Clemson University has shaped the careers of numerous alumnae working various jobs in sports media, including roles with prominent organizations such as ESPN and NASCAR. Equipped with knowledge, skills and confidence gained from their time at their alma mater, these four women are navigating — and thriving in — what remains a male-dominated industry.
Kelly Gramlich ’14, M ’16 is no stranger to frequent flyer miles.
More weeks than not during the college basketball season, Gramlich hops a plane to Bristol, Connecticut, where ESPN’s headquarters are located. The Worldwide Leader in Sports televises more than 200 women’s games each season across its platforms, and Gramlich is part of the network’s extensive coverage.
One of those platforms is the ACC Network, which Gramlich has worked for since 2019 as a women’s college basketball analyst and commentator. When she’s not in studio, she’s typically bound for a city where one of the 18 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) member institutions resides, sitting courtside as part of the broadcast team for whichever game ESPN has assigned to her that week.
And somehow — typically late at night — she still finds time to record and produce a weekly podcast with co-host and former Clemson Football player Eric Mac Lain ’15, M ’17. On Gramlich & Mac Lain, the two former Clemson athletes talk all things ACC football.
“Hey, June and July, I’m available,” Gramlich quips through a grin.
Alex Weaver ’16 and Ali Kerns ’18 can relate to Gramlich’s fast-paced lifestyle. A host and reporter for NASCAR, Weaver’s busy season starts in January. Whether it’s traveling to capture content or being on-site to help anchor race coverage on the weekends, she doesn’t slow down much before NASCAR’s final series race in November.
“We have the longest season in professional sports,” Weaver says. “So, my travel ends up being about 41 or 42 weeks of the year given our preseason and postseason coverage.”
Kerns, a senior content producer for the PGA Tour, heads to a different golf course each month for a week at a time, shooting hours of video footage from practice rounds and competition, which typically runs from Thursday to Sunday. Madison Williams ’18 pulls a similar workload as the founder of her own video production company, Madison Williams Productions, which helps various clients in the sports realm visibly distribute their messaging to the masses.
Once the alumnae’s work is done, their flights home send them to different parts of the country. Gramlich heads back to Greenville, South Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Nick Ciulla ’15, M ’16, and their 2-year-old son, Jacob. Kerns splits for Jacksonville, Florida, while Weaver resides in Los Angeles. Boston is home for Williams.
But they’re all part of Clemson’s female representation in the sports media industry with professional journeys that originated at their alma mater.
Kelly Gramlich ’14, M ’16
Right photography provided by ESPN Images
Training Ground
Kerns, Weaver and Gramlich each earned a Bachelor of Arts in communication from the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences, while Williams graduated from the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business with a Bachelor of Science in graphic communications. Gramlich, a former Clemson Women’s Basketball player, also obtained a master’s degree in communication from the University.
As part of her graduate studies, Gramlich wrote a sports communication thesis examining the reaction to the San Antonio Spurs hiring Becky Hammon as the first full-time female assistant coach in the NBA. Researching the topic helped build habits that are still applicable for Gramlich, who watches film and creates a board full of notes, complete with players’ names and statistics, as part of meticulous preparation for her broadcasts.
“We have stats people that are staffed for every show that we do and the stats person for every game, but sometimes I’ll just kind of find my own stuff so I’m not as reliant,” Gramlich says. “Obviously, they do a great job, and they can find stuff quicker and all that, but I feel like I have a good research background through specifically that master’s program that I can really tap into when I need it.”
With courses such as Communication, Sport and Society; Strategic Communication in Sports; and Sports Media Criticism, Clemson offers a major and minor in sports communication. The University also provides numerous opportunities for hands-on training, which, for the group, was just as beneficial as anything learned in a classroom.
Ali Kerns ’18
Right photography provided by PGA Tour
“I think Clemson did a good job of bringing the real world to this campus and giving us real-world experience before we ever even graduated,” Williams says.
Gramlich got her feet wet as a graduate assistant for Clemson Athletics, compiling game notes, writing press releases and even dabbling in radio work for women’s basketball. Weaver credits the athletic department for putting her in front of a camera for the first time as a student video intern, a role that had her covering everything from Clemson Volleyball matches to football’s National Signing Day to the NFL Draft.
Williams started as a photo and video intern with the Division of Marketing and Communications before joining Clemson Athletics as a student worker, helping photograph and create videos for whichever sport needed it. Kerns was also a student videographer who helped capture content for various men’s and women’s teams, which was by design.
“Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you’re going to work with women’s basketball. I think that helps for a first step,” says Chandler Simpson ’10, M ’12, associate director of communications for Clemson Athletics and a former student worker herself who helps oversee the department’s student communications program. “We don’t really care if you’re a male or female or what sport you’re working with as long as you know what you’re doing.”
The objective is to produce the most well-rounded candidates for any job they pursue in the industry upon graduation.
