The Stunning Transformation Of Samantha Ponder

The following article mentions domestic violence.

Many sports fans dream of reporting on their favorite teams from the sidelines, but very few understand the massive commitment of time, energy, and knowledge it takes to get there. Samatha Ponder is a former ESPN sportscaster who spent her entire career in sports entertainment.

As a kid, Ponder didn't see herself being on ESPN one day... presumably only because she didn't watch ESPN. "I knew I wanted to be a sports broadcaster. As soon as I realized I wasn't going to play a pro sport, which was in the third grade, I decided I wanted to work in sports broadcasting," she told the Liberty Journal in 2012. "I had always seen Ahmad Rashad on NBC's 'Inside Stuff,' because we did not have ESPN or cable growing up, so that was my one example."

However, after taking a giant leap of faith, she ended up a member of the ESPN team. Here's how Samantha Ponder went from being a kid in Arizona with big dreams to a bona fide sports broadcasting star. 

Samantha Ponder (née Steele) was born in Phoenix, Arizona, to Jerry and Cindi Steele on December 11, 1985. The second of four children, Ponder grew up in a large and deeply religious household. She and her siblings were involved in Christian ministry programs from a young age, traveling with their parents domestically and internationally to participate. In a 2023 interview with the Evangelical Christian outlet Decision Magazine, Ponder stated that ministry was the Steeles' top priority. "We didn't go on all the fun vacations and eat out," she said. "Most of the money my parents made went into the [ministry] work that they were doing with the inner city in Phoenix."

The Steeles' relationship with Christianity did not begin with Jerry and Cindi. As noted in Decision Magazine, Ponder's religious heritage goes back for generations, as Ponder's great-grandfather and grandfather were Christian pastors. Though Jerry didn't follow in his relatives' footsteps by becoming a pastor himself, he eventually launched a Christian ministry group.

Ponder dedicated herself to her faith in her teenage years. In her aforementioned interview with Decision Magazine, she reflected, "It was a huge blessing to have the knowledge of what it means to have my identity in Christ at an early age." In a 2017 interview with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Ponder shared that her father played a key role in shaping her faith. "I've never seen someone live out his or her faith more radically than him," she said. 

Samantha Ponder's father, Jerry Steele, founded a nonprofit called Make a Difference Ministries. The organization offers basketball programs and bible study to inner-city kids, and Steele served as a basketball coach for the M.A.D. Ministries league. In her interview with Decision Magazine, Ponder reflected on the experience of being so closely connected with her father's ministry work. "We grew up in a home where we would have anywhere from 25 to 100 inner-city kids at our house three nights a week or at the gym down the street," she said.

Steele, a lawyer by day, also happened to be the coach for the national basketball teams in Palestine and South Sudan. What's more, he coached the basketball team at Ponder's alma mater — Central High School — as well as the team at Grand Canyon University.

Sports were clearly a big part of Ponder's upbringing, and not just because her dad was a coach. She not only ran track, but played volleyball, soccer, softball, tennis, and basketball in high school. While she didn't go on to become a professional athlete, she sure did find her spot in the world of professional athletics. 

After graduating from high school, Samantha Ponder left Phoenix to attend The King's College in New York City. There, she ended up scoring an internship for ABC Sports. As she told the Arizona Republic, she landed the gig while working at ESPN's restaurant in Times Square. "Looking back, the thought that I could work at ESPN Zone and (get a break) is as ridiculous as it sounds," she said. "But it worked." During her internship, her duties included interviewing accomplished athletes and holding cue cards for reporters during games.  After spending two years at The King's College, it was no longer financially feasible. So, Ponder returned to her home state to study at Arizona State University. She remained dedicated to her work with ABC Sports and regularly flew back to NYC to fulfill her internship. 

All of her effort — and the travel costs — were worth it. That internship led to a football broadcasting job offer from Liberty University. Ponder accepted the position and returned to the East Coast to perform her reporting duties for football as well as basketball and finish her education. She received her degree from Liberty University in 2009.

Funny enough, Ponder originally planned on going to Liberty University when she was in high school. However, she evidently had a change of heart. "Right before graduation I had this idea that if I wanted to be a sports broadcaster maybe I should go to New York City instead of Liberty," she told the Liberty Journal.

