Katy Winge ’15 usually feels comfortable in the spotlight. Her image and voice are broadcast around the globe when she calls games featuring the NBA’s biggest stars and interviews them after hitting game-winning shots.
Illinois State: Summer 2025
But as she walked onto the court during a Denver Nuggets game in January, she suddenly felt like Ricky Bobby, Will Ferrell’s NASCAR-driving character from Talladega Nights who famously didn’t know what to do with his hands during an interview.
Winge is in her eighth season working for the Denver Nuggets and its team-owned regional network, Altitude Sports.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt that uncomfortable in my own skin,” Winge said, laughing. “I was thinking, ‘Do I smile? Do I wave? What do I do with my hands!?”’
Winge was recognized that night as the National Sports Media Association’s 2024 Colorado Sportscaster of the Year. She’s in her eighth season working for the Nuggets and its team-owned regional network, Altitude Sports. She’s a self-described “Swiss Army knife,” who bounces between the studio, the sideline, and the broadcast booth. She’s the first woman in team history to serve as an in-game analyst.
And yes, she did figure out what to do with her hands. She waved. She put her palms together and bowed to thank an applauding crowd. She smiled widely.
But then came a twist as the public address announcer introduced Winge’s parents, Peter and Cathy, who came from suburban Minneapolis to surprise their daughter. The Winges embraced at midcourt. Tears were shed. Peter whispered to Katy that the moment felt strangely familiar. The father told his daughter it felt just like her senior day at Illinois State University before she played her final home basketball game.
“It was kind of déjà vu in a way,” Katy Winge said. “It made me think about where I was then and where I am now, and how much gratitude I have for all the people—especially my parents—who helped me get to this point.”
Winge’s love for basketball and budding interest in sports media were nurtured at Illinois State, though those passions can be traced back even further.
For love of the game
Winge landed her first jobs in sports at KRTS and The Leander Circle News. She was 11.
Of course, those weren’t paying gigs—just an outlet for a kid to share her love of sports. KRTS was how she and her elementary school classmates branded their morning announcements. The call letters stood for “kids run the station,” and Winge anchored a sportscast.
The Leander Circle News was a creation all her own that chronicled the world of sports with regular updates on the Minnesota Timberwolves and her favorite player, Kevin Garnett. Pages were drafted in Microsoft Word, printed and stapled together, and delivered to the houses in her cul-de-sac.
Winge drives around an opposing player during her playing days at Illinois State.
“There were these little hints along my journey now that I look back,” Winge said, laughing again. “There were clues that this was where I was going to land.”
But that early interest in sports media soon took a backseat to her own playing career. Winge gravitated to basketball, graduating from a public youth league to a traveling AAU squad. She starred for her high school team. She caught the eye of college programs, including Illinois State, and eventually committed to play for the Redbirds.
Winge built a reputation at Illinois State as a sharpshooter who could catch and shoot from deep behind the arc. But the player once scolded by her coach for passing up a 3-pointer in favor of a dribble-drive grew and expanded her game to become that team’s version of a Swiss Army knife who could play four positions.
As the years went by, Winge saw the end of her playing days approaching. She wondered what was next. She talked about it with longtime WMBD sports director Kurt Pegler ’87, a member of Illinois State’s TV-10 and Athletics Halls of Fame, who has covered Redbird Athletics for decades. A pivotal moment came during a preseason media day when Pegler pitched an idea. He wanted Winge to take the microphone and interview her teammates.
“She went with it and just absolutely nailed it,” Pegler recalled. “She was interviewing the funny ones who were giving us one-liners. One of them did a beatbox or a little rap for us. It was very memorable and way better than what I could have done.”
Winge and Pegler stayed in touch. She job-shadowed him for a day. She took his advice and got involved with TV-10, where she rekindled a passion for sports media evident in those childhood endeavors. Winge ended up double-majoring in journalism and marketing.
“She’s paid her dues, and it doesn’t surprise me that she’s killing it at the level she’s at now, because she has all the tools, and I know she credits Illinois State for getting her going,” Pegler said. “But she’s done a lot of this on her own and made a name for herself by who she is and not trying to be somebody else.”
Mile high life
Winge’s first job interview took place at 2 a.m. She was wrapping up her final semester, studying abroad in Italy—something she couldn’t do as an active member of the basketball team—and the six-hour time difference required a late-night Skype session.
Winge got the job and became an anchor, reporter, and producer at KTTC in Rochester, Minnesota, not far from where she grew up. She enjoyed the work and learned from new experiences like shooting and editing her own video packages. But she missed a life immersed in sports. The itch led her to Northwestern University’s prestigious Medill School of Journalism, where she earned a master’s degree in sports journalism. That built on a foundation poured at Illinois State, and it was buttressed by freelance jobs at regional networks like Comcast SportsNet Chicago and FOX Sports Wisconsin. She twice covered the Illinois girls’ state basketball tournament, which brought her back to Illinois State.
