Heather Cox (born Heather Schoeny on June 3, 1970) is an American sportscaster who is a sports reporter for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. As Heather Schoeny, she played college

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

at University of the Pacific.

Biography

High school

Cox attended

Capistrano Valley High School Capistrano Valley High School (often called CVHS or Capo) is a public high school at the southern border of Mission Viejo, California, USA, that is run by the Capistrano Unified School District. It is set on a hilltop overlooking the San Diego Fre ...

Mission Viejo Mission Viejo ( ; corruption of ''Misión Vieja'', Spanish for "Old Mission") is a commuter city in the Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California, United States. Mission Viejo is considered one of the largest master-planned communities eve ...

, CA, and was a star player on both the basketball and volleyball teams there. Repeated injuries led her to choose volleyball as her collegiate sport.

Volleyball career

Cox's collegiate athletic career included four years (1988 to 1991) on the University of the Pacific (Division I) women's volleyball team, serving as team captain on a team that was ranked in the top five nationally from 1988 to 1991, reached the Final Four and was a national championship runner-up in 1990. Cox graduated from the University of the Pacific with a degree in

communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

in 1992. She was a member of the United States National Volleyball Team from 1987 to 1995 and competed at the United States Olympic Festival in 1990. Cox played professional volleyball in the National Volleyball Association as team captain of the Sacramento Stars.

Broadcasting career

ESPN

From 1994-2016, Cox served as a reporter for

ABC Sports ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Televisi ...

and

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

's coverage of the ''

NBA on ESPN The ''NBA on ESPN'' is the branding used for the presentation of National Basketball Association (NBA) games on the ESPN family of networks. The ESPN cable network first televised NBA games from 1982 until 1984, and has been airing games curren ...

'', ''

NBA on ABC The ''NBA on ABC'' is an American presentation of National Basketball Association (NBA) games produced by ESPN, and televised on ABC. After the ABC Sports division was integrated with its cable sister network in September 2006, broadcasts have s ...

'',

college football on ABC ''ESPN College Football on ABC'' is the branding used for broadcasts of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football games that are produced by ESPN, and televised on ABC in the Uni ...

college football on ESPN ''ESPN College Football'' is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I FBS college football across ESPN properties, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN+, ABC, ESPN Classic, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPNews and ESPN Radio. ''ESPN Colle ...

, NCAA basketball on ESPN, NCAA basketball on ABC, the WNBA and professional

. Beginning in 1994, she also served as the analyst for ESPN's coverage of the men's and women's NCAA Volleyball Championships and women's NCAA basketball. In 2012, Cox was named as

Erin Andrews Erin Jill Andrews (born May 4, 1978) is an American sportscaster, television personality, and actress. She rose to prominence as a correspondent on the American cable sports channel ESPN after joining the network in 2004. She later joined Fox S ...

's replacement on ABC's ''Saturday Night College Football Game of the Week''.

Other work

Cox began her broadcast career as a basketball analyst for

Fox Sports Net Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

in 1993 and covered college football, professional basketball and volleyball during her tenure at Fox Sports Net. Cox worked as a columnist for the

Pac-10 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division ...

, writing a weekly national volleyball column in 2000. From 1999 to 2000, she served as a reporter on ''Running with the Pac'' magazine show. Cox has also worked for

CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...

, reporting on the men's NCAA basketball tournament,

motocross Motocross is a form of off-road motorcycle racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. The sport evolved from motorcycle trials competitions held in the United Kingdom. History Motocross first evolved in Britain from motorcycle trials competiti ...

and

auto racing Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

, and as an analyst on its women's college basketball coverage. She also served as an analyst and reporter for the 1998 and 2001 Goodwill Games for

Turner Sports Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (WBD Sports) is the division of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) that is responsible for sports broadcasts on its parent company's various channels in the United States, including TBS, TNT, AT&T SportsNet, and TruTV. ...

. In 2002, she reported on the NBA Playoffs. She served as analyst for

Oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as ...

media network's coverage of the WNBA. She also served as a reporter for Olympic qualifying volleyball on the Oxygen media network. Cox is the recipient of the 2004 USA Volleyball E. Douglas Boyden Media Recognition Award.

NBC and NFL Network

From 2003 until its end, Cox served as a reporter on NBC's AVP pro beach volleyball coverage. She made her NBC Olympic debut reporting from both the

and beach volleyball competitions at the 2004 Athens Games. Cox returned to NBC Sports for Olympic assignments as beach volleyball reporter in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

. During the

2016 Summer Paralympics The 2016 Summer Paralympics (), the 15th Summer Paralympic Games, were a major international multi-sport event for disabled sports, athletes with disabilities governed by the International Paralympic Committee, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, fro ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, Cox served as a poolside reporter for American paralympic broadcaster NBCSN during the

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

competitions at the Paralympics. Cox currently works as a sideline reporter for

Golf Channel Golf Channel (also verbally referred to as simply Golf) is an American sports television network owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama, it is currently based out of NBC S ...

, and NBC’s Olympic coverage. She previously worked the sidelines for

Thursday Night Football ''Thursday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''TNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time (8:20 prior to 20 ...

broadcasts on NBC and NFL Network. She also worked alongside

Michele Tafoya Michele Tafoya is an American former sportscaster. From 2011 to 2022, she was a reporter for NBC Sports, primarily as a sideline reporter for ''NBC Sunday Night Football''. She currently works as a political advisor and makes television appear ...

on NBC’s two NFL playoff broadcasts for the 2016 season.

References

External links

NBC Sports profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, Heather American television sports announcers College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers National Football League announcers Motorsport announcers National Basketball Association broadcasters University of the Pacific (United States) alumni Women sports announcers 1970 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American women's volleyball players Olympic Games broadcasters Women's National Basketball Association announcers Beach Volleyball commentators Pacific Tigers women's volleyball players Women's college basketball announcers in the United States