Source: ANGELA WEISS / Getty
One of the best talents to emerge is
Taylor Rooks, a St. Louis native, and any avid sports fans will know she’s everywhere– NBA on TNT, Thursday Night Football, and Bleacher Report. Today, the sports broadcaster celebrates her 31st birthday.
Her interviews have become important threads throughout the seasons in recent memory and have some of the NBA’s biggest stars talking more spicy than usual.
Back in 2018, Rooks interviewed Boston Celtic
Jaylen Brown about his expectation in the NBA, where he candidly and confidently said that he’d have 5 rings by the age of 28. Of course, Brown’s now 26 and has yet to win his first championship, so it’s impossible.
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Then, during an interview with
Memphis Grizzlies Ja Morant, the topic of players of different generations competing came up, and he said he’d cook Michael Jordan. Of course, he got
cooked on social media for the thought.
However, Rooks is able to disarm the athletes she interviews, and part of that is because she can relate to them.
“I think those things are what makes me good at the job. My Blackness is something that has helped me because it has shaped the experiences that I have had in my life. In a lot of ways I’m having the same or similar experiences to a lot of the athletes that I cover, and there is this relatability that comes truly when you’re talking to somebody who is also Black,”
she told Insider. “I think that there is innate trust and an innate understanding, and that is something that, in some ways, has been an advantage for me when it comes to being an interviewer, specifically.”
It also doesn’t hurt that Rooks is gorgeous, and anytime she posts a photo on social media, fans drool…respectfully.
Check out some of her hottest
Instagram moments below in honor of her birthday.
