Jenny Cavnar Paves the Way for Women in Sports Journalism

DENVER — Jenny Cavnar can’t do math. That was the running joke between Cavnar and Cory Sullivan, her co-host on the Colorado Rockies pregame and postgame show, when I met with her at the studio last Saturday.

“183 minus 100 is 85, right?” Sullivan said. "At least that’s what Jenny thinks!”

She had miscalculated in a rare on-air blunder the night before. Cavnar laughed it off.

Fortunately, she isn’t often judged for her math abilities. Cavnar is a broadcaster and sideline reporter for the Colorado Rockies. Last year, Cavnar became the first woman in 25 years to call play-by-play in a televised MLB game. Following in the footsteps of sportscasters Suzyn Waldman, Melissa Stark and Michele Tafoya, Cavnar has made a name for herself in a male-dominated profession and is now paving a way for a new generation of women in sports media.

Photo 2. Sullivan and Cavnar in studio. Courtesy of Rose Carter.

“People are always going to have a comment about your outfit or what you’re saying, or being a woman in a man’s field,” Cavnar said (Colorado Public Radio). “At some point, you just have to be confident in who you are and knowing you belong.”

Cavnar found out she would be filling in for regular play-by-play commentator, Drew Goodman, from a Sunday morning phone call. Cavnar’s opportunities as a radio analyst and calling spring training games in the years prior lead up to the broadcast. With less than two days to prepare, Cavnar’s husband turned on a baseball video game in their living room.

“We’ll turn the sound off,” he said. “You’ll call the game.”

When Sunday arrived, Cavnar was ready. Nolan Arenado shot the ball into left field and across Colorado, Cavnar’s home run call, “Fire up the fountains!” went viral. The saying was soon printed on t-shirts and other Rockies merchandise.

Cavnar called her first game with Jeff Huson, a former professional baseball player. At the end of the night Cavnar looked at Huson and explained the nerves and pressure she had felt.

“Everything you’re explaining is what it feels like for a player when he makes his major league debut,” Huson said.

Sports are in Cavnar’s genes. Growing up in Aurora, Colorado, Cavnar’s dad coached high school baseball, but her interest in sports journalism came from an entirely different sport. Cavnar was in high school watching Monday Night Football with her dad when she saw Stark, the sideline reporter. It was the first time she saw a woman on television talking about sports and something clicked. She knew she wanted to be a sports reporter, too.

Cavnar attended Colorado State University and began in the business school, majoring in business administration. She later added a second major in communication studies. Cavnar played lacrosse, and became involved at CTV, the Rocky Mountain Student Media Corporation television channel. During her time with CTV, she covered sports and worked as a sideline reporter.

Greg Dickinson, the chair of the Department of Communication Studies and professor at CSU remembered her 15 years later.

“I taught her in Rhetoric and Western Thought,” Dickinson said. “It’s a class that all communication studies majors take. It’s a big class. There are typically about 120 students in it. That says something about a student — when you have a big class, and you still can pick up there’s a spark there.”

After college, Cavnar worked stints at CSTV (now CBS Sports), the local channel in Flint, Michigan, and at the University of California Los Angeles coaching lacrosse. After two years of coaching, Cavnar came to a point where she realized if she was going to do sports media, she needed to fully commit.

“I had to have a realistic talk with myself,” Cavnar said. “I realized it might be a harder path and I would have to get out of my comfort zone to do it, but if it was something I really wanted to do, I had to do it then. I had to fully see it through.”

Cavnar got her first job in the MLB in 2007 when she was hired to do the pregame and postgame show for the San Diego Padres, but in 2012, she got the opportunity to come home and work for the Rockies.

When Cavnar called play-by-play on the televised broadcast, she got her full circle moment: the Rockies were playing the Padres.

The community of women in sports journalism is a small, close-knit group. They have an active text chain to support and keep up with one another.

Cavnar feels there are many women who paved the way for her -- Suzyn Waldman, the longtime voice of the Yankees; Michele Tafoya, an NBC sportscaster who Cavnar sees as a representation of class and knowledge; and Marcia Neville, a local sports reporter who Cavnar grew up around as Neville reported on Cavnar’s father’s winning high school baseball teams.

Photo 2. The Broadcast. Courtesy of Jenny Cavnar

“I think the gender barrier has been chipped away at for the last several decades,” Cavnar said. “I know I’m in a much better place because all the women who had to fight just to get equal access into the clubhouse or locker room dating back to the 70s and 80s.”

Now Cavnar is continuing the legacy. Katy Winge, who recently ended her first season as an analyst and reporter for the Denver Nuggets is one woman who has been inspired by Cavnar. She credits Cavnar for paving the way for other women to have similar opportunities.

“To have women like Jenny Cavnar in your corner means the world," Winge said. "She is a pioneer in the sports media industry. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without Jenny doing what she does.”

Cavnar knows that a win for women in sports media is a win for women everywhere.

She reflects on her historical play-by-play call from time to time.

“I knew the historical context that surrounded it, so I wanted to put my best foot forward,” Cavnar said. “I felt like I wasn’t just representing myself, I was representing a lot of women out there.”