Black History Month Spotlight: Kate Howard

Create. Innovate. Grow. Three words that are woven into Kate Howard's story.

Growing up on the California coast in a family of journalists, she has always felt that journalism was in her blood.

"I used to joke that I never really had a choice when it came to a future career," said Howard.

Howard, a field hockey and track athlete at North Carolina, grew up watching her parents create and grow newspaper outlets up and down the California coast.

"I remember my mom had to move to Sonoma, California, for a couple months to get a new newspaper off the ground," she said. "My dad and I would go up on weekends to visit and help if we could."

What Howard didn't know at the time was that she was witnessing a lifestyle that was going to shape the trajectory of her professional career.

She was being exposed to a life of flexibility and was shown the importance of seeing, and then seizing, an opportunity by her parents.

"Looking back, I believe I have set my life up in a way that I can accept a job in any location at any time."

With a plethora of experience interning in the editorial department of the the newspaper her father founded (Monterey County Weekly) by the time she enrolled at North Carolina, Howard immediately began to build a strong foundation during her undergraduate years.

In addition to competing on the field and the track, she set herself up academically to double-major in both journalism and communications during her time in Chapel Hill.

After graduation, Howard began her professional journalism career with a fellowship at CNN in Atlanta before entering into a Master's program at Northwestern's prestigious Medill School of Journalism.

Howard spent time in Washington D.C and was later placed overseas in Bangkok, Thailand as part of Medill's Global Residency program.

"I was given credentials to the White House and Capitol Hill," she said. "Then, I worked for the Associated Press in their Bangkok bureau. It was such a great experience."

Upon returning to the United States, Howard accepted a position with McClatchy Media at their Washington D.C. bureau. While in D.C, she was assigned to the Miami Herald for a few months. While in Miami, she covered the 2012 Miami Heat championship run featuring Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and was also a member who was sent to New York City to cover the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.

Following her stint with McClatchy, Howard was placed closer to home in the San Francisco Bay Area after being accepted into NBC's Associates Program.

While there, Howard attended the National Association of Black Journalism convention and met Amina Hussein, a connection that changed the trajectory of Howard's career.

"At the time, Amina was the only black female coordinating producer at ESPN," said Howard. "I knew I had to meet her and I am so grateful that I did. Two months later, I found myself moving to Connecticut to start a new position at ESPN."

During her time in Bristol, Howard was focused on creating. "I took a job as a graphics producer for studio shows," she said. "It ranged from SportsCenter, NFL shows, NBA shows and more."

"We were the last eyes on any stat, topic bars or custom graphics that were about to be on national television."

In the midst of her time creating for ESPN in Connecticut, ESPN was turning its Los Angeles Production Center into its NBA hub. Over the course of a few years, Howard saw, seized and created an opportunity for herself to transfer to Los Angeles with ESPN to work on its NBA properties.

"In the LAPC, the NBA is the main focus," she said. "I joined the group that launched "The Jump," a daily NBA talk show. She worked on projects for NBA Countdown, the late-night SportsCenter and SportsNation until it ended."

With years of creating at ESPN in her back pocket, Howard saw an opportunity to innovate. In 2020, Howard accepted a role with the Los Angeles Clippers' marketing team. "It was November of 2020, everything was still shut down and nobody was really hiring," she said. "My joke about my time with the Clippers is that their first call was to new Head Coach Tyronn Lue, their second call was to me, since we both started on the same day." Howard said.

In her new role, Howard was a digital editor and acted as the liaison between the marketing, digital, social content and sales teams during one the most difficult periods in our lifetime.

"We had to innovate and come up with new ideas to keep fans engaged," Howard said. "We were doing everything."

"I helped create the Clippers' first app strategy. We created games within the app and focused on ways to keep fans engaged with the team during the pandemic when they couldn't attend games in person.

"One of the things that I am most proud of is that we created a program uniting the team with local minority and women owned restaurants and small businesses. For example, restaurants would feature a "Clippers Item" and it would be promoted on our app. Then, fans would see the item on the app, pick it up at the restaurant and then eat the item while watching the Clippers game on TV that night."

Following a two year stint with the Clippers, Howard spent a couple years at Showtime in Sports Public Relations. While at Showtime, she worked across SHO Basketball, including public relations for basketball podcasts like "All The Smoke" and basketball documentaries like "NYC Point God's" and "Stand". In the boxing space, she created a first-of-its-kind creator program, working with influencers to help Pay-Per-View boxing reach a wider audience through social media.

After her time at Showtime, she spent a year in public relations at former NBA player Mike Miller's LIFT Sports Management before embarking on a new stage of her professional career.

Working with current and former WNBA players such as Sheryl Swoopes at LIFT, she saw an opportunity to become the Director of Basketball Communications for the Minnesota Lynx and seized it. This was an opportunity to help build out Lynx communications.

The WNBA, a league that boasted an increase of 155 percent in its viewership numbers last season.

"It was an opportunity to join and help grow the WNBA and work for a team that was always competing for championships." she said.

"I haven't even unpacked my apartment since I started during the playoffs," said Howard. "it's been a busy offseason, especially with "Unrivaled" starting its inaugural season."

In her new role, with a team that expects to win it all every year, in a league that is growing at an exponential rate, Howard is familiar with high expectations and taking her role to new heights.

Despite living all over the world, the words create, innovate and grow follow Howard. From a young age to today, these words reign true in her life. Now, Howard has begun to utilize those words for the betterment of others.

Recently, Howard and other North Carolina field hockey alumni have helped create and launch the new UNC Field Hockey Mentorship program.

The program is set up to pair a former player with a current one. "Our goal is to answer any questions current players have," she said. "I have edited resumes, created and shared resume building and LinkedIn workshops and am looking forward to helping in more ways."

So far, the UNC Field Hockey mentorship program is in its first year, but with Kate Howard a part of the team, it's safe to say that she will find more ways to create, innovate and grow the mentorship program like she has at ESPN, the Los Angeles Clippers and now, the Minnesota Lynx.

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