Taylor Rooks has always bled Orange and Blue. Both of her parents went to school in Champaign-Urbana, and she occasionally visited campus for football games and other events with her father, Thomas Rooks, the former Illini football star who ranks third in program history in all-time rushing yards.

Rooks knew she wanted to eventually attend Illinois and work in the sports industry, and despite having several close relatives – including St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Lou Brock, her uncle – who played at the college and professional levels, she says there was never any sense of pressure to work in sports.

"I honestly grew up loving it because it was so ingrained in my family and everything that I saw, every day, and all the time," Rooks said. "I would say the only pressure I felt was coming to U of I because both my parents went here, but I was happy to come. I knew from the moment I first stepped on campus that this is where I wanted to be, but sports has always come very naturally to me because it's kind of hard to escape it in my family."

Majoring in broadcast journalism at the University of Illinois' College of Media was an easy decision for Rooks, as she allowed her to combine two things she "loved very much," sports and talking. 

She did not expect her eventual meteoric rise in the industry, but Rooks knew she wanted to fill a hole that she saw within sports media. Though there were plenty of places to watch interviews with coaches and players, she noticed those conversations they tended to be awkward and uncomfortable.

"I always wanted people to feel comfortable talking to me," Rooks said. "In sports, there wasn't a sports-specific person who their main thing was sitting down with someone for like an hour and talking. People were hosts or reporters or anchors, but there wasn't that really interviewer label. 

"The only people I saw that were doing sit-down interviews was someone like Oprah, and she wasn't a sports person. She was just a generalist. I really had to say to myself, 'This is the lane that I want to carve out because it doesn't exist at this moment.' To say that I wanted to be an interviewer, I wanted that to be my specialty, and for it to have worked is really, really special."

While in college, Rooks participated in internships with the PGA Tour and Comcast SportsNet Chicago. She also did "real, paid work" with Scout.com, Fox Sports, CBS Sports Network, and Big Ten Network.

She says her work with the Illinois basketball team was especially impactful, as her ability to be in the press box and on media row during games helped prepare her for what to expect for life after college.

"Being with that media community during games and watching how they worked, how they gathered stories, and how they asked questions was invaluable," Rooks said. "To be 18, 19, and be a working member of the media, I credit a lot of that to the SIDs for both football and basketball for being so willing and flexible with me wanting to interview guys, and be a part of productions, and create content."

Despite doing a variety of different written, audio, and video work while at Illinois, Rooks knew at the age of 2 she wanted to be on camera. She says she would set up a camcorder and conduct fake interviews while giving herself different titles and roles, ranging from a singer, to an athlete, to a movie star.

"I just loved getting on camera and asking questions and getting an answer about them," Rooks said. "I've never been shy. I've never met a mic I didn't like. I've always known I wanted to be on camera telling these stories."

Rooks got a full-time on-camera opportunity after graduating in 2014, staying on with the Big Ten Network, for which she worked for during her senior year. After spending two years there, she went to SNY in New York, a regional sports channel, before heading to Bleacher Report and Turner Sports.

Now in her fourth year with B/R, Rooks became the organization's first host of a personality-driven show and has interviewed dozens of athletes, including NBA stars like Jayson Tatum and Allen Iverson and WNBA stars including Candace Parker.

While she has primarily focused her work on the NBA and already had the opportunity to talk with some of the greatest athletes in the world, Rooks says Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan are just a few legends she still wants to interview.

"I would die to interview Serena Williams. That's someone I would love to talk to," Rooks said. "I mean everybody wants to one day sit down and ask Michael Jordan questions. I just want to talk to anyone who has something to say."

Rooks enters her first season working with Amazon Prime Video on Thursday Night Football broadcasts. Each week she will conduct a sit-down interview with a player on either team and feature on the live broadcast to lead into and tag her feature and conduct any ancillary interviews if needed.

Working in both the NFL and NBA, two of the biggest leagues in the world, has been a dream come true for Rooks, especially since she has always been into both football and basketball.

"It feels like the top of the mountain," Rooks said. "So many eyes are on them. The fans truly are fanatic. They care so deeply about the sport, about the players. You always have that dream, 'I want to cover the NFL. I want to cover the NBA.' For me to really look back and say I was able to do all the things I said I wanted to do is really special for me."

Back on campus to emcee the Title IX 50th Anniversary Summit on Sept. 9, Rooks continues to be a pioneer and trailblazer in the sports journalism industry, and she does not plan on going away any time soon.

"I want to do all the things that I can do. I want to talk to all the people that I can talk to," Rooks said. "I want the content that I create and the interviews that I have to feel like necessary, appointment viewing. When I feel like people around the world or around America think they have missed out if they haven't watched my interview, that's when I feel like I accomplished what I ultimately wanted to do. 

I wanted to be a part of the fabric of society, the fabric of culture. That's what I think was really special about Oprah was that was a societal moment. You knew everyone was watching Oprah when it was on, and everyone was talking about who she was talking to. That's the goal to me."