2019 alumna creates scholarship for Grady Sports Media

This story was originally published on the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication’s website on April 30, 2020.

Not long after the University of Georgia paused instruction to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grady Sports Media undergraduate certificate program got an unexpected bit of good news.

Alumna Taylor Maggiore, who had just graduated in December, wanted to create a scholarship to further the advancement of women in the tumultuous professional world of sports media.

“The certificate gave me the tools and skills to land my dream job,” wrote Maggiore in an e-mail to Vicki Michaelis, director of the program. “I think the least I could do is help another woman in our field by easing some financial burdens that come with it.”

Maggiore started in January as a stage manager for ESPN in Bristol, Conn. Thanks to her generosity and an employee matching donation from ESPN, the first Taylor Maggiore Scholar will be announced in Fall 2020.

“Taylor’s passion and talent for sports broadcasting energized all of us while she was a Grady Sports student. I’m thrilled and so grateful she’s reaching back to give our current and future students a helping hand and infusion of that energy,” said Michaelis, the John Huland Carmical Professor of Sports Journalism and Society in the Grady College.

Maggiore got involved with Grady Sports as a first-year student producing high school football games and worked a variety of events for Daktronics and the SEC Network during her time on campus. She mentored Cedar Shoals High School students through the UGA-Grady High School Sports Broadcast Program, an initiative aimed at supporting the recruitment of underrepresented, underserved and first-generation students to UGA. She also was a UGA orientation leader and was named a Cox Institute Levin Leader by the Department of Journalism. She was the student speaker for the undergraduate commencement ceremony in December 2019.

“We know that as Bulldogs, we will be productive and educated members of society,” Maggiore said in her speech in Stegeman Coliseum. “We will shatter glass ceilings and be kind to one another. We will give others opportunities because we’re all sitting here today because someone took a chance on us.”

Grady Sports Media will continue raising funds to sustain the scholarship and Maggiore’s legacy in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. If you are interested in contributing to the fund, please contact Welch Suggs, associate director of Grady Sports Media, at wsuggs@uga.edu or 706-363-0752.