Stephanie Ready
*Stephanie Ready was born on this date in 1975. She is a Black TV broadcaster and semi-professional basketball coach.
Born in Takoma Park, Maryland, Ready attended National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., followed by Coppin State University in Baltimore, where she played basketball and volleyball for the Coppin State Eagles. She ranked in the top 10 on the basketball career list in steals (2nd), assists (4th), points (8th), and rebounds (10th). Ready graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
Coppin State’s athletic director urged Ready to hold off on graduate school and instead pursue coaching, and he hired Ready to coach the women’s volleyball team. Ready then assisted him on the bench for Coppin State’s men’s basketball team. She became only the third woman ever to coach Division I men’s basketball. Of the three, Ready was the only woman allowed to recruit off-campus. From 2001 to 2003, she was an assistant coach for the now-defunct Greenville Groove of the National Basketball Development League (now the G-league).
She started as a Bobcats’ sideline reporter in 2004-05. In 2006 and 2007, Ready worked as a sideline reporter during the first and second rounds of the Women’s Final Four of college basketball for ESPN2. Ready was also a part-time sideline reporter for TNT during the 2006 and 2007 NBA Playoffs and the WNBA Playoffs on ESPN2 during 2006. After several years as the Hornets’ sideline reporter and host on Fox Sports Carolinas, Ready was named an analyst on August 27, 2015; in 2018, she moved to Turner Sports.
