CBS Sports Ambassador

Nyla Cherry was one of 14 student-athletes chosen from each Big Ten institution to attend the CBS Sports Ambassador Program on March 14-17. The University of Maryland track and field athlete was afforded the unique opportunity to network with media professionals and grow her passion for sports media.

Cherry is a Philip Merrill College of Journalism student who has a keen interest in broadcast journalism. She hopes to be a sports broadcaster covering football on camera one day. She spent four days in Minneapolis watching the behind-the-scenes of the 2024 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament and cultivating impactful experiences as a member of the second cohort.

The Baltimore native was grateful for the opportunity and was reassured that she was pursuing the right profession.

“Being an athlete and a woman of color, I'm beyond blessed to have been there and met the people I met,” Cherry said. “I did things that people go through their entire lives without doing and I was doing it at the age of 19. There’s only one word that I can think of to describe it, it's just blessings. I'm so thankful to God for the opportunity.”

The CBS Sports Ambassador Program was created to develop CBS Sports’ diverse pipelines and connect their business to different communities. In return, it provides participants with a working knowledge of all facets of live broadcast preparation, game coverage, and post-broadcast activity.

It’s designed to create an impactful experience to give participants exposure, access, and knowledge about career opportunities while interacting with producers, directors, on-air talent and operation leads and executives.

Omar Brown, Senior Vice President of Community and Impact at the Big Ten Conference, says the program is a valuable opportunity available to Big Ten student-athletes.

"The CBS program demonstrates true partnership and flexibility by allowing our student-athletes to experience what a day in the life feels like as a CBS employee at the Big Ten tournament," he said. "Students get to spend time actually learning, doing and experiencing camera, television stats, working with talent and replay from a CBS perspective."

Cherry went through the program knowing what area of sports media she was interested in, but she says it was beneficial to members who weren’t sure of the direct route to take.

“The ambassador program gets you that exposure; it gets you out there,” she said. “You can know what you want to do, but also create your network and start building resources.”

Cherry met with the CBS production team on the first day of the program on Thursday, March 14. She got to sit in on the set of Big Ten Network press conferences and learned about all the production that goes into making it all happen.

She and her fellow student-athletes watched the Ohio State versus Iowa and Penn State versus Indiana games. They all participated by guiding puppies as they raced down the court for an event that was part of the halftime show. They then concluded the night by assisting with the post-game press conference for the final game.

The second day of the program was action-packed. Cherry began by having breakfast with CBS executives such as Mark Grant, Mark Wolf, and Ndidi Massay. This led to impactful conversations with each. Her dialogue with Massay, Vice President of Workplace Culture and Diversity Initiatives, resonated with her the most.

“We clicked because she talked about how she grew up in California, but most importantly, she grew up with a lot of brothers and was always playing with boys,” Cherry said. “I resonated with that because I grew up with an older brother. She was saying how hard it was for her growing up because she always wanted to play with the boys and never wanted to be treated any differently. That's kind of what pushed her now to her position.”

The group arrived at Target Center and met more executives and on-air talent while touring the production side of everything. They got to view the ins and outs of the Big Ten Network pregame show and watched Purdue take on Michigan State from the press box. Cherry even got to tour the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx facilities.

On Saturday, Cherry sat down for breakfast with NBA great and media personality Grant Hill.

“He inspired me because he was saying how much his sports background helped him to transition to being on air,” Cherry said. “All of those nerves that you experience before a game are similar to the ones that you experienced before going on air. We've kind of been immersed in sports our whole life. So not only do we understand sports, but we understand what it's like to be a part of a team and everybody working together towards a goal.”

The student-athlete then shadowed CBS camera operators and was able to operate a camera during Wisconsin's overtime upset win over Purdue. The experience didn’t end at just basketball, though. The program members watched the Big Ten Ice Hockey Semifinals, where Michigan edged out a 2-1 victory over Minnesota to move onto the championship game.

The group toured the Minnesota Vikings training facility on the final day before returning to Target Center for the Big Ten Championship game featuring Illinois and Wisconsin. Cherry says the atmosphere was indescribable, and she had never experienced anything like it before.

Cherry had many takeaways from the ambassador program, but she will never forget the people she networked with and had conversations with. She acknowledged as an athlete it can be hard to think about life after sports. But the opportunity afforded to her allowed her to explore what that life could entail.

“You're talking to the people who are in the position that you want to be in one day, and they can give you tips and tricks on how to get there,” Cherry said. “You never know they could be the ones interviewing you for your future position. So, it was just a really nice experience.”