is this her?
Bobbi Roquemore is a Cleveland native who got her journalism degree from Marquette. She began her career in 1999 as a reporter and copy editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but left the newspaper after three years to work for Ebony Magazine. Roquemore returned to the daily newspaper as a full-time reporter in 2002. She had the Preps Plus beat for three years, and became the UW-Milwaukee men's basketball beat writer last season.
In Sports
Locker room confidential: Female reporters tackle big-league stereotypes
Oct 12, 2006
Bobbi Roquemore said she thinks the athletes have been cooperative ... but getting in to talk to them seems to be a major hurdle.
"I'm more bothered by the fact that I'm usually the only female there, so security personnel and other staff always ask for my credentials on the way in, on the way out. 'Can I help you?' 'Are you looking for something?'" said Roquemore. "Once they get to know you, of course, that initial shock goes away, but for visiting teams and their people, it's always an issue. It's not the athletes, it's their handlers. Trust me, as a reporter, I just want to get my info and get out, no time for mingling!"
For
Bobbi Roquemore, getting in was the easy part. Staying in has been a challenge at times.
"If someone had told me that I'd be one of only 20 black females out of 2,200 sports reporters in the U.S., maybe I would have considered other options," said Roquemore. "I had no idea how much of a rarity and on some levels, a trailblazer, I would be by doing this job, the stereotypes you have to overcome and the potshots people take at you simply because they think they can and are insecure within themselves. But through your work, people, at least the general public, eventually get over who's writing the story and move on to other issues, like 'Why did you write that?'"
"Boyfriends have to be quite understanding, which may be why the only ones I have live out of town," said Roquemore. "But, the man I am dating now, who lives in
Texas, is a former college athlete, himself. He's very supportive of my career and understands exactly what I have to go through."
"I can never get away from it all; I never go out of town without my laptop," said Roquemore. "But just getting out of town is my elixir. I can be Bobbi Roquemore, the sister, friend, cousin, girlfriend -- not like my mode in Milwaukee, when I feel like 'the sports journalist.'"
Roquemore: "Readers, even when they disagree, often compliment me on how well-written and well-researched my stories are. I don't just shoot from the hip. I support whatever I'm writing with facts, numbers, quotes, situations, scenarios."
http://onmilwaukee.com/sports/articles/womeninsportsmedia.html?page=1
