Before Laura Rutledge Was Laura Rutledge: A Flip Phone, an IFB and the Gator Country Days
By Buddy Martin / GatorBaitMedia.com
Every once in a while, somebody comes back through the door and reminds you just how fast time moves.
Laura Rutledge did that for me this week.
Most of America knows her now as Laura Rutledge of ESPN — host of NFL Live, a Saturday college football fixture and one of the most recognizable people in sports television. Around here, there is another chapter to the story. Before she was Laura Rutledge, she was Laura McKeeman, a University of Florida student trying to figure out where she belonged in this business and willing to take just about every rep she could get.
And, yes, Brenden will remind me — and he is right — that he spotted her first. He brought her into the Gator Country orbit, got her involved in recruiting shows and gave her some of those early opportunities. I had the good fortune to watch the reps pile up and to put her in front of a camera at a time when doing live video on the internet still felt like we were building the airplane while flying it.
A FLIP PHONE AND AN IFB
The best story Laura told on The Buddy Martin Show might be the one that explains her whole career in about four minutes.
She was a senior at Florida when Fox Sports Florida called and gave her a shot around the Tampa Bay Rays. Her previous internship work had been about as glamorous as most internships are: copying DVDs, helping behind the scenes and writing for the website. Then suddenly she was being asked to handle live pregame and postgame television.
Opening Day arrives and somebody tells her to put in her IFB. One problem: Laura had no idea what an IFB was. So she pulled out a flip phone and Googled it.
That is not a punch line at her expense. That is the lesson. She did not fake knowing. She figured it out, asked questions, went live and came back the next day for another rep.
WATCH: Laura remembers the early live-TV learning curve, Brenden Martin, Gator Country and the road from Gainesville to the big stage.
THE REPS BEFORE THE SPOTLIGHT
There was another story I had almost forgotten until she told it again. Laura took a 5 a.m. shift at WRUF. On one of her first sports reports, she forgot to hit the button that actually put her on the air and delivered part of the thing to nobody. Dead air. Welcome to broadcasting.
You learn quickly in this business that embarrassment can either make you hide or make you better. Laura chose better.
She talked about those Gator Country days as part of the foundation. The shows were live, unscripted and sometimes held together by enthusiasm and extension cords, but that was exactly the point. You learned to listen. You learned to recover. You learned what to do when the next question or the next technical problem was not in the script.
That skill still shows up every time she is standing on a sideline with the country watching.
THE PART YOUNG BROADCASTERS SHOULD HEAR
When I asked her what she would tell somebody trying to get into the business now, her answer was better than anything you are going to find in a television handbook: do not trade away who you are to get ahead. Be authentic. Work harder than the next person. Stay grateful.
That sounds simple until you get around television, social media and the constant pressure to become whatever somebody thinks will get the next click. Laura's point was that the long game matters more.
AND THEN WE TALKED FOOTBALL
This was not just a reunion show. Laura also gave us the view from where she works now.
She walked us through the sideline confusion involving Steve Sarkisian and Holly Rowe, explaining how a camera problem created a delay that viewers could not see and why she felt it was important for the broadcast crew to own the production issue instead of leaving a coach to wear it.
We talked Arch Manning, the pressure of those big games and the strange weekly commute between NFL Live and a college football sideline. Then we got to what everybody around Gainesville wants to talk about this week: Florida at Auburn.
Laura liked what she has seen from Florida's offense, the running game and the improvement up front, but she also knows exactly what Jordan-Hare can do to a football game. When we put a number on the season, she landed at at least seven wins for the Gators and hoped they would push beyond it.
The conversation bounced from Florida-Auburn to Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss, then back home to ESPN's “14 Days in Gainesville” and the memories of Steve Spurrier's first season during one of the darkest stretches this community ever endured. Carlton Reese and Ali Peek Wilbur joined us, and for a while it felt less like an interview than one of those old newsroom conversations that just happened to have cameras on it.
COMING BACK HOME
Before she left, Laura told us she will be back in Gainesville for Gator Growl and homecoming.
That felt right.
Careers get big. Networks get bigger. Schedules get ridiculous. But every so often somebody circles back to the place where the reps started and tells the story again.
The young woman who once had to Google “IFB” now spends most of her life wearing one. Funny how this business works.
And it was mighty good to have her back.
TONIGHT ON GATORBAIT TV
The Buddy Martin Show is live tonight at 9 PM Eastern. Watch from the new Buddy Martin Show page on GatorBaitMedia.com and stay with us for the latest Florida–Auburn coverage.
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