After years of watching videotapes of aspiring network sports announcers, Rick Gentile knows the drill. Pop the tape into the VCR. Sit through a few seconds, maybe flipping through the mail at the same time. Get annoyed at the bad toupee or screaming delivery, then throw the tape into the trash.
Gentile, the senior vice president of CBS Sports, was all set to go through the motions again in 1994 when a colleague brought in a demo tape of a woman from a Midwestern radio station. A few seconds into the video, Gentile set aside the papers he was reading and was transfixed.
'She was poised,' he recalled. 'She could read the prompter. I fast-forwarded through the tape to an interview she did, and it was terrific. I called her agent immediately.'
The next day, Michele Tafoya flew to New York to interview with Gentile. She's been flying ever since, covering everything from college football to women's basketball to boxing for CBS Sports. The former KFAN-AM and WCCO-TV sports reporter has risen from local radio newsreader to network star with amazing speed, becoming one of the network's most familiar faces.
This month, Tafoya takes on her highest-profile role to date when she anchors CBS's late-night Olympic coverage.
Though her ascent happened quickly, it didn't happen easily. Tafoya, 33, spends countless hours each month flying to her assignments and is away from her Twin Cities home for days at a time. A perfectionist, she is known as one of the best-prepared announcers; when she is off the air, she usually can be found studying for her next duty.
Tafoya's colleagues said her success is due to her devotion to her work. Some worried it would wear her down, but Tafoya is comfortable with her hectic schedule and balances it with a healthy sense of humor.
'I remember when my agent called to tell me (she had been hired by CBS),' Tafoya said. 'I waited all day to hear from her, and she didn't call. Then at 4 p.m., my beeper went off, and at my first break, I locked myself in an office and called. When she told me I got the job, I just started to shake. I felt disbelief, like, `How could this happen?'
'For six months, I was in a state of shock. It was all so bizarre to me, so unbelieveable. I'm just thrilled about the late-night show; how I got it, I don't know, but it's a huge opportunity. I just don't want to let anybody down.'
Tafoya grew up in California with two sisters, a brother and sports-crazy parents. She knew early on she wanted to work in broadcasting. Tafoya rooted for the 49ers and played sports. She attended the University of California, where she covered sports for the campus radio station. She later did a TV internship in Washington, D.C.
Though she longed to be on the air, Tafoya didn't have many female role models in sports broadcasting. After college, she worked briefly in public relations in Los Angeles, then got a master's degree in business at Southern California. The MBA, she thought, might come in handy; she knew broadcasting is a risky career, and she wanted options.
She also wanted to follow her heart. Tafoya took a job producing a morning radio show in Los Angeles for one-fourth of the salary she would have earned in the corporate world. That prepared her for the next leap of faith: moving to the other side of the microphone.
'What I really wanted to do was be on the air,' said Tafoya, who landed a job doing an afternoon drive-time talk show on an all-sports station in Charlotte, N.C. 'I thought, `If I don't do this, I'll kick myself until I die.' I made a demo tape, sent it all over the place and got hired.'
Some listeners weren't crazy about the idea of a woman doing a sports show. Tafoya overcame that by meticulously preparing for every show, and she won over her audience when she correctly predicted her beloved Cal Golden Bears would beat Duke in the NCAA basketball tournament. She also did segments for other stations around the country, including one for KFAN that made KFAN program director Lorna Gladstone slam on her brakes.
In early 1994, Gladstone was listening to the station on her drive home from work when a woman joined a discussion about the NBA. Gladstone turned her car around, drove back to the station and demanded to know the identity of the Charlotte caller. Moments after Tafoya went off the air, Gladstone called her and said she wanted to hire her.
Tafoya took a position reading the news on KFAN's morning show. Soon she began filling in on Randy Shaver and Joe Senser's mid-morning talk show, and she later became Shaver's co-host. But the assignment that solidified her reputation - and vaulted her into the spotlight - was her expert coverage of the Timberwolves' near-move to New Orleans and the subsequent sale of the team.
'The afternoon we got the tip that the Timberwolves were moving to New Orleans, Michele was at the Vikings,' said Mark Ginther, KFAN's program director at the time. 'We found her, she rushed to the airport, she got on a plane two minutes before it took off, and when she got to New Orleans, she was totally prepared. It didn't faze her a bit, because she wanted to get that story.
'Her reporting on that story helped make that radio station. She is so knowledgeable and professional. She's like a Jerry Rice or a Joe Montana; she is so good that her performance lifts the performances of the people around her.'
Tafoya's business degree gave her unique knowledge that helped her gain access to several key players in the Wolves drama. She supplemented that with poise, authority and tireless reporting. That drew the attention of local television stations, and her agent, Ellen Beckwith, began negotiating with KARE-TV (Channel 11). Then Beckwith heard CBS might be looking for new talent and forwarded a videocassette to Gentile.
Within days, Tafoya got the network job.
'We met her, we loved her and we went straight to David Kenin [then president of CBS Sports],' Gentile said. 'We told him we had a great new talent, and we did the deal. It's the fastest we've ever done a deal.
'It just doesn't happen like this. You have to be ridiculously lucky; I mean, I could have been too busy to put that tape into the machine. But it worked out great. We have thrown her into eight million situations, and she's been great in all of them.'
Those situations have included studio work, sideline reporting and play-by-play. Tafoya's knowledge, preparation and poise have served her well in all of them, including her bizarre introduction to network play-by-play. When colleague Sean McDonough fell ill in the middle of an NCAA Midwest Regional basketball game in Minneapolis, Tafoya was asked to fill in on the spot. Not only did she do well, she discovered she enjoyed it enough to accept a play-by-play job last spring doing WNBA games for the Lifetime cable network.
Until recently, Tafoya also worked for WCCO-TV (Channel 4) as a reporter, a fill-in anchor and a frequent guest on 'Rosen's Sports Sunday.' Sports director Mark Rosen praised Tafoya for her humor and hard work.
'She doesn't mess around,' Rosen said. 'She's a self-starter who goes after what she wants. We sometimes had to tone her down a little, because she was going 190 miles an hour all the time. She has an edge to her, but that has helped propel her to where she is.'
Tafoya is excited about the Olympic assignment. She takes over a position created by Pat O'Brien, who left the network, and she has been given the freedom to make the late-night program a reflection of her personality. CBS regained the rights to the NFL and Tafoya will be part of the coverage team.
'I just want to keep doing what I'm doing,' Tafoya said. 'Every year, something seems to happen to make me feel like I'm progressing. A year ago, if you had asked me what I wanted to do next, I'd say, `Host the Olympics.'
'I really like what I'm doing, and I appreciate what I have. There aren't many jobs like mine. I want to take this to the limit. And I don't know what that limit is yet.'