Samantha Ponder's accomplishments at Liberty University did not go unnoticed by her superiors. As Bruce Carey, the senior producer for the Liberty Flames Sports Network during Ponder's time at the university, said in a 2013 interview with the Liberty Champion, "After talking with her for a while, I realized [Ponder] had kind of the trifecta ... She had the looks, the personality, and the sports background. She had everything that I was looking for, but she was basically untried. So I put her on the sidelines for our first football game that year, and she just hit a home run."

After her graduation from Liberty University, Samantha Ponder spent a year working for FOX Sports. Her biography on the CAA Speakers website notes that she put her knowledge of sports journalism to the test as a sports reporter and columnist.

After spending 2010 with Fox, Ponder embarked on her decade-plus career with ESPN in 2011. The network presented Ponder with an opportunity to move from Lynchburg, Virginia, to Austin, Texas, to assist in the launching of the Longhorn Network, which is a sports channel explicitly dedicated to sporting events at the University of Texas at Austin. Ponder honed her hosting abilities and cultivated confidence in front of the camera by performing her duties as a sideline reporter and studio host for the fledgling network for a year before making major moves in her sports broadcasting career, taking on more prominent roles within ESPN.

Samantha Ponder leapt from regional sports broadcasting to the national level when she replaced fellow female sports broadcaster Erin Andrews as the host of ESPN's "College GameDay" in 2012. In her aforementioned interview with Liberty University's student newspaper, she described the difference between her new role with ESPN and her former experience. "There's really nothing like 'College GameDay,'" she said. "It's one of those things where it had been described to me before I ever did it, but until you get out there and you just see the crowd and the insanity that's there at four in the morning, it's just something special."

"College GameDay" wasn't Ponder's only hosting responsibility at that time. She was also among the roundtable of personalities facilitating "College Football Live." In addition to these two major hosting gigs, Ponder also became part of ABC's "Saturday Night Primetime" presenting team.

While speaking with the Liberty Champion, Ponder reflected on her "College GameDay" responsibilities, stating that she loved her role and all of the new experiences that come with it. She cherished the opportunity to meet and converse with incredible people and athletes, bond with the production crew, and enjoy the invigorating atmosphere of college athletics. In the same interview, Ponder did admit that while the constant traveling she had to do for the job could get tiring, she didn't mind it in the grand scheme. 

When considering NFL romances, one might think of Patrick and Brittney Mahomes' sweetest moments, Travis Kelce's romance with Taylor Swift, Jason Kelce's relationship with Kylie Kelce, or Simone Biles' marriage to Jonathan Owens. What do you know, Samantha Ponder also found love with an NFL player. In the same year she accepted her full-time role with ESPN, Samantha met former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder on platform X, formerly Twitter, when he DMed her. The pair dated for three months before Christian popped the question. 

"I pretty much knew [he was the one] immediately," Samantha told the Pioneer Press. "Look, you get to the point where you've dated enough and you know yourself well enough. I knew what I was looking for, and I certainly knew what I wasn't looking for ... With Christian, immediately, I didn't already know he wasn't the one. It all happened really fast."

Two weeks after the proposal, on December 17, 2012, the Ponders were wed in an intimate courthouse ceremony in Hudson, Wisconsin, and celebrated their nuptials with a meal at a nearby Arby's. When asked by the Pioneer Press if her wedding day was as she always envisioned, Samantha responded, "I never was really a girl who planned out what my wedding would be, what my dress would look like. Everybody's different. When we got married, he picked me up at the airport and I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and a hat. We drove the 20 minutes to Hudson or whatever it was, walked in, got married."

Two years after Samantha and Christian Ponder married, they welcomed their first child, Bowden "Scout" Sainte-Claire. The baby girl was named in honor of Christian's former college football coach, Bobby Bowden. The Ponders would go on to welcome two more children: Their son, Robinson True, arrived in 2017, and their second daughter, Price, only one year later.

