The Stunning Transformation Of ESPN Host Cassidy Hubbarth

Like many other popular sports hosts, including ESPN's Laura Rutlegde and former ESPN broadcaster Samantha Ponder, ESPN host Cassidy Anne Hubbarth has undergone a stunning transformation over the years. Born just outside of Chicago in Evanston, Illinois on September 19, 1984, the sports reporter now lives in New York City and regularly travels across the country for her job as an NBA reporter.

Hubbarth graduated from Evanston Township High School in 2003. She discovered her love of journalism in school and wrote for her high school newspaper, The Evanstonian, where she was also the sports editor. "It was my first real taste of journalism and how I was able to get over my shyness," Hubbarth said in an interview with her high school alma mater. "It also made me confident in my writing and really helped me decide what I wanted to do in life."

It was not long until her reporting captured the attention of NBA fans everywhere. The Evanston Township High School graduate is the former host of ESPN2's "NBA Tonight." Hubbarth is now a sports news anchor for ESPN Sportscenter reporting on NBA games. Not one to limit herself, she also hosts "Hoop Streams" and the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game telecast. Find out how the sports reporter went from cheering on her home team from her family's kitchen table to interviewing some of the biggest NBA players in the league courtside.

Many kids spend their childhood cheering on their hometown sports teams. However, not many sports fans grow up to actually interview professional NBA players from their home team. Yet for Cassidy Hubbarth, that was exactly the case. The basketball lover grew up watching her hometown team, the Chicago Bulls, play (and usually win) games.

When Hubbarth was a child in the 1990s, the Chicago Bulls were at one of the heights of their fame. She cheered on her favorite NBA team alongside her family and watched them win six championship titles while she was growing up. The television anchor has been an almost lifelong fan of basketball legend Michael Jordan, who played guard for the Bulls.

In an interview with Awful Announcing, Hubbarth revealed that watching the Bulls play as a child largely shaped her interest in sports. "We had such a basketball loving household...we planned our nights around it [Bulls games]," the Bulls fan said. Hubbarth admitted she was "spoiled" since she got to see "the greatest player alive (Michael Jordan)" play in his heyday. Jordan played in the NBA for 15 seasons between 1984 and 2003. "Any kind of successful team when you're a kid, you get molded when you're young," she told Awful Announcing. "So my heart, while it was growing physically, was growing with the Bulls."

Cassidy Hubbarth may have watched Chicago sports teams with her whole family as a child, but she credits her mother for a big part of her love for basketball. The NBA reporter is of German, Irish, and Filipino descent.Basketball is an extremely popular sport in the Philippines where Hubbarth's mother is from. Watching and eventually reporting on the sport was a way to connect with her Filipino heritage and family. 

In an interview with Vogue, Hubbarth recalls just how much of a basketball fan her mother was. She would yell at players on the television. "You could hear [her] three blocks away," the Bulls fan said, "[and] we always had to tell her 'Mom, blood pressure!'" Hubbarth continued: "I think any Filipino I come across, they don't hesitate to express their love for the game. Filipinos are so passionate in general... like when we latch on to something, it's just gonna be our thing."

As of this publication, when Hubbarth is reporting at NBA games, she is reminded of her Filipino mother's fervor for the game. "Anytime I'm at games I usually get called out from the stands and it's 100% a Filipino who's yelling," she said. "I always yell back at them, like without a doubt... that type of love never gets old."

Cassidy Hubbarth's life has always been intertwined with sports. From watching professional Chicago sports teams to playing sports in school and eventually becoming an ESPN host, she has been immersed in sports her entire life.  Hubbarth even played multiple sports throughout her childhood.

In an interview with Project Play, Hubbarth revealed all the different sports she played as a child. "I played pretty much every sport except for hockey and, oddly enough, tennis because my whole family played tennis," Hubbarth said. She explained that she never got in doubles matches with her parents and brothers but enjoyed participating in other games. "My main sports were basketball and soccer, and in high school I ran track. I also swam, played softball, and did gymnastics."

As a child, Hubbarth was able to meet one sports star she admired. The acclaimed broadcaster met Detroit Pistons player and coach, Doug Collins. She shared a throwback picture of her next to the famous sports star on Instagram, which proved to be an accurate depiction of what her future would hold.

