Oliver maintains cool as FOX Sports demotes her from #1 NFL sideline reporter job

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Erin Andrews, 36 (left), will replace Pam Oliver, 53 (right) as #1 FOX Sports NFL sideline reporter
Despite the fact that a FOX Sports press release said that she had been “elevated to senior correspondent,” FAMU alumna Pam Oliver is taking the company’s decision to move her out of its number one NFL reporting team in stride.

Erin Andrews, 36, (pictured left) is replacing Oliver, 53, as FOX Sport’s top NFL sideline reporter. She will work with Oliver’s former team members Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. Andrews was a college football sideline reporter for ESPN before joining FOX Sports in 2012.

Oliver, a 19-year veteran that FOX Sports credits as its “longest-tenured NFL sideline reporter,” will spend her final year as a sideline reporter with the number two team where she will work with play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt and analyst John Lynch.

“To go from the lead crew to no crew was a little shocking,” Oliver said in a quote published by SI.com. “I said I wanted to do a 20th year [on the sidelines]. I expressed to them that I was not done and had something to offer. Again, I think it was predetermined coming in. Not at that meeting, but two years ago it was determined that no matter what I did or did not do, a change would be made for this year.”

According to Washington Post reporter Matt Bonesteel: “In April, Fox executives traveled to Atlanta to tell Oliver that she was being removed from the sideline altogether in favor of Andrews. After her agent, Rick Ramage, began talking to other networks, Fox eventually relented and gave her one final year on the sideline, albeit with the network’s No. 2 team.”

Bonesteel added that: “It’s the second time this year that she has replaced an older woman in some broadcasting capacity: In February, she replaced Brooke Burke-Charvet, 42, as co-host of “Dancing With the Stars.”

The FOX Sports press release states that “in Oliver’s new position, she expands her influence beyond the NFL to include the wide breadth of sports and events covered by FOX Sports year-round, with her exclusive interviews, commentary and essays featured on a variety of FOX Sports programs and platforms, including FOX NFL SUNDAY, FOX SPORTS LIVE, AMERICA'S PREGAME, FOX SPORTS 1 ON 1, college football and basketball and FOXSports.com.”

A graduate of FAMU, Oliver received her degree in broadcast journalism.  As an undergraduate, she held school records in the 400 meters and was an AIAW track and field All-American in both the 400 meters and the mile relay, and as a member of the mile relay team, she had the distinction of participating on the first women's team from FAMU to win a national championship (AIAW.)  She was inducted into the FAMU Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.
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