Gator Alum Kristina Pink Visits UF

University of Florida alum Kristina Pink returned to campus for the first Sports Collective Symposium on Thursday.  This event is focused on informing students about their future career paths by hearing from CJC alumni professionals about the future of sports media and communications. Prior to the event, Pink spoke on her time at UF and how it led her to where she is today.

Pink Reflects on Time at UF

Pink graduated from UF in December 2007 where she earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in Telecommunications.

“I transferred into UF when I knew I wanted to get into Journalism and Communications,” Pink said.

She was impressed by the CJC the moment she walked into the campus TV Station.

“Back then, you couldn’t tell me this wasn’t CNN,” Pink said. “I was enthralled with the cameras, the green screen and teleprompters, I had never seen that before. They say you catch the news bug; I caught it but for me it was sports news.”

Once Pink got to campus, she started off by volunteering at WRUF.

“I got fully engrained in what it feels like to go to a bigtime college football school, and I fell in love with it,” Pink said. “I’ve been a sports fan all my life, but coming here fostered my dream of wanting to be a sports reporter.”

Pink’s first beat for the Gators was women’s basketball, but she also covered softball. In her last semester at UF she had the opportunity to cover Gators football, which at first she mentioned she was nervous for.

One semester Pink worked the morning line shift at WRUF.  She dedicated her time to working and improving her skills in the industry. Even though the early shift meant waking up at 3:30 a.m. and missing nights out with her friends, she loved it.

“I loved walking around campus, shooting stories around town, and learning how to write stories,” Pink said. “These are all tools that I still use today.”

She learned in radio how to be entertaining just by using her voice when doing sports updates on Steve Russell’s show.

First Job out of College

After graduation, Pink got her first job as a Sports Reporter at the Fox Affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi. It was a startup station that was supposed to launch in February 2008, but it didn’t end up launching until 2009. This ended up being a blessing in disguise for Pink.

Because of the time she had, she was able to spend a year learning about the Jackson area. She covered high school football, introduced herself to the coaches, and built relationships. Pink took the extra time to learn the dynamics before the station launched.

“I also covered Jackson State, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State,” Pink said. “I had a year to learn about this which is rare… I shot everything myself, I was able to produce, and it taught me how to get my work done quickly. I wouldn’t be here without that time.”

Current Job

Pink joined Fox Sports in 2012 where she currently works as an NFL reporter. She covers in-game and post-game interviews, as well as news, game notes, and stories for Fox NFL Coverage.

She also teams up with Joe Buck, Troy Alkman, Mike Pereira and Erin Andrews for Fox Sports coverage of Thursday Night Football. Additionally, she works as a courtside reporter for the Los Angeles Clippers.