There are not many people who end up working in the same field they wanted to work in when they were a child. There are also not many people who know at a young age that they want to be a sports broadcaster. For Cassidy Hubbarth, her dream of becoming a famous sports reporter when she grew up came true.

In an interview with ONE37pm (via Yahoo Entertainment), Hubbarth revealed just how long she knew she wanted to be in her profession. "I actually knew I wanted to be in sports broadcasting in middle school," she said. ​​"One day I decided it after watching Pam Oliver on the "FOX Pregame" show for the NFL. One of my core memories is sitting on the couch after having breakfast with my family getting to watch the Chicago Bears—I saw one of Pam's interviews and it just clicked," the acclaimed broadcaster recalled. "It's the only job I've ever wanted and the only thing that I've ever pursued. It's been a dream come true for sure!"

Sports reporter Pam Oliver was a major inspiration for Hubbarth. In another interview with Awful Announcing, she elaborated on the impact her career idol had on her. "I just remember watching her [Oliver] and thinking 'wow, that's something that I would love to do,'" Hubbarth said. "Interact with players and cover them, tell interesting stories about these athletes that I so enjoy watching."

As she revealed in her interview with Project Play, Cassidy Hubbarth played more than just basketball growing up. She participated in three different sports during her four years of high school, a fact that was somewhat controversial at the time.

"When I moved to high school, I was the only three-sport athlete in my grade, and I had a large graduating class of almost 700 people," the sports broadcaster said. Hubbarth went on to explain that some of her teammates had an issue with her not committing to only one sport. "A big problem was I was being pressured from my soccer team to drop basketball to specialize in soccer. I was better at soccer, but I was never going to drop basketball," the sports fanatic said.

Even though her teammates wanted her to focus on either soccer or basketball, Hubbarth continued to play both sports and run track in high school. "I felt pride each season having a team to be part of," Hubbarth said. "I think a lot of people who got the team awards on my soccer team played club sports, and it always felt a little political that I wasn't on a club team and that's who was voting on awards." The former athlete even helped her high school soccer team win the state championship: The ESPN host was a 2002 ETHS soccer champion. 

Cassidy Hubbarth's hometown pride extends beyond just her love for Chicago sports teams. After graduating from high school in 2003, she attended the University of Illinois in Champaign for her first year of college undergraduate studies before transferring universities. For three years, she attended Northwestern University in her hometown of Evanston, Illinois. Many academics and well known celebrities such as Megan Markle (whose college major might surprise you) and actress Lily Rabe attended the highly-ranked university as well.

Hubbarth graduated from Northwestern with a Bachelor of Science degree from the prestigious Medill School of Journalism in 2007. "I wanted to go there because of their journalism program, and a big part of that is that I got my first two jobs from the Northwestern job fair," the ESPN host said in her interview with ONE37pm (via Yahoo Entertainment).

Hubbarth learned many skills she still employs today during her college career. She took a class about the future of media and how it evolved with the creation of more digital media spaces (via NBA). In an interview with the NBA, the NBA reporter explained how she stood out to potential employers after college. "I rode this digital wave because not only do I have a passion for sports, but a passion for learning how the media landscape is changing," Hubbarth said. "That's how I stood out."

Thanks to Northwestern University's school of journalism's job fair, Cassidy Hubbarth was able to get her first broadcasting jobs. After she graduated from the prestigious university, Hubbarth took a job with Navteq Corporation, a former company based in Chicago that provided geographic information and electronic navigable maps. Her first position was a far cry from her job now as an acclaimed ESPN reporter.

While at Navteq, the Northwestern alumna worked as a local traffic reporter, a job that was admittedly not right for her. "Even though I lived in Chicago, I'm horrible at directions. Horrible," Hubbarth told Awful Announcing. "So my friends would make fun of me and my family would make fun of me that I'm the worst traffic reporter possible because I couldn't tell people an alternate route." Hubbarth worked as a traffic reporter on NBC5 in the mornings on weekends. She was also a producer for WMAQ on the same local NBC Network in Chicago, Illinois. 

Cassidy Hubbarth may have been a traffic reporter, but she started her career in media at a different company as well. After college, she began a full-time job for the organization InterSport. InterSport partnered with the phone company Sprint at the time to create short-form digital content for users.

