FAVORITE INTERVIEWEE? LEAST BENEFICIAL?
“We were all sad when Donovan Mitchell
said he was entering the draft,” Harding
said. “He was our clutch locker room
interview after Louisville basketball
games. I always knew I was going to get
something great, truthful and honest. Just
a terrific kid and a joy to cover.” “I’m forever conscious of my looks, my
weight. And when the station gets emails
from people commenting on how I look, it
triggers all the old emotions.”
MEMORABLE TEAM? “I get comments on my lipstick color, my hair
length, the things I wear. And I get nitpicked
if I say just one thing wrong. You know, ‘A
girl has no business covering sports.’ I don’t
have a thin skin, I’m used to being criticized
in the public eye. But it can get to you.
“When I went to Nashville in 2015 to cover
the SEC basketball tournament, I wasn’t
sure what to expect from that Kentucky
team,” she said. “They were undefeated,
ranked No. 1 in the country. Would they
be all full of themselves?” What she found
was “a great bunch of kids.”
“They’d been made into this larger-than-
life thing, but Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie
Cauley-Stein, Dakari Johnson, Devon
Booker, Tyler Ulis, they were just kids
having fun. They didn’t drink their own
Kool-Aid.”
Towns was an All-American, first draft
pick, now an NBA superstar, “but he’s
probably the same kid today that he was
then.”
THE COOLEST ASSIGNMENT?
“I was working at a cable news station
in Johannesburg, South Africa, as part
of a residency program while I was at
Northwestern,” she said. “And the World
Cup was there that year (in 2010). My
family is originally from Spain, and soccer
is our passion. The Spanish team is usually
eliminated early in the tournament. But
that year, it won!”
MOST BENEFICIAL PART OF HER
GYMNASTICS TRAINING?
“I’m conscientious, a perfectionist, a strong
work ethic, good time-management skills,
well-organized. And I’m competitive.”
24 EXTOL SPORTS / JULY 2017
DO PEOPLE REALLY COMMENT
ON HER LOOKS?
“I answer every single e-mail. I’m always
polite, but I also try to remind them that
there’s a human being behind the TV
personality, and I hope they know that.”
THE OTHER HUMAN BEING BEHIND
THE TV PERSONALITY?
“My husband, Kyle Higaki. He’s a social
media strategist. We met at a bar in Chicago
while I was at Northwestern.” A mutual
friend put them together.
“We live in the Highlands. It reminds us of
Chicago.”
“He went to Ohio State. After the Buckeyes
beat Northwestern in 2013, on a bad fourth-
down call, we didn’t talk for more than
three hours. That was the most intense our
apartment has ever been.”
“He’s truly special because he’s never
threatened by my sports obsession or
knowledge, or what I do for a living. On the
contrary he loves it – and that’s so hard to
find.”
“I always said I would marry a lacrosse
player, and I did.”
girls when we go through puberty.”
She said the coach would monitor her water
intake, because too much water would make
her heavier. And, as with many young girls who
hear the words “too fat,” Harding developed an
eating disorder.
The coach dropped her, and she had to coach
herself for an entire year for the Junior Olympic
Nationals.
“It showed me the power and strength that
were within me,” she recalled.
Then the minimum age rule for Olympic
competitors was changed after the 1996 games
in Atlanta, from 15 to 16. Which meant Harding,
born in 1985, was now too young for the 2000
Olympics, in Sydney, and – unbelievable as
it seems – approaching “too old” for the 2004
Olympics, in Athens. She’d be turning 19 that year.
The Olympics hang over the heads of young
athletes like Harding. She said the question she
was always asked, and the one she hated, was,
“Do you think you’ll make the Olympics?” (“All