IU grad Shae Cornette named host of ESPN's 'First Take' with Stephen A. Smith

Shae Cornette graduated from IU where a professor encouraged her career in broadcast journalism.

She joined ESPN in 2020 and has been a longtime anchor on SportsCenter.

Cornette will make her debut as host of 'First Take' Nov. 3.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Shae Cornette's "gift of gab" was discovered in the halls of Indiana University when she took one of those dreaded -- by most students -- 8 a.m. public speaking classes.

On the first day, the teacher dove right in, asking each student to pick a random object in the room, stand in front of the class and talk about the object they'd chosen for two minutes. Cornette chose a chair.

And, she talked about it for four minutes.

"Afterward, my professor said, 'You really have a gift of gab. You seem to know how to speak about random things with ease