Though the Ponders love being parents, it hasn't been an easy journey. For one thing, Samantha has faced a great deal of judgment on a bigger scale than most of us could imagine. In an interview with Sports Illustrated (via People), Samantha touched on how tricky it can be to be a public figure with kids, as some complete strangers seem to think it's totally appropriate to offer unsolicited commentary. "I have had people walk up to me and say things to my face about my parenting and mothering," she began. "One time I had a lady ask me if this was her [Scout's] first flight and I made a joke out of it as I usually do, saying she's a long pro at this. The woman said, 'You know, that is terrible for a baby. The immune systems are not ready for this.' ... I told my doctor I was feeling guilty about having her out so much and he said, 'There are two things that you have to do. You have to love her and you have to feed her.' I was like, 'Okay, I can do those things.'"

After hosting ESPN's "College GameDay" for five years, Samantha Ponder was given the opportunity to cover professional football. She accepted the role as host of "NFL Countdown," which, like "College GameDay," is a pregame show that offers an in-depth analysis of each of the teams preparing to play against one another. In a 2019 interview with the New York Post, she said the career switch was a positive, challenging, and necessary step.

Before she made the shift from college sports to the NFL, Ponder found that traveling so much for work took a toll on her family life. "The lifestyle that was required to be a sideline reporter at games was just not manageable for me with little kids," Ponder told the New York Post, "I grew up on fields and courts playing, and with my dad coaching. So, that environment really felt like home to me and it's difficult to be in a big empty studio in Bristol and not in Tuscaloosa for a big game. It's a whole lot more work in the studio. The lifestyle for me as a mom and wife, though, is night and day."

Ponder also noted that though the new position required substantially less travel, it still came with hurdles she had to overcome. She expressed to the New York Post that her first year with 'NFL Countdown' was a hard one since she had to build chemistry with the analyst and cope with fans of the show who didn't believe she was an appropriate replacement for Chris Berman.

Being a woman in a male-dominated field, Samantha Ponder has faced a lot of sexism. In 2014, a writer for Barstool Sports, a sports entertainment entity known for its unfiltered commentary on the world of sports, questioned her credibility after she spoke out about the NFL's response to Ray Rice's domestic abuse charges.

When Rice received a two-game suspension, Ponder took to X, formerly Twitter, to note that the penalty for domestic violence was less than that for being in possession of illicit substances. She also drew a connection between the objectification of women and domestic abuse. Barstool Sports writer Feitelburg took issue with Ponder's remarks. "Sam Ponder is an idiot. ... Your entire career and livelihood is based on appealing to guys like me and blogs like ours," he wrote. "Bottomline is guys thinking chicks are hot is natural. ... But that doesn't mean we don't respect women and think it's okay to hit a woman."

Three years later, ESPN brought on Barstool Sports' Dan Katz for a show called "Barstool Van Talk." Ponder was not thrilled. "I am disappointed that we are promoting a company name that still maintains support for horrific personal attacks against multiple women within ESPN," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. The show was axed after just one episode. Barstool president Dave Portnoy seemed to believe Ponder had something to do with the network's decision.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

In August 2024, Samantha Ponder was released from ESPN. The network maintained that the decision was related to budget cuts; as The Athletic noted, Ponder's exit came not long after massive layoffs in June of 2023. However, there are some who suspect there's more to Ponder's departure. Former sideline reporter Michele Tafoya went on "America's Newsroom" to state that she believes Ponder's stance on transgender women in sports was the main reason why she got cut from the network. "I don't believe that anything is just budget cuts anymore," she said. Former ESPN host Sage Steele also spoke out on Ponder's behalf.

This news broke shortly after Ponder shared misinformation regarding Algerian boxer Imane Khelif during the 2024 Summer Olympics. In addition to incorrectly claiming that the gold medalist was transgender, Ponder stated that Khelif shouldn't be allowed to fight other women. The year prior, Ponder made waves when she took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to express that she doesn't think it's fair for trans women to compete in women's sports across the board. ESPN has not said whether or not Ponder's comments about trans athletes played a role in her firing.

After Ponder got the chop, Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy hopped on X to insist that, despite their long-running feud, he wasn't gloating. "Sam Ponder, no grudge. I said some things, she held onto them, she played her card, I have no grudge with that," he said. "So, good luck to her in her next step."