Fox Sports sideline reporter Pam Oliver is expected to rouse quite a bit of attention at Sunday’s Super Bowl, all because of a little misplaced hair, Philly.com reports.
As it turns out, the veteran TV sports reporter made the grievous mistake of having a bad hair day, and it ignited a twitter storm, with people comparing her to Chewbacca and more. Her auburn highlights were a bit wonky and her hair did look a little messy, the news site notes, but it still left more than a few people wondering since when sports was about criticizing the reporter’s looks instead of paying attention to the analysis.
Sadly, this has not been Oliver’s first ride in this rodeo. She has long been the subject of cruel tweets and comments about her hair virtually every game day. There are several parody Twitter accounts about her hair. However, Oliver has a job to do, and she lets these things just roll right off her shoulder.
"It's the psychology of it that I want to understand," she told the Philly reporter earlier this week. "It's comical. This whole thing is just comical."
After all, it’s not like she’s there just to stand, hold a mic and look pretty.
"I do my own hair and makeup—insert joke here," she quipped. "I'm up early. I'm at the stadium about four hours before the game, just going over some last-minute stuff and then waiting for some players to come out, which is generally two hours before the game.
"You're out there, trying a to catch players, get some last-minute stuff, get your reports turned around quickly, and I may or may not have time to put on lip gloss or powder my face," Oliver added, pointing out that she doesn't have hairstylists and makeup artists with her on game day. "I know TV is a visual medium, but there are times when you kind of hope that people are listening to what you're saying as opposed to judging you if a strand of hair is not in place or if you have only got one eye lined or something.
"That's naive of me. I get it. But there are times I get so tunnel-visioned and focused on what I'm doing to the point of maybe letting that other stuff fall by the wayside. It's not intentional. You want to look your best on TV," she told the reporter.
Oliver has long been a focused individual. Ever since she graduated from Florida A&M University in 1984, the reporter worked at TV stations across the country from Georgia to Alabama to New York, Florida and Texas.
She’s been with Fox Sports for 19 years and counting. Earlier this season she suffered a concussion after being struck by a football on the sideline. And there is much talk about the fact that her contract with Fox is expiring and has not yet been renewed. So Oliver takes her job very seriously.
"Usually, the most important thing to me is getting my information and getting it right and hoping that everything else is going well with the hair and what little makeup I have left and go from there," she said. "I'm a little focused on what I'm doing. Maybe too much for people's liking."
However, she doesn’t plan on changing her ways for Super Bowl Sunday, pointing out the double standards that exist for men and women when it comes to broadcasting.
"It's just not even close. A guy can wear the same tie every other week and it's not even an issue. But if a woman is on and a strand of hair is out of place or if there's a little piece of something in your hair, people go crazy. It's always been that way. It's never going to change," she said. "Men get away with a lot more than a woman can."
At one point the reporter was even criticized for the lines on her face, saying that a viewer pointed out one around her mouth. Still, she brushes the comments away in the air.
"You just hope that ultimately people will judge you on your body of work and what you've spent your whole career doing, as opposed to … if you have lines around your mouth,” she said.
Read more at Philly.com.