Sewanee is full of extraordinary people with fascinating stories. Here they share those stories–in their own words.
Tari Kandemiri, C’18
Computer science major, business minor, management consultant at Accenture, on-air host and commentator for ESPN Inc.
Two years ago, I got a DM from someone I didn’t know. I looked at her bio and it said “ESPN.” It turned out that she was a producer approaching me and my good friend Amari Pollard about hosting a halftime show during the college women's lacrosse season. Back in high school I had started a Twitter account, Official Lax Girl, that picked up some traction and led to freelancing writing and podcasting opportunities with Inside Lacrosse and USA Lacrosse. It also gave me a platform to advocate for the inclusion of underrepresented populations, especially women of color, within the sport. But for ESPN to see my passion and for me to transition into being a journalist covering lacrosse was just the coolest thing ever.
We just wrapped our second season of Sound On with Tari & Amari. The majority of our recording has been remote. ESPN set us up with at-home kits and our producer directs the show virtually. I got used to my apartment being my studio, but then when we hosted the championship weekend games in person I saw how big the production really is. There are all these camera trucks, and you walk in and it's a mansion of controls and TVs and producers. And then there’s the crowds—there are so many people, and they recognize you and they wave. So it was so interesting to be like, "Oh my goodness, people recognize me from TV!" We averaged 428,000 viewers for the national championship [peak viewership was 590,000 viewers], so to think that around half a million people saw me was so scary. But because it's so fun and lacrosse is something that I enjoy talking about, the nerves kind of went away once I got started.
Sometimes I don’t even know how I manage two careers at the same time. I do feel like some people expect me to pick one, but I don't think I'm me without getting to pursue both of my passions. And that was something that was definitely fed during my time at Sewanee—I took classes that I loved in computer science and business, played on the lacrosse team, started my own business, and even got to combine my interests by running a lacrosse clinic while on the outreach trip to Jamaica my senior year. I think it's something special when you know that there are people who love you and want to see you succeed no matter what you do. And that's so true about the Sewanee community.
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