- Jamie Little will serve as the TV voice of the ARCA Racing Series in 2021
- She started her career in the late 90s as a motocross correspondent
- Little has spent two decades breaking barriers and expectations
After several years spent behind the camera, Jamie Little asked her then bosses at ESPN to give her a shot in front of it.
They granted that request, albeit with a warning.
"I said, 'give me a chance, I'll do anything' and they said I could do X Games, 'but if you let me down, there's no coming back,'" Little recalls.
That was 2002, 18 years ago, and Little continues to break barriers and shatter the expectations of what a motorsports broadcaster should look and sound like. She will make history again in February at Daytona when she becomes the play-by-play voice of the ARCA Racing Series on FOX Sports.
That assignment will make her the first woman to serve as the television voice of a national motorsport series.
However, it's far far from the first time she’s made history, previously becoming the first female pit reporter for the Indianapolis 500 and the first female pit reporter to have covered the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 in the same season.
Fox
Prior to that, she was the first female to cover a televised Supercross and motocross event -- and one of the first to provide on-screen reports from ESPN's signature X Games.
Little, 42, grew up a self-described 'tomboy' in the Lake Tahoe region but moved to Las Vegas as a teenager where she was introduced to the dirt bike scene by freestyle motocross, motorcycle and off-road racer Carey Hart.
It changed her life.
"I thought their lifestyles were just incredible," Little said. "They were breaking their bones, home-schooled and following the series around, living their dreams and trying to make their dreams a reality. I thought this was the good stuff and I really just wanted to tell their stories."
In high school, Little earned the reputation as the cool girl with all the dirt bike magazines, but realized that no one behind those publications looked or sounded like she did.
"They were all older men," Little said. "Why couldn’t I be that person with the microphone, sharing these stories with an audience?"
Little initially rejected the idea of attending college. She just wanted to live on the road and travel to motos every week. After graduating high school, she approached a reporter at a motocross event and asked how she could enter the field.
"He told me I could practice stand-ups, and that I could ask the questions, but I just wouldn't be shown on camera," Little said. "So, I literally did that for two and a half years.
"I finally went to school at San Diego State, because while I had a vision, I also knew that I needed something to fall back on. I went to school Monday through Friday and traveled with him, making $500 on the weekends.
"I had just enough time to cover Supercross on Saturdays, get home on Sunday to finish homework, and be right back in class on Monday morning."
That’s when she pushed ESPN to become an on-screen presenter, the request that was met with a ‘yes’ but also a 'don’t screw this up.'
Naturally, Little was flawless, and her stature only grew with each assignment.
Finally, there is a reporter that looks like little girls who attend races and want to enter the industry. Long considered an old boys club, women are now professionally driving race cars, turning wrenches on them, and reporting on the lifestyle.
That responsibility is not lost on Little.
"I always looked at myself as one of the boys," Little said. "I knew I looked different and they saw me differently, but I just wanted to blend in and fit in, and have fans say I was their favorite reporter.
"At the same time, I appreciated being the lone female reporter because I realize the barriers I broke down, and I look at that as a responsibility. … So, for me, it's a confirmation that no job is off limits. If you want to do play-by-play, or if you want to be a race day engineer for a team, or if you want to drive a race car, have at it, it doesn't matter because you can do anything you want."
And make no mistake, Little absolutely wanted the chance to do play-by-play someday.
"You always think in the back of your mind if you’ll ever have the chance and I always told myself ‘no,’ because there’s never been a woman there," Little said. "I don’t know how that would happen and I’m happy with where I am in the pits.
"So maybe being in the booth wasn’t going to be for me, which is a shame, because I had the chance to call an Xfinity Series practice session at Michigan a couple of years ago, and I enjoyed it so much more than I had anticipated. … So, I kind of got the buzz then."