“There are very few programs, specifically in the college athletics world, that I feel prepare and give students the opportunities that we do here,” says Blaze Watson, director of creative solutions for Clemson Athletics. “Just in terms of the access that they have and the projects that they’re taking on, there’s a small handful of schools that I can think of that have that experience for their students built out the way that we do.”
Against the Grain
A 2024 Gallup survey found that 41 percent of American adults identified football as their favorite spectator sport, making it once again the nation’s most consumed sport by a wide margin. Football has held the top spot in Gallup polling since 1972, while baseball (10 percent) and basketball (9 percent) rounded out the top three in last year’s survey.
Given the popularity of men’s sports, jobs in sports media have long been held primarily by their fellow men. And while women’s representation in the industry has seen an uptick over the years, alumnae like Weaver, Gramlich, Kerns and Williams, along with their female peers, remain in the vast minority.
The Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE), in partnership with The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida, periodically performs a workforce data analysis that evaluates the hiring practices of newsrooms nationwide. Nearly 700 were asked to submit data as part of the APSE’s most recent report published this year, which found only 7.5 percent of sports editors, 15.9 percent of reporters and 43.2 percent of upper management were women.
Those in the industry are often reminded of the accompanying challenges, starting with antiquated stereotypes. During one of her first on-camera interviews after being hired by NASCAR in 2018, Weaver recalls a male driver questioning her knowledge of a traction compound applied to many racetracks to help the cars’ tires better adhere to the surface. Surprised she knew about the compound, the driver asked Weaver to explain it.
Alex Weaver ’16
Right photos provided by Hendrick Motorsports
“It was like, ‘You’re a female in NASCAR. What do you know about the sport?’” Weaver reflects. “It was an automatic I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Williams remembers a time shortly after starting her company in 2018 when she had to track down compensation for a video she and her team shot for a client. She received payment for her work on the project nine months after her male colleagues were paid.
“You can’t ignore that fact,” she says. “That’s when I kind of flipped the script and was like, ‘No, I’m never going let someone do that to me, and I’m going make an adamant effort to have systems in place so that that can’t happen.’”
And don’t get Gramlich started on her biggest pet peeve in the industry.
“I just don’t know how many men have been told to smile more on television,” she says. “That drives me insane.”
Williams adds that being the only woman at a shoot or in a meeting isn’t uncommon. As someone embedded with a men’s professional golf league, the same often goes for Kerns when she’s on assignment. As a result, they all acknowledge that imposter syndrome has occasionally set in, but their combination of skill, expertise and work ethic that’s been sharpened over the years is there to remind them they belong.
“And also realizing some people will just never change, and that’s their problem, not mine,” Kerns says.
There are some benefits as well. Kerns notes that being a woman in the industry lends itself to a different point of view than her male colleagues when it comes to storytelling, which, she says, is one of the reasons the PGA Tour wanted to bring her on board. Bryan Denham, Campbell Professor of Sports Communication in Clemson’s Department of Communication, says different perspectives are essential to diversifying media coverage for audiences.
“If it’s the same journalists contacting the same sources over and over, you’ll end up with a pretty homogeneous news product,” Denham says. “With greater diversity among those reporting the news, you might get valuable perspectives you otherwise would not have considered.”
Williams, Weaver, Kerns and Gramlich are also encouraged by the increased presence of women in the field, which, as incremental as it may be, they don’t want to ignore. The number of women in upper management roles and the number of female reporters in the 2025 APSE workforce data analysis increased 6.9 and 1.5 percentage points, respectively, from the previous report published in 2021. The overall female representation in these newsrooms jumped from 19.3 percent in 2021 to 22.4 percent.
“I still feel like there’s a fight to get people to care and to really showcase players, tell stories and get people to watch, but I don’t feel like I’m screaming from a mountaintop anymore,” Gramlich says.
Madison Williams ’18
Top right photo provided by NFL, bottom right provided by Panini
‘Shoot Your Shot’
Growth means there had to be a starting point, which isn’t lost on the group either. They’re grateful for the women who broke the barrier well before they came along, and they hope to use the opportunities they’ve been afforded to help the visibility of women in sports media become more of the norm.
They’re adamant about empowering those next in line, too. Weaver advises anyone aspiring to join them in the industry to be the hardest-working person in the room because “nobody’s ever going to discredit a person who shows up and works to the best of their ability every day,” she says.
Gramlich offers an even simpler piece of advice echoed by the others that’s no
less salient.
“Shoot your shot. Go after what you want,” Gramlich says. “The reason why I’m even with ACC Network is because the executive producer followed me on (X). And I said, ‘OK, I’m going to send my reel that I had acquired and done at Clemson.’”
Gramlich’s sentiment is fitting considering they all took aim during their time in college — an experience that instilled the confidence to pursue their passions. As alumnae, the group has leveraged that same confidence to continue reshaping the landscape of sports media. They’re not only thriving in their work but also helping to drive a shift toward a more inclusive industry — today and tomorrow.
Davis Potter is the associate editor of Clemson World magazine.
Portrait photography by Ashley Jones.
