OKC Thunder Nation bids a bittersweet farewell to Lesley McCaslin
Life as Lesley:
In her blog, Lesley writes a first-person account of how she broke into the business of Sports Journalism.
She grew up in Lubbock, Texas, a typical football lovin’ town. Her family was football fans as well, both parents graduated from the University of Texas.
"Every Saturday, we’d get our chips and queso (did I mention we lived in Texas?) and spend the day watching college football. It was what we did. It was a tradition."
Lesley began her college career as a theatre/dance major at the University of Texas. After a little traveling, she decided she liked to be on camera, but not as a character… as Lesley McCaslin. So, she stayed an extra year to pursue broadcast journalism. She first decorated the sidelines as a cheerleader, where she made some connections that led to a professional sideline presence as an intern at KXAN in Austin and Fox Sports Southwest in Dallas.
After some time in the industry, she began to question whether she was on the right track. She worked multiple jobs, lived paycheck to paycheck, and “lived on soup and bluebell ice cream”. It was a new thing for women to work in the sports industry and Lesley was paving the way for a new era for that.
"One of my paychecks went to rent, the other had to pay for bills and everything else. It wasn’t abnormal to go to a co-workers house in the middle of the summer and the A/C be turned off. We couldn’t afford to pay for it! Every day, I questioned whether this was what I really wanted to do."
After several years in the post-graduation phase of life, Lesley worked for various companies in a few different cities continuing to network and cover various sports and teams. Finally, she made the move to Dallas, Texas.
She earned a job sideline-reporting for college football on Fox Sports and then… the OKC Thunder. It took her eight years of “paying her dues” and pouring everything she had into the industry and she had made it to a network position, Fox Sports.
"After almost 8 years in the business; shooting, editing, anchoring, reporting, sometimes all in the same day – I had made it to a network. All that hard work had finally paid off."
Lesley goes on to explain that yes it was really hard some days, but for her, the path she chose to pursue makes her that much more grateful for the position she earned with OKC Thunder and Fox Sports. Lesley, us Thunder fans are so grateful as well!
Reading her blog always gives me a boost of hope for my future as I’ve gone through some of the same things as her. I wanted to be anywhere around sports I could, so I also cheered on the dance team of my university for four years, while taking pictures and notes in my cheerleading uniform as much as I could (oh boy, was that a sight to see!)
As we say our goodbyes and well wishes with teary eyes and heavy hearts, let us rewind all the fun times we’ve had with the wonderful Lesley McCaslin, as well as the insanity she has put up with covering our rather animated players in post-game interviews.