LAURA RUTLEDGE can be found all over the airwaves of ESPN and SEC Network, whether that’s on the sidelines, courtside or behind the desk in studio. Rutledge finished her second season as host of “SEC Nation” last fall, but with college football season in the rear-view mirror she has started a new schedule of co-hosting “Get Up” on Thursday and Friday mornings. She will typically work a late-night college basketball matchup on Tuesday before making her way to N.Y. on Wednesday, which makes the early wake-up call on Thursday a little more difficult. Rutledge recently spoke to THE DAILY to share what those days might look like, which can include everything from early morning coffee runs to pre-show dance parties in the makeup room. Check out MIKE GREENBERG’s Instagram for some highlights. Rutledge: “They’re worth taking a gander at.”
5:11am: Usually the alarm starts going off around now. I pick 11’s because I just like 11. I turn on "SportsCenter" and get caught up on anything that I missed.
6:00am: I walk about a block to the ESPN Seaport District Studios for our pre-show meeting before "Get Up." Every morning I sneak into someone’s office that has a Nespresso machine and get their Nespresso. I always wonder if this guy is going to be like, “Who is drinking all my Nespresso?” Maybe he doesn’t care. But before I get to that production meeting, I make a beeline for that guy’s office. The meeting is interesting because there’s a group of production people in Bristol video-conferencing in with our group of producers and the on-air talent in N.Y.
6:50am: I go to hair and makeup at the last possible minute -- they always get annoyed with me -- because I want to stay in the meeting and make sure I’m fully up to date. We play music in the makeup room whenever Greeny gets in there around 7:15. Lately we’ve been going with RUN DMC, he’s been trying to educate me on real hip-hop. Now I have found that it’s my responsibility to be the DJ because he is trying to make sure that I am aware of music that I should know. We have rotating analysts, so whoever the guests are that day, it always takes on a different vibe. MARCUS SPEARS is a big dancer. When I was on "Get Up" on Mondays and Tuesdays during football season, REX RYAN would sometimes want to try to help do my makeup, which was always hilarious.
Rutledge, who started at SEC Network, spends plenty of time studying pro sports prepping for "Get Up"ESPN IMAGES
7:30am: I’ll head back into the screening area and watch whatever highlights I’ll have in the show and make sure they haven’t updated anything. I’ll get out to the set and get situated. We have all of our same rituals that we do, like Greeny gets the same tea every day.
8:00am: One of the most exciting parts of the day is in studio you’ll hear “stand by … 5, 4, 3, 2, 1” and boom the red light is on, and whether you were tired or maybe you had something else you were thinking about, all of a sudden here we go and it wakes you right up.
10:00am: Once we’re done, we get de-mic'd and there’s a 15-minute period before a post-show meeting, which is very in-depth. We’re very honest and critical when that’s needed and positive, too. There will always be some fun moments to laugh about whatever happened in the show. That’s some of the stuff behind the scenes that people don’t get to see where we really do have fun.
11:00am: I always go to this Brazilian coffee shop, Cafe Patoro. I get a cortado and they have little cheese breads that are the best thing in the world. Sometimes I will eat breakfast at the studio, but I’m not a big early morning breakfast person, so a lot of times the cheese bread will be my breakfast.
12:00-6:00pm: I’ll head back to my hotel room for a little bit. Because "Get Up" is so pro sports-focused and a lot of what I do outside the show is college-based, throughout the day I’m spending time researching and watching games, looking up articles to make sure I’m fully up to date. I might take a 20-minute nap around 3:00 or 4:00. My husband JOSH and I live in Birmingham, so we do a lot of FaceTiming throughout certain points in the afternoon. It’s a good way to not miss each other too much.
6:00-8:00pm: Dinner time I will stick around in the Seaport area. I eat sushi a lot. One place I went to recently is called Catch. There are also a ton of good Italian places right in the Seaport area.
8:00-10:00pm: I’ll try to get to bed as early as possible. It depends on what is going on from a sports standpoint. I’m not the greatest at being like “Oh, it’s 8:00pm let me go to bed.” I try to get eight hours of sleep as much as I can, but that is very rare.
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