Samantha Ponder
Ponder (then known as Samantha Steele) reports for Fox College Sports during an Iowa State football game in October 2010.
Samantha Sainte-Claire Steele
(1985-12-11) December 11, 1985
ESPN Sideline Reporter
Bowden Sainte-Claire Ponder (2014)
Samantha Sainte-Claire Ponder (née Steele)[1] (born December 11, 1985) is an American sportscaster from Phoenix, Arizona who is currently a reporter/host for ESPN college football and basketball sideline reporter.[2] Ponder is best known as the replacement for Erin Andrews on College GameDay Saturdays at 10 AM ET on ESPN, as well as co-host of the Saturday 9 AM ET edition on ESPNU.[3] In addition to her duties on College Gameday, Ponder has been the regular sideline reporter for ESPN's Thursday Night College Football with Rece Davis, Jesse Palmer, and David Pollack since August 2012, replacing Jenn Brown on the sidelines.[4] Ponder also appears on the ESPN-owned Texas-oriented regional network Longhorn Network.
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Ponder attended Central High School in Phoenix. Ponder first attended The King's College in New York City[5] after high school. While in New York City, she applied for a hostess job at ESPN Zone where she met Ben Keeperman, a college football researcher and manager with ABC Sports Radio and that led to an internship at the network which in turn led to a researcher-assistant job with ABC-TV on the college football studio show.[6] She transferred to Liberty University after Liberty's Sr. Sports Producer Bruce Carey offered her a job as sideline reporter for the Liberty Flames sports television network.[7] After leaving Liberty in 2009, she worked for Fox Sports Net and Fox College Sports as a sideline reporter for Pac-10 and Big 12 college basketball and football games. On July 7, 2011, ESPN's Longhorn Network announced that it had hired Ponder as a sideline reporter.[8] Ponder, along with Kevin Dunn and Lowell Galindo, were the newly created network's first three talent hires.[7] After accepting her position with the Longhorn Network, Ponder relocated to Austin, Texas.[7]
After a brief courtship, she married then Minnesota Vikings quarterback, Christian Ponder, on December 17, 2012, in Hudson, Wisconsin.[9] She started appearing on ESPN/ABC broadcasts by her married name, starting with the January 1, 2013 broadcast of the CapitalOne Bowl.[10] In 2014, the couple became parents of a daughter, Bowden Sainte-Claire, named after Bobby Bowden, Christian's coach at Florida State.[11] However, Bowden goes by the nickname Scout, after the protagonist in Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird," which is Samantha's favorite novel.
Samantha Ponder on Twitter
ESPN biography of Ponder
Liberty University alumni
American television sports announcers
College football announcers
College basketball announcers in the United States
People from Phoenix, Arizona
Women sports announcers
Journalists from Texas
Arizona, Maricopa County, Arizona, Phoenix metropolitan area, Puerto Rico, Glendale, Arizona
List of Las Vegas Bowl broadcasters
Sports USA Radio Network, ESPN College Football, Mike Gottfried, Ron Franklin, Brent Musburger
List of Peach Bowl broadcasters
Ron Franklin, ESPN College Football, ESPN Radio, Mike Gottfried, Gary Bender
2013 Las Vegas Bowl
2013 NCAA Division I FBS football season, Whitney, Nevada, American Broadcasting Company, Las Vegas Bowl, 2013–14 NCAA football bowl games