When Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks took the basketball world by storm last spring, Elle Duncan had a courtside seat. As the primary host of ESPN’s women’s basketball pregame coverage, the forty-one-year-old Atlanta native became the go-to voice of not only the NCAA’s March Madness nail-biters and rivalries but also the most compelling WNBA season ever. Duncan also cohosts the network’s flagship SportsCenter, on which her sports knowledge, deft pop culture references, and bust-your-chops wit leave her (mostly male) counterparts in stitches.

She honed those skills on Atlanta radio, doing traffic reports and comedy bits before moving into sports and eventually television, landing at ESPN’s Bristol, Connecticut, headquarters in 2016. Along the way, she picked up a husband (a Vanderbilt grad who Duncan says “had the college football season of his life”) and two children. But the South still calls her name. Zaxby’s, she says, is her first stop after landing at Hartsfield-Jackson. “Chicken fingers and fries. Sometimes I make the person picking me up bring it with them.”
Were sports big in your family?
Oh yeah. My parents were typical sports parents, just trying to survive. My sister was a very, very good athlete. I was pretty good, too. We were always in different parts of the country or the state, traveling for softball or basketball. We’re all huge Braves fans, and I remember burning to death in August at a Braves game at the old Fulton County Stadium. That was an old, raggedy-ass stadium, but there was nothing like it.
What did your parents do?
My dad worked at AT&T, and my mom put her career on hold to stay home with us. When we were older, she worked for an educational company that was one of the first to bring laptops into schools. Some of those kids didn’t even have electricity at home, and the whole point of the program was to ensure they did not fall behind simply because of their circumstances. She would travel all over the South, and every kid would get a laptop. It was cool work that she did for a long time.
You initially wanted to be a singer or an actress.
I have been trolling my family with impersonations and singing since I was a little kid. [Laughs.] I took theater classes at the High Museum every weekend when I wasn’t playing softball. I was a theater major to start at the University of West Georgia, and I took a gap year after my freshman year and moved to L.A. to audition. Three months later, I ran out of money. When I moved home, I worked up a musical performance at this place in Atlanta called the Chili Pepper. I had three original songs with backup dancers. But it was so bad that even my parents couldn’t lie to me. I came offstage, and my mom and dad told me, “We are so proud of you for your bravery.”

Did you watch SportsCenter growing up? Was there somebody you admired?
Stuart Scott, because of his cultural references, repped Atlanta and the hip-hop thing. He would get off his one-liners, and that was must-see TV for me. Robin Roberts was all about representation. I saw a Black woman on national television doing the thing I wanted to do. I worked at the same radio station in Atlanta that Robin worked at before she went to ESPN. My grandmother knew Robin because my grandfather was a Tuskegee Airman, and he served under Robin’s father. My grandmother used to babysit Robin when she was running around in pigtails. She and I have these touchstones.
Were you aware of his Tuskegee history?
He died before I was born, but it was such an immense source of pride for our family. I remember in fourth grade, we had a substitute teacher who had been in the military. I told him my grandfather, Hubert Jones, was a Tuskegee Airman. He said, “You’re Hook’s granddaughter—oh my God.” The next day, he brought this photo and showed me that he was one of my grandfather’s page boys. He talked on and on about how my grandfather was this tall, dignified man who was so smart and readily available to help younger servicemen.
Last year was massive for women’s basketball. What are you most looking forward to in 2025?
More basketball talk. There are so many great storylines in both the college game and the WNBA. Last year, I thought we would take the nineteen million people who watched Caitlin Clark in the NCAA tournament and settle right into the WNBA season. That obviously was not the case. Some people new to the women’s game carry pitchforks. The most frustrating part was the weaponization of Caitlin’s accomplishments into something nefarious and nasty to denigrate other players. She would not want that. Certainly, the basketball world doesn’t want that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese rivalry. The problem becomes when you use that as a culture war or an opportunity to infantilize Caitlin as if she’s some victim. I watched that girl in college. She can dish it out, too. I think people unaware of the women’s basketball game came in clutching pearls. Yes, they have flagrant fouls in the WNBA; they’re competitors. That’s how it works.
You have sparked many laugh-out-loud moments on SportsCenter, like the time you told Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins that some business conducted in the ATL occurs at gentlemen’s establishments.
The Cheetah is not in a zoo, Kirk! I keep trying to tell people that the strip club culture in Atlanta is not taboo. Fortune 500 executives eat at Alluvia, the restaurant inside of the Cheetah. That’s just what you do!
What have you brought from the South to Connecticut?
The warmth. It’s that thing where if you get on an elevator with people, you ask how they’re doing, and in most cases, you mean it. The cool thing about being from a place like Atlanta is that we can line dance to Shania Twain and have the swag. There’s such a melting pot of identity. An energy and depth of cultural and musical knowledge. People tell me, “You are so Atlanta.” I’m like, “Thank you so much.”