“It truly wasn’t until then that I realized how much I loved the broadcast and the stories around the games,” Winge said.
Those experiences helped Winge secure her first job with the Nuggets as an in-arena reporter. She spent her first year in Denver hosting, producing and reporting for Courtside Countdown, a pregame and halftime show broadcast on the arena’s jumbotron. A year later, she moved to Altitude, where her role has grown to encompass pre- and postgame studio hosting, sideline reporting, and color commentary. She’s earned fans on social media and the respect of her media peers, as evidenced by her recent award.
“I’m able to go on TV and tell stories and pull back the curtain on this team because of producers, directors, graphics and replay operators, and the talent on with me,” Winge said. “Even though I was the one receiving the award, it’s because we have such a great team.”
But it’s not easy
The NBA preseason schedule begins in October. Teams advancing to the NBA Finals, as the Nuggets did in 2023, play until June. It’s a grind.
“There are nights you get in at 3 a.m., and you’re on a back-to-back and immediately prepping for the game the next day,” Winge said. “You’re away from home and friends and family for extended periods of time.”
Denver gets 300 days of sunshine a year, and Winge takes advantage of it. She hikes and skis, but not as often as she’d like. She’s single. She can’t keep a pet due to being away so much. Even someone with 100,000 social media followers can get lonely.
Winge embraces fashion as part of her job. She tries not to wear the same outfit twice.
“It’s like being a college athlete. You don’t get to be home for all the family dinners and birthday parties and anniversaries. You miss a lot,” she said. “You sacrifice a lot to be able to do this.”
There are challenges beyond her control. Regional sports networks have suffered in the era of cord-cutting, and even Altitude—owned by the same group that owns the Nuggets—has struggled. The network was blacked out on Comcast in the Denver market for nearly six years. “It was discouraging pouring your heart and soul into something knowing people couldn’t see it,” Winge said.
There’s also unseen work. Winge spends countless hours prepping for broadcasts. She works hard to keep her social content fresh, taking fans behind the scenes and occasionally showing off her undiminished basketball skills. The former player who competed in a headband and messy ponytail takes her fashion seriously. She has a stylist. She tries to not wear the same outfit twice on-air.
“As a woman in this industry, sometimes it feels almost shameful to put a spotlight on the way you’re dressing, like you’re not there for the job you’re there to do,” she said. “But it’s been fun to grow and evolve out of that mindset. I get to express myself in different ways through how I dress. If I feel like I look good, I’m better at my job.”
Her biggest responsibility is relationship-building. It’s a lot of work, but she considers it the best part of the job. She builds trust through conversations—conducted without a microphone in her hand—that allow her to show fans a different side of players like Nikola Jokić, a three-time league MVP who loves his family, his native Serbia, and horses.
“People love Nikola because he’s just a normal person who’s a really exceptional basketball player,” Winge said. “Showing people a different side of him and having fun, those are the stories that really resonate.”
The next step
Winge loves Denver. She has an audience in a major market, though she has fans scattered all over the globe, with high concentrations on Leander Circle and at Illinois State.
“She loves her job, and you can tell by her body language, by her smile. It’s just great to see,” Pegler said. “I’m proud of her, and if I was a teeny tiny stone along her path, I’m glad to have been a part of it.”
Winge is happy where she’s at, but she won’t rule out anything for her future. The sports media landscape is constantly changing, and a new NBA broadcasting rights deal will go into effect next season, bringing national broadcasts to Amazon and NBC.
If they came knocking, would she answer the door?
“It would be an incredible opportunity to be able to work for one of those networks in some capacity,” Winge said. “But I’m really trying to be where my feet are. I’m working for a wonderful team, with wonderful people, in a city and state that I’ve fallen in love with.
“I am truly so happy here.”
Sports communication at Illinois State
Scores of Illinois State students, including Katy Winge ’15, have found careers in the world of sports through Illinois State’s School of Communication. The next generation of students will benefit from an even clearer path thanks to a new sports communication major that launches this fall.
“We see where our graduates are going, and lots of them are going into sports communications,” said Dr. Rebecca Hayes, associate director of the School of Communication. “We also knew from search data from our website that people were looking for it, so we knew there was interest, and that interest has already exceeded our expectations.”
Existing courses in public relations, journalism, mass media, and communication studies will form the major’s curriculum along with new sport-specific offerings; they’ll support an initial cohort that could number as high as 100 students. Dr. Joe Blaney will serve as program coordinator with support from faculty member and longtime sports media professional Tom Lamonica, M.S. ’88. The program hopes to expand existing relationships both internally (WZND, The Vidette, TV-10, and Redbird Athletics) and externally (Normal CornBelters, Bloomington Bison, Chicago Blackhawks, and others).
The program also hopes to engage high-profile alumni—like Katy Winge—who have found success in the field.
“One thing this program will benefit from is the great alumni power we already have in this area,” Hayes said. “We have folks everywhere, and now we’ll have even more reason to bring them back to campus.”