What first drew Laura Okmin to the University of Kansas was the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. What became clear when she arrived in Lawrence was that it wasn’t only the prestige of the school but the campus environment that made KU the perfect place for the now over 30-year veteran NFL sideline reporter.
Okim remembers everything clicking. The building felt right. The campus felt right. The people she was meeting felt right. “It was the J School that got me there and it was the campus that kept me there,” she said.
At a time when there were few – if any – women in sports media, the faculty she had while a KU student never told her anything but “go follow your dreams.”
“I think if I had had an advisor who told me, that’s really hard; I don’t think you should do it, I don’t think I had enough confidence back then to say ‘don’t listen to that,” said Okmin. “[Professor Max [Utsler] was wonderful about telling me how hard that was going to be but making that a challenge instead of a roadblock.”
Now, as the third longest-tenured sideline reporter in NFL history, Okmin is passionate about supporting other women who want to go into sports journalism through her organization, GALvanize.
“Mentorship means everything to me at this stage of life I’m in,” she said. “And I’m so fortunate that I got to see what that looked like while I was at KU.”
Supporting faculty and staff who are preparing graduates for a world beyond KU is one of the JMC School’s priorities in the Ever Onward campus fundraising campaign. Learn more about Ever Onward and make a gift to the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
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