Q/A: Colleen Wolfe on Authenticity in Broadcasting, and Why She Thought She "Bombed" Her NFL Network Audition
The Philadelphia region always seems to do well when it comes to sending local television and writing talent to the national level. Phoenixville’s Kevin Negandhi is a great example. Mike Garafolo is a Philly guy and La Salle grad. And in the last 10 years, NBC Sports Philadelphia and Fox 29 alumna Colleen Wolfe has been on a tear, finding success at the NFL Network while hosting a variety of programming there, from draft coverage to training camp tours, to a Sunday show with Steve Mariucci and pretty much everything in between.
The Hatboro-Horsham and Drexel graduate joined us on the latest episode of Crossing Broadcast.
Here’s a portion of the discussion in Q/A form, touching on the topics of Eagles fandom and authenticity at the network level. Wolfe also told us the story of how she ended up in Los Angeles and explains that she thought she bombed her audition and was never planning on getting into television in the first place.
CB: How’s this season going? You’re doing that show with Steve Mariucci on Sundays. What’s the rest of the schedule like?
Wolfe: I haven’t worked Sundays in years; that’s the gameday show with Rich Eisen and Steve Mariucci and Kurt Warner. That’s a fun show. And then on Mondays I do a pregame show, me and Mooch. That’s basically a period of 48 hours where Mooch and I are talking to each other and hanging out with each other nonstop, so there’s like 17 different text chains. And let me tell you, working with Steve Mariucci is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I love him so much. Just imagine working with your dad if your dad was Matt Foley from SNL, the Chris Farley character. It’s such a blast. I laugh the entire show and things that aren’t even funny, he’s just unintentionally funny. That’s my Monday. I do a podcast on Tuesdays with Gregg Rosenthal and Jordan Rodrigue from The Athletic. That’s called NFL Daily. The rest of the week I’m preparing other things.
Crossing Broad: You grew up here. You’re an Eagles fan. When you’re broadcasting at the national level, are you conscientious of that? Do you say to yourself, ‘hey, 99% of the people I’m talking to right now are not Eagles fans.‘?
Colleen Wolfe: The only thing that I keep track of and note for myself is to not bring up the Eagles every single show (laughing). Especially if there is not a reason for it, because my natural inclination is to immediately talk about the Eagles. Everyone knows I grew up in Philly. Everyone knows I am an Eagles fan, and I lean into it. I don’t say that I’m not, because I think every single person working in sports started as a fan. No one is truly unbiased, but I’m also not out here breaking news as a reporter. So I feel like it’s a little bit different, plus the fact that I get out in front of it, I let everybody know the situation and then I lean in. But sometimes if we have a specialty segment where we all have to come up with ‘one team that blah blah,’ whatever it is, I’m always like “oh I got one for the Eagles,” but I can’t do the Eagles every single time. I have to mix it up a little bit and it’s the only thing I’m cognizant of.
CB: It’s gotta be authentic. You’re right because sometimes we (the media) will do the objective journalism thing and then I’m thinking to myself, “well, I was an Eagles fan long before any kind of writing or reporting.” If you’re being honest with your viewers or listeners or readers, then yeah, that’s what it is.
Wolfe: And if you weren’t, then what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Are you even going to be good at it? Because you’re not really coming from a genuine place. I feel like you can’t relate as much to the people who are consuming your product if you weren’t once one of them. …Mike Greenberg at ESPN, everyone knows that he’s a Jets fan. And when he talks about the Jets, he speaks like a fan. I’m more comfortable listening to that as opposed to him putting on some kind of front like he’s trying to be objective and going through the facts. That’s whatever. Let’s just say what it is, and then it’s easier to consume.
CB: You’ve mentioned in the past that this was never the plan. You didn’t plan on getting into TV in the first place. And you also mentioned that when you left Fox 29 to go to NFL Network, you were going to quit TV entirely.
Wolfe: There have been many times where I was like, “this is not the situation I had in mind for myself.” I was gonna go to art school. I had no plans in going into anything related to sports, anything related to media. I didn’t even really think about it or even know it existed, that world. I had never been around it before. Then I took the internship at 94 WIP and my dad had known Rhea (Hughes), and my dad doesn’t know anything about sports. My dad was just really good friends with Rhea Hughes, who worked on the show. So I took that job and when I walked in I was like, “this is a job that people get paid to do? this is so much fun.” So I just kind of kept getting jobs and was seeing where it would take me and I’m still doing that (laughs). There have been many times along the way where I was like “yeah, I’m gonna tap out of this, I’m good.” I don’t love public speaking. I kind of don’t love attention. I used to be a figure skater, so I liked to compete and perform, but I don’t like the spotlight so I’m a masochist a little bit in that regard. But it’s definitely not what I had intended.
CB: What changed in 2014? You were done with Fox, but NFL came up? I feel like that’s a missing part of the story.
Wolfe: So in 2014, that year, it was after New Year’s, and I was in a spot where I really wasn’t happy anymore. I was kind of bored. I said to myself, if I’m not in a different situation by December 31st of this year, then I’m out, I’m quitting, I’m not gonna do this anymore. I’m gonna give it one more year to see if anything changes or if any jobs come up, whatever. I just assumed that nothing was going to change, so I started my next plan. My plan B. Myself and one of the photogs that worked at Fox 29, we started a little videography company where we were going to do documentaries, because I really like to edit. I would edit when I was at Fox, all of my feature packages and everything. He was a really good shooter. And I can shoot too, because I’ve built cameras and things like that before. We started doing weddings to grab some money and we did about 5 weddings I think, and John (Gonzalez) and I had just bought a house in Philly. I was like alright, we’re gonna lay roots down here, I’m gonna be a small business owner, I’m have a videography company. I’m gonna live in Queen Village and that’s the next step. So all of a sudden, we buy the house in April, we’re completely house poor, and then in June, NFL Network wants to fly me out for an audition. And I was like, “that’s kind of crazy, but okay, sure.” I had never been to Los Angeles, so I had no expectations of actually getting the job. There were a lot of people up for it. I treated it as a mini vacation they were paying for, so John took off of work, we basically just rented a car and drove down the coast and went bar hopping the night before my audition (laughs)..
CB: Did you do the Pacific Coast Highway?
Wolfe: We did. We did. We went to Duke’s in Malibu and went to the Whaler in Venice and it was lovely. What wasn’t lovely was waking up hung over for the audition. I went in and auditioned with this other girl who was so much, everything was so much that I got a headache as soon as she started talking, but I was like “she really wants this, she seems to be really good, good for her, this will be great, let me just get this over with.” And so I did the audition, I thought I bombed it. It was not great. There were things where I was like, “whoah that was a turbulent landing,” but we landed the plane. And so I texted John afterwards and was like, well, that went terribly wrong. I blew that audition. Let’s go to the beach. So we left, and then I got the job.
Here’s the full interview: