A Super weekend looms for ESPN editor
Heather Burns started covering high school sports in Iowa City and now directs ESPN’s NFL digital coverage
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It’s a pretty busy week right now where Heather Burns works. There’s a big event looming, with all hands on deck getting ready to take care of what they know will happen and what might happen. You could say it’s their Super Bowl of whatever except for the fact it is the actual Super Bowl.
Burns (no relation) is senior deputy editor, NFL, at ESPN.com. The Waterloo, Iowa, native and 1991 University of Iowa graduate has been with ESPN since 2008. She has spent the past 12 years with the network’s NFL group and leads a team of 44 reporters and 16 editors. It’s a dream job for the former newspaper sportswriter and editor who has been an obsessive NFL fan since she was a small girl — so much so that her email addresses have always included the number 33 as a tip of the hat to her all-time favorite player, Tony Dorsett of the Dallas Cowboys.
She got her start at the Iowa City Press-Citizen, covering high school sports and the Iowa women’s basketball team during the years that included their 1993 Final Four appearance. From there she had newspaper stints in Reno, Nevada; St. Cloud, Minnesota; and Detroit before heading east.
In the midst of her busiest time of the year and dealing with a cold, Burns found time to chat about her current role and life at ESPN.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What are these weeks like before the Super Bowl? You have the game to think about but so much else.
Anything can happen. (In meetings) people will say things like, “What if Taylor Swift gets engaged? What if Travis Kelce retires? Who's doing this story? Who's doing that story?” So we have to get everything buttoned up.
I'm not going (to the Super Bowl) this year, because I get sick every year, and I've been sick at the Super Bowl twice. And I'm not doing that again. I've been five times. It's enough. People don't understand, they’re like, “I can't believe you wouldn't want to go.” But the combine is so much better for my job than the Super Bowl. It’s a better place to network.
You’ve got a lot of reporters working with you, and I assume all over the country?
Yeah, it's a lot. My staff is extremely plugged in, extremely passionate about what we do. We have a lot of resources around the NFL for a reason. And that's because the NFL is very important to our brand and to fans in general. The NFL drives so much of what ESPN does. What they do drives all the news that drives all the shows.
Clearly NFL coverage is the biggest of the big, not just for ESPN but in the sports culture across America.
Yeah. Twelve years ago, we decided as a digital group that we were going to have a reporter in every NFL city. We started with something that was just division bloggers — one person over the NFC North, one person over the NFC East, etc.
We found that that really didn't work. They weren't really able to zero in on a team and tell unique stories. It’s really important to have someone in every single market because you just don't know what's going to happen. And there's always drama. Always.
What's this time of the year like for you besides getting sick?
There’s so much going on in terms of making sure that we are thinking about what the championship teams are doing but also looking back and keeping all the fans of all 32 teams involved. So as we finish the season, every team reporter contributes to a very large file that's called the offseason guide.
What we're serving for the fans who are out (of the playoffs) is hope: Here’s the reason why your team could be good next year, and here are the changes they need to make. We’re constantly thinking about what the next thing for every team is. Even in Super Bowl week.
For anyone in sports, the NFL in general would be a good career move. But I know for you, it’s something you’ve always loved – it’s there in your email. How did you become such a big sports fan, and the NFL in particular?
I remember the first NFL game I watched. It was with my dad. And I was probably 3 or 4 and I remember it was the Packers. My parents are not big sports fans so I have no idea why he was watching football that day. But I just kind of loved - and I hate that I'm saying this out loud – the violence of the hitting. I thought it was really cool.
I was a Vikings fan until the third grade. Then they lost their fourth Super Bowl and I thought, “I can't be a loser for my entire life. I’m done.”
I think that was the year the Cowboys beat the Broncos. I thoroughly enjoyed Tony Dorsett and just thought he was amazing. So I thought, “OK, I’m in on the Cowboys” and I just started watching every single one of their games.
There's just something about the sport, the grace and the violence combined, that makes it super interesting to me.
The NFL is such a 12-month-a-year operation now. Do you have any down time?
People in other sports think that when the season is over we're good. You get through the Super Bowl, and then you have one week where you sort of go, “OK, what loose ends do we have to tie up for the Super Bowl?” Then you immediately jump into getting ready for the combine. We already have had, I think, three mock drafts.
We have a lot of people going to the combine so I will go so that I can see as many of my staff as I can there, and recruit. Once the combine is over, then it's just draft, a whole bunch of draft coverage.
Then you get through the draft. Then you have OTAs (organized team activities). Then you have minicamp. And then you have five weeks. You have the ultimate five weeks - from June 15 to about July 20 - where nothing is happening and you can go on vacation.
Since you've been doing the NFL gig for 12 years, are you noticing more women on these beats now? And what’s the environment like for them?
You get someone like Courtney Cronin, who's my Bears reporter, she deals with trolls every single day. The women get it really bad.
But I think the environment in locker rooms, in stadiums, with the team, is no different than it is for the men. The teams are very welcoming and wonderful. We haven't had any issues in that realm. I think fans can be a little harder on female reporters, saying things like, “How can you know this because you never played the game?” etc.
When we started NFL Nation, we had one woman. Now we have seven. So, that's a really good change. And I think it represents the fan base of the NFL, right? You want a diverse group of people covering the sport, who can tell different kinds of stories.
If there's some kid out there thinking, “Hey, I want to do what she does,” what would you tell them?
One of the things I say to everybody is to be open to the opportunities that present themselves to you. Never think, “I have to start here or I'm not a success.” I started at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. It was a great learning experience.
What I'm finding with the younger generation is they feel like they need to be at the big place right away. And I would argue that being at the small place first really prepares you for the big place because everybody makes mistakes in their career. Maybe it’s better to fail on a smaller scale and learn a lot of lessons along the way.
You need to keep your eyes open for all the opportunities and never put yourself in a box. I never thought I would be a sports editor. I never thought that I would be able to sort of shape the conversation around the NFL. I’m doing that.
I'm so fortunate. I love my job every day. Yes, there’s stress. But at the end of the day, I get to watch sports for a living. I get to watch the NFL. What’s a better job than that?
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
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I would like to talk to Heather Burns at ESPN
Mike Sheahan. Reno Nevada