Samantha Ponder (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Steele; born December 11, 1985) is an American sportscaster who most recently hosted '' Sunday NFL Countdown'' on

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

. Prior to hosting Sunday NFL Countdown, Ponder worked as a reporter and host for

college football and as a basketball sideline reporter. Ponder replaced

Erin Andrews Erin Jill Andrews (born May 4, 1978) is an American sportscaster and television personality. She rose to prominence as a correspondent on the American cable sports channel ESPN after joining the network in 2004. She later joined Fox Sports in 2 ...

on '' College GameDay'' Saturdays at 10 AM ET on ESPN, as well as co-host of the Saturday 9 AM ET edition on ESPNU. In addition to her duties on College Gameday, Ponder had been the regular sideline reporter for ESPN's Thursday Night College Football with

Rece Davis William Laurece Davis (born ) is an American sports television journalist for ESPN/ESPN on ABC, ABC. Davis works as an anchor on ''SportsCenter'' and serves as host of various other programs on the network, including ''College GameDay (football ...

Jesse Palmer Jesse James Palmer (born October 5, 1978) is a Canadian television personality, sports commentator, and former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for five seasons in the early 2000s. Palmer played ...

, and

David Pollack David M. Pollack (born June 19, 1982) is an American college football analyst and former player who was a linebacker two seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the University of Georgia, was a three-time ...

from August 2012 until 2014. Ponder also appeared on the ESPN-owned Texas-oriented regional network

Longhorn Network Longhorn Network (LHN) was an American regional sports network owned as a joint venture between The University of Texas at Austin, ESPN and Learfield (formerly IMG College), and was operated by ESPN (itself owned jointly by The Walt Disney Compa ...

Biography

Born in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...

, Ponder attended Central High School in Phoenix. Ponder first attended The King's College in New York City after high school. While in New York City, she applied for a hostess job at ESPN Zone where she met Ben Keeperman, a college football researcher and manager with ABC Sports Radio, which led to an internship at the network, which in turn led to a researcher-assistant job with ABC-TV on the college football studio show. She transferred to

Liberty University Liberty University (LU), known simply as Liberty, is a Private university, private Evangelicalism in the United States, evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia, United States. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservativ ...

after Liberty's Sr. Sports Producer Bruce Carey offered her a job as sideline reporter for the Liberty Flames sports television network. After graduating in 2009, she worked 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 ...

and

Fox College Sports Stadium College Sports (formerly Fox College Sports) was a group of three American sports networks. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and Allen Media Group (under the joint venture Diamond Sports Group), the three channels aired college and hig ...

as a sideline reporter for

Pac-10 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level for all sports, and its football teams compete in the Football Bowl ...

and

Big 12 The Big 12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities (3 private universities and 13 public universities) in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Okla ...

college basketball and football games. On July 7, 2011,

announced that it had hired Ponder as a sideline reporter. Ponder, along with Kevin Dunn and Lowell Galindo, were the newly created network's first three talent hires. After accepting her position with the

, Ponder relocated to

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

. In August 2024, ESPN fired Ponder, removing her as host of ''Sunday NFL Countdown''.

Personal life

Ponder is a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

. After briefly dating, she married then-

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. The Vikings compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. Founded in 1960 as ...

quarterback Christian Ponder on December 17, 2012, in

Hudson, Wisconsin Hudson is a city in and the county seat of St. Croix County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 14,755. It is part of the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. History Several Li ...

. She started appearing on ESPN/ABC broadcasts by her married name, starting with the January 1, 2013 broadcast of the CapitalOne Bowl. The couple have three children.

References

External links

Samantha Steele Ponder
on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

ESPN biography of PonderBattleBots
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponder, Samantha Living people Liberty University alumni American television sports announcers ESPN people American sports announcers American sports journalists Christians from Arizona Journalists from Arizona College football announcers College basketball announcers in the United States Television personalities from Phoenix, Arizona American women sports commentators 1985 births