew home to be with her family.

PGA: How to watch | ESPN+ streaming | Leaderboard

She said via Twitter on Saturday that she’s hoping to recover quickly.

“I just want to thank everyone for your concern and prayers during the last couple of days,” Steele said. “I am so grateful. With the help of my team, I hope to recover quickly for my three kids, and get back to work.”

Steele wasn’t the only high-profile person who was hit on Friday.

Aaron Wise was struck in the head on the seventh hole when Aussie Cameron Smith, playing the adjacent second hole, drilled him on the fly in the head with a tee shot that flew 316 yards into the wrong fairway.

“I was surprised my ball wasn’t in the fairway, and the next thing you know, there’s a little bit of ringing in my head and I was down on the fairway,” Wise told Golf Channel on his way to the parking lot.

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