Years after winning her Northwest Regional Emmy, sports broadcaster and 1979 Creighton alumna Ann Schatz still gets a little teary-eyed when she talks about it. Plated in gold, the trophy takes the shape of a winged woman tilting her head up to the sky, her hands wrapped around an atom. She stands as a symbol of unshakable resolve, of both her triumph and the indomitable will that brought her here. The atom, a representation of arts and science in television. The trophy, a full circle moment wrought with years of hard work, dedication, struggle and success. For someone who has spent her career giving her all to the game, it was a moment she never expected, but one that her years of sacrifice and perseverance paved the way for.
But long before she won an Emmy in 2022, before she became a broadcaster for the Pac12 Network, before she received the coveted first Tonya Harding interview, and before she became the first woman sportscaster in both Omaha and Portland, Oregon, Schatz never dreamed she would work in sports. Literally — those opportunities didn’t exist.
“There was no such thing for women at the time…,” Schatz said. “Not as far as sports broadcasting… I wasn’t going to say, ‘I wanna be like her,’ or…‘I wonder how she got started.’ There were no hers. There was no one.”
Born and raised in Omaha with brothers and a lively community teeming with athletic neighborhood boys, sports played a major role in her life from an early age. Thus, it seemed natural that Schatz would be a multisport athlete when she started her college journey at Creighton playing basketball and softball.
Off the court and field, Schatz found a home in Creighton’s journalism department, and she realized her inclination towards writing would be better served if she switched majors from English. She ended up graduating with degrees in Journalism and Mass Communications.
“There was a good mix of men and women in the journalism department — a really healthy mix — which was…very progressive at that point… There wasn’t a lot of emphasis on the journalism department at Creighton, and yet we had some great instructors and some really good opportunities,” she said. “[My advisor] helped me get an internship at WOWTV when I was still in college, and that really helped me a lot. My time at Creighton was fantastic.”
Her background as an athlete, combined with her love for storytelling, led Schatz toward a career path that didn’t yet exist; it was one she would later create. She experienced firsthand the challenges and triumphs of her peers, immersing herself in the very stories she would one day bring to life — a perspective that would prove pivotal to her success.
“I know what it’s like to be on the free throw line when you’re down by one and it’s a one-and-one situation. I know what it’s like to be up with two down and two strikes and the bases loaded and you’re down by one… [so] I could ask the right questions,” Schatz said. “I could get in their heads and hearts… It was immeasurably important for me that I had those experiences as an athlete…and that helps me tell their stories, and…shine a light on them with a lot of empathy and a lot of compassion… From day one, that still applies.”
Out of college, Schatz got hired at KMTV—first in a part-time weekend slot, but she quickly worked her way up to becoming Omaha’s first female sports broadcaster. She broke society’s expectations for who a sportscaster was; in other words, she wasn’t a man. That simple fact put her under a microscope, constantly scrutinized for her every move by fans who wanted to prove a woman couldn’t cover sports.
“It’s just different when you’re the only female [in the field]. You’re judged differently, you’re attacked differently — you’re held to different standards,” Schatz said. “You certainly don’t have as much room; you don’t get as much grace. Your mistakes are magnified, because [everyone wants to be the first to say] ‘See, I told you a female couldn’t do this.’”
The backlash in Omaha was real, but it subsided faster because of her connections to her hometown community. People knew and trusted her. It was when she moved to Oregon to work for KOIN as Portland’s first female sports broadcaster that the hate further intensified.
Facing the backlash wasn’t an easy feat, seeming to be an insurmountable challenge at times. Constantly harassed by crowds, she boldly put on a composed facade. Looking back, Schatz doesn’t think that people could see her struggle with their harshness. It was the times she was alone that the hurt would sink in and her facade would crumble.
“On the way home from the station to my apartment, I would shed some tears… I just wasn’t used to being hated,” she said.
But one of Schatz’s saving graces was her co-workers. Those were the men who did support her.
“Nobody, in terms of where I workedwhether it was colleagues, peers, or the folks who hired me, news directors, general managers—not a single one of those people quit on me. Not a single one, and how I will be grateful for that forever,” she said.
The other saving grace — herself. Schatz’s grit and determination lifted her above all of the hate-filled noise.
“[My mindset was] ‘I just have to be really good at what I do,’” she said. “‘[I’ve] got to be better than the guys, quicker than the guys, more accurate than the guys. I’ve got to come up with better story ideas. I need to be a cut above the guys because I’m judged and critiqued differently.’ Boom. That’s all there was to it.”
The more time Schatz spent reporting and anchoring in the sports world, the more people finally started to accept her. Her work was high-quality and well-executed, and people were eventually forced to admit that.
“At some point you’re just going to get tired of hating me… And they did… I can tell you unequivocally with great pride that I earn[ed] the respect of those viewers, and I’ve earned it every step of the way. And it did not come easily, but by God, I earned it,” she said with all the Midwestern humility she could muster.
Aside from her hard work, dedication to her craft and pure talent, part of what contributed to Schatz’s success was the perspective that had been absent in this industry.
“I truly believe that we [women] bring this [empathetic], relational, compassionate component to what we do,” she said. “And you’d be surprised. These are grown men and women who respond to that, if it’s genuine, consistent and authentic. I believe that many, many women in this field and industry bring that to the table, and I think it sets them apart.”
This ability to form meaningful relationships has served Schatz throughout her career, but especially when it helped lead her to one of her most notable career moments: an exclusive interview with Tonya Harding following the figure skater’s 1994 scandal. Though just a brief conversation through a car window, it was the first one-on-one interview Harding accepted amidst the controversy.
“[Harding and I] just developed a really good relationship and she trusted me, and you cannot put a price tag on that… It was a great reminder [that] you better go into this interview, or you better go into this story, with that person in mind. This isn’t about you. It can’t be about you, it should never be about you. … This is about them. And when the person that you’re talking to can feel that; look what I got back… It was wonderful,” Schatz said.
Schatz’s ability to recognize what she has accomplished and what skills helped her get there has inspired her to share these insights with the next generation of aspiring women in sports.
Her biggest advice?
“Relationships are the most important thing in my world in terms of my profession. I don’t need to be the best. I don’t need to have the voice. I just want to…genuinely, authentically, relate to who I’m talking to,” Schatz said. “I understand that you’ve got to make your mark. But to worry about brand and ego and all that shit, is shit. Be honest, true, authentic, believable… That honesty, that trustworthiness, that integrity—that never gets old, and it rings true today.”
As one of the first women in sports broadcasting, and the very first in both Omaha and Portland, Schatz paved the way for women in the industry today. She knew that there wasn’t a roadmap for her to follow, so it was crucial to her to forge the path for women to come. According to the Pew Research Center in a 2022 study, 15% of sports reporting journalists are women. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start, and certainly up from near 0% like it was when Schatz first started.
Now, as she looks back on her nearly five-decade (and counting) career, it means so much more to her than just her Emmy — but that was “pretty cool.”