Multichannel News is pleased to announce that ESPN reporter Shelley Smith will co-host the March 10 Wonder Women luncheon event at the New York Hilton. The event, co-sponsored by the New York chapter of Women in Cable Telecommunications, will honor 13 Wonder Women and 13 Women to Watch, selected by the editors of the magazine in recognition of their leadership and contributions to companies and organizations in multichannel TV and related industries.
Read more about the 18th class of Wonder Women and Women to Watch at our editorial coverage page and at the event site: mcnwonderwomen.com.
Smith joins previously announced co-hosts Lori Greiner, the entrepreneur and co-host of ABC’s Shark Tank, and Egypt Sherrod, the real-estate expert and host of HGTV’s Property Virgins and Flipping Virgins.
Shelley Smith is a four-time Emmy-winning reporter for ESPN who joined the network in January 1997. She has covered just about every sporting event in existence, and has done many long-form features and investigative stories for a multitude of shows.
A former writer-reporter at Sports Illustrated, Smith has written extensively for ESPN.com and various ESPN in-house entities. She also has written three books – Just Give Me The Damn Ball, with former New York Jets and current ESPN analyst Keyshawn Johnson; You Play to Win The Game, with former head coach and current ESPN analyst Herm Edwards; and Games Girls Play: Lessons to Guiding and Understanding Young Female Athletes.
In May 2014, Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent treatment, which ended June 2015. A recent mammogram showed no evidence of disease and she is considered cancer free.
In 2015, ESPN featured a story about Smith and her relationship with Jake Olson, whom she met as a 12-year-old about to lose his sight to cancer. Despite so many odds, Olson made his high school football team as a long snapper and this fall is a walk-on on the USC Trojans football team. Smith has documented his journey and, in the most recent feature, talked with him about their battle to beat cancer.
Smith has one daughter, Dylann Tharp, who was an All-Pac-12 Conference second team soccer player at the University of Oregon and is a freelance producer with NFL Network and other entities. In October 2015, Tharp and Smith teamed with Keyshawn Johnson to produce a 30 for 30 documentary, The Trojan War, about the 2005 USC Trojans and their appearance in the BCS national championship game against eventual victor Texas.
Smith (Twitter ID: @ShelleyESPN) continues to help spread the importance of early detection in breast and other kinds of cancers and has consulted with numerous charities, including the V Foundation, the American Cancer Society and the National Breast Cancer Foundation. In 2015, she teamed with InfiniteLimitsMedia, a production group out of Seattle, documenting her first post-treatment mammogram, done on state-of-the art 3D machinery. Entitled Triumphant, it, for the first time, gave doctors proof that the cancer is gone.
Follow Wonder Women news on Twitter (@MCNWonderWomen) and at www.multichannel.com/mcnww.
