In an industry dominated by men, stats and swagger, alumna Olivia Guzman discovered that her greatest reporting tool was something far more than human: the courage to be vulnerable.
As a 2022 graduate of the McCombs School of Business with a degree in marketing, Guzman kickstarted her career in sports journalism as an on-air talent for Texas Student Television before landing her current role as the sideline reporter and in-stadium host for Rice University.
“I am the microphone for said person’s story,” Guzman said. “You have the ability to control the narrative and once you take on that responsibility, it changes your perspective.”
Since graduating from UT, Guzman has had “the world’s weirdest career journey.” She has served as a multimedia journalist for Nexstar Media, a contractor for Formula One and served the state as Miss Texas Volunteer.
She learned the basics of sports reporting through the high caliber of Texas Athletics, but curated her ability to elicit vulnerability in storytelling from the GALvanize program.
Former FOX Sports reporter Laura Okmin created GALvanize to give young women something she lacked early in her career: a network of supportive peers. GALvanize is dedicated to training and mentoring women in the sports industry who are aspiring broadcasters, reporters, producers, directors and even some unsure of their direction.
“It creates truly a support system of women in an industry that is extremely male dominated,” Guzman said.
In a 2022 GALvanize bootcamp with the Los Angeles Chargers, Guzman and the other women in her cohort were tasked with interviewing a selection of rookies.
“I got assigned to the guy who was Mr. Swag,” Guzman said. “We ended up having probably the most powerful story in the room. … His whole personality was a front and he started crying when I was speaking with him.”
The vulnerability she demonstrates in her reporting bled into her role as Miss Texas Volunteer. After the July 4 floods in the Hill Country, Guzman was contacted by The Salvation Army to travel to Kerrville, Texas and be on their emergency response team.
“While I was there, I was introduced to an organization called the United Cajun Navy,” Guzman said. “They basically are a search and rescue organization, all of these people are ex-marine, ex-navy or ex-military who go to natural disasters and search for the missing people.”
Although Guzman was stationed with the United C. Navy because of her role as Miss Texas, her reporter instincts are what prepared the first responders for upcoming interviews with the media.
“I was the first person that asked them how they were doing,” Guzman said. “(I became) therapy decompression with these guys and helped them verbalize what they had seen and what they were doing.”
Empathy as an approach to Guzman’s reporting style has illustrated the importance of vulnerability in storytelling, especially in an industry where it is difficult to uncover.