Fox
The genesis of Little becoming the play-by-play voice for the ARCA Racing Series actually began with a phone call from NBC Sports broadcaster Leigh Diffey -- the voice of the NTT IndyCar Series, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Series and formerly of F1.
Diffey believed it was past time for a woman to join his peers in the play-by-play community.
Just as Little called her bosses at ESPN and successfully nudged them to make her an on-screen personality, Diffey nudged her to do the same with FOX and any upcoming play-by-play opportunities.
"With the way other sports are elevating women to play-by-play roles, especially in football, who says that a the play-by-play (position) needs to be a man," Diffey said. "I'm not trying to do myself out of a job or anything.
"I just thought it made a lot of sense with the tiered NASCAR system they have at FOX with ARCA and the Truck Series, and Jamie is a big part of that.
"It was a random thought, and I just gave her a call and said 'hey, have you ever thought about this?' I'm a schoolteacher in a previous lifetime and I get to talk to a lot of younger people and I enjoy motivating people, whether it be interns or younger people in the industry or my own colleagues around me.
"I don't know why, but I really enjoy motivating people, and I get a buzz out of it. So, I just threw this one her way."
The phone call made the difference, and Little sent an email to Jacob Ullman, FOX Sports Senior VP of Production and Talent Development, expressing her interest in giving play-by-play a shot.
"It's a boring answer but when she called me, I immediately though that ARCA was the logical place to try this," Ullman said. "It's a national series that provides a national platform to get live reps.
"I thought that, but I didn't tell her because I didn't want to get her hopes up."
But that was the entire point of the Diffey's phone call. What was the worst thing the FOX Sports decision-makers could say?
"I told her, 'You know, if you ask a question, and the answer you get is 'no,' you're no worse off than where you are now, so why don't you just ask the question? Pitch it," Diffey said. "Pitch it to your bosses and ask them if they ever thought about it.
"I said, 'look, I have a tremendous amount of pride in being the first foreign voice to call the Indy 500 for the U.S. audience. Obviously, Jackie Stewart and David Hobbs did it but they're not play-by-play, they're analysts. I was the first foreign voice to call NASCAR in the U.S. when I did The Glen and Michigan.
"So obviously, when you're the first, it carries a lot of weight to it and it means a lot personally."
Diffey told Little to imagine telling her grand-kids that she was the first play-by-play TV voice of a NASCAR national touring division.
"I started to think about it and after five minutes, I thought to myself, 'he's right' and I decided to reach out to my boss at FOX Sports in LA and said 'Jacob, I think I'm ready and I think I would like the opportunity,'" Little said. "I knew everything was full, but I wanted to plant the seed."
Ullman said NASCAR enthusiastically endorsed the idea and it was approved by FOX Sports EVP Brad Zager.
"Again, it’s not a dramatic or epic story because we just broached the idea by all the parties involved and everyone said it makes all the sense in the world," Ullman added.
So Little is spending the winter learning about the expected roster and community. She will continue to serve as a pit road reporter as most FOX Sports ARCA races are also Cup and Xfinity companion events. It’s not too dissimilar to spending her weekdays at San Diego State and her weekends at Supercross events.
"I love being a pit reporter," Little said. "I still get butterflies for Daytona. I approach races just like I did at the start.
"So, for this new challenge, I was telling someone earlier that I feel like I'm starting over and that I'm a rookie again. I'm going through new notes and studying ARCA. It's healthy to get out of your comfort zone. So, what's next for me? I have no idea. People have always asked: What's next, Monday Night Football and I say I'm already there. The Cup Series is my Monday Night Football. Now, going to play-by-play, I don't see it getting any bigger for me."
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The Link LonkDecember 08, 2020 at 08:51AM
https://www.autoweek.com/racing/nascar/a34899147/from-dirt-bikes-to-daytona-or-how-jamie-little-is-blazing-trails-in-nascar/
From Dirt (Bikes) to Daytona or How Jamie Little is Blazing Trails in NASCAR - Autoweek
https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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