Hubbarth had a number of different job titles during her time working at the company, including production assistant, associate producer, and host. Speaking with ONE37PM (via Yahoo Entertainment), the ESPN reporter described her time working at InterSport. "At Intersport I went straight from a production assistant to doing some on-air stuff for their exclusive entertainment," she said. Hubbarth explained that it was a "moment in time before there were smart phones where we were creating on demand content in 2007."

The experience she gained during her time there proved incredibly valuable for her future. She had enough content to build a reel from her reporting coverage at Intersport. "I built a reel, and from there I was able to go to Fox Sports South as a reporter..." Hubbarth said. 

Cassidy Hubbarth's career eventually skyrocketed to new heights after her time at Intersport came to an end. After working at Intersport and before landing a job at ESPN, she was formerly an anchor at the Big Ten Network, a top sports news network. Like the stunning Charissa Thompson, Hubbarth has undergone quite a transformation since her time working at the Big Ten Network. Hubbarth also worked at Comcast SportsNet Chicago as a producer in the earlier days of her sports reporting career. 

As if gigs at those two major sports networks were not impressive enough, the reporter also worked at Fox Sports South, another big name in the sports broadcasting industry at the time. Hubbarth's hard work, dedication, and professionalism during the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Gridiron Live while at Fox Sports South earned her a Southeast Emmy, no small feat for someone just starting out in the world of professional sports. She continued to cover SEC football games as a reporter for Fox Sports and took various jobs before getting a career-changing call in 2010.

In the summer of 2010, Cassidy Hubbarth got a call that altered the trajectory of her career in sports broadcasting. She was invited to audition to be the host of ESPN3 and soon started working at the prestigious sports network ESPN.

Hubbarth explained in her interview with ONE37pm (via Yahoo Entertainment) that she started at ESPN3, a digital network before it was an app. "I flew out there [to interview at ESPN], got the job two weeks later, and decided I was headed out to Bristol, Connecticut," Hubbarth recalled. She became a studio anchor at sports network and hosted college football and basketball games, including the Madden Bowl, the Baylor Pro Day and Georgia Pro Day on ESPN3. "From there I was able to work my way up from digital media to International SportsCenter to "Highlight Express" on ESPN News, and so on," she said.

Hubbarth noted that it was around 2012 when her career at the acclaimed sports network really took off. She began hosting "NBA Tonight" on ESPN. "I hosted that for a couple of years, and then moved to the sidelines full-time around 2015," the NBA reporter said. "Since then I've been hosting shows and launching digital shows."

In 2018, Cassidy Hubbarth's life and priorities changed. After keeping her pregnancy under wraps for the first few months, she gave birth to a baby girl and added "Mom" to her list of job titles. In Hubbarth's interview with ONE37pm (via Yahoo Entertainment), she revealed that she had a C-section. When it comes to more specific information about her daughter now, Hubbarth keeps details few and far between. "I'm a very private person about my private life— that's why you never see my family on social media," the sports reporter explained in the interview. 

While she was excited to become a mother, she was also nervous as to how it would affect her career. "... I was coming to grips on how my pregnancy was going to change my professional life because my husband and I waited a long time. I got pregnant with my daughter at 34, so I was working in this business for a while, and I was struggling with how my life was going to change with having a baby." Since giving birth, Hubbarth's career has seemingly not slowed down much. As of this publication, the mom of one continues to work for ESPN doing what she has always loved while also making time for her young family.

Like other famous sportscasters, including NBA reporter Maria Taylor, Cassidy Hubbarth seems to be everywhere these days. From hosting shows to interviewing players and working on NBA podcasts, she has already accomplished a lot in her career. Hubbarth also hosts the digital show "Hoop Streams" for ESPN as well as the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game telecast. The sports reporter is sometimes a guest host on other ESPN shows such as "SportsCenter," "Get Up," and "First Take."

In Hubbarth's interview with ONE37pm (via Yahoo Entertainment), she expressed just how much she loves what she does. "What I'm doing right now is what I want to do for the rest of my career," the acclaimed ESPN sports host said. "I love coming off these playoffs and covering these games in the post-season. I always want to be covering the NBA on this stage, but I think if there's one more milestone I want to achieve it would be to one day cover the NBA Finals and hopefully one day be a part of the trophy ceremony." If her past accomplishments are any indication, Hubbarth could be a part of a trophy ceremony sooner rather than later.