EP 32: Olivia Harlan, ESPN

On this episode of the Moran-Alytics Podcast, Patrick Moran interviews ESPN college sports reporter Olivia Harlan on a wide variety of topics. The two discuss Harlan’s career path — one that’s traveled amazingly far for Olivia only being in her mid-20s. Harlan (@Olivia_Harlan) talks about her childhood and why being the father of famous NFL broadcaster Kevin Harlan and granddaughter to former Green Bay Packers got her loving sports at such an early age. Every great journey doesn’t always go as planned and for Olivia that included having to reshuffle the deck after failing to get into the college she long dreamed of attending, Northwestern. The former Miss Kansas Teen USA bottled that disappointment and turned it into a life changing positive by going to the University of Georgia where more doors for her than she could’ve imagined, including a gig covering the Atlanta Hawks for three years at Fox Sports South. Harlan also talks about how the opportunity to work at ESPN came about, reveals some of her memorable stories so far in the business, discusses her long term goals and shares details on how she met and fell in love with Los Angeles Clippers forward Sam Dekker, as the two prepared to get married in just a few weeks. Immediately after that Moran is joined by Matt Warren of Buffalo Rumblings on the heels of Warren’s sensational story published Friday that took readers inside all of the happenings at The Buffalo News Sports department of late, including many of the writers talking on the record for the first time with Warren. Warren (@MattRichWarren) breaks down his story from both sides and gives a few opinions on what he thinks went wrong at TBN and what the future of the sports department is. ♦♦♦♦♦ Follow Patrick Moran on Twitter @patmorantweets and “like” the Moran-Alytics Facebook page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices