Jane Kennedy Overton: Breaking Barriers in Sports Broadcasting

When a stranger posted a photo to Instagram in 2018, Jane Kennedy Overton had no idea what she was looking at. The image showed a wall inside the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture — specifically, the Oprah Winfrey wing's exhibit on Television and Media Pioneers. Among the names: Nat King Cole, the Supremes, Diahann Carroll, Nichelle Nichols - and Jane Kennedy, seated at the desk of NFL Today.

She hadn't been told. No one had called. She found out the way anyone might — scrolling through her phone on an ordinary morning.

The recognition carried particular weight because of what it took to get there. In 1978, Kennedy became the first Black woman to earn a seat on CBS's NFL Today, one of the most-watched sports programs in the country. The path wasn't straightforward. Network executives, supportive of her talent, still faced pressure over the racial makeup of the set. With two Black cast members and one white, there were fears that southern affiliates would pull the broadcast. The solution: move Jimmy the Greek from off-desk to on-desk, balancing the visual to two Black and two white. That calculation, as much as her audition tape, is what got her hired.

Kennedy had prepared carefully. Before stepping in front of the camera, she called a friend in the NBA and asked what athletes actually want from an interviewer. His answer cut through the noise: don't worry about the questions, just make them feel you're their friend. She took that to heart, and it anchored a career that stretched across multiple decades.

Her path to NFL Today had already covered considerable ground. She won the Miss Ohio pageant, performed on the Dean Martin Show, and built a presence in Hollywood before sports broadcasting became her defining stage. Bob Costas would later call NFL Today the best football pregame show ever produced. For Kennedy, that assessment meant something.

Years after stepping back from the spotlight, she wrote a memoir at the urging of her family. Plain Jane is structured in four quarters — each named for a version of herself across different chapters of life. Jane Harrison, her maiden name and her childhood. Jane Kennedy, her first marriage and her rise in Hollywood. Jane Overton, her second marriage and the years she built a family. And the final quarter: Plain Jane, the search for who she is when she is no longer defined by her roles as mother, wife, or daughter.