Q&A with ESPN's Erin Andrews

A Q and A with ESPN college football reporter Erin Andrews, who was videotaped in the nude in a hotel room in July without her knowledge. Michael David Barrett, 47, from suburban Chicago, has been arrested by the FBI and is due in court on Friday to face federal charges of interstate stalking.

-- Question: How are you doing?

Andrews: I'm hanging in there.

-- Q: Are you a different person since what happened?

-- A: Uh (long pause) I don't know.

-- Q: Are you a different reporter?

-- A: No. No, I'm not a different reporter. I still work really hard and do the best job I can.

-- Q: Let's talk about your career. How much did former Tampa Bay Lightning coach John Tortorella (the coach when Andrews started with the NHL team) influence your career?

-- A: "Torts' has meant so much to me in my life and in my career. It was clearly a situation where he didn't want a 22-year-old around that team, nor should he have. He was trying to turn around the worst team in the league. And here's this 22-year-old kid right out of school traveling on the bus, at the hotel, at all the practices.

But he taught me so much about how to prepare, how you should act as a professional, how to ask questions. I mean, if you weren't prepared, a guy like that could be tough to deal with. (Laughs) And he taught me to have no fear. He taught me how to prepare and jump right in. He was so good and respectful to me, and he didn't have to be. Everybody with the Lightning was like that.

-- Q: How good of a reporter were you back then?

-- A: Oh, I was horrible. I'm not just saying that. I was bad. Seriously. I didn't know what I was doing.

-- Q: So what changed?

-- A: I grew up. I learned. Back then, I knew nothing about what it took to do that job. I probably had no right to even have that job. But once I had it, I was thrown into the fire. I was on TV every other night. I'm doing pre-game interviews and features and interviews between periods, and I did post-game wrap-ups and interviews. I had to learn. I just did it, but I honestly would hate to go back and even look at those tapes.

But it turned out to be great experience, didn't it? It turned into more opportunities. I was definitely in the right place at the right time.

-- Q: When did things change? When did you reach the point where you thought, "You know, I can do this job, and I can do it well.''

-- A: Well, I got lots of support from my dad, and with him being on TV (as a Tampa area investigative reporter), I grew up with it, and it's never really been that big of a deal for me to be on TV. But it probably wasn't until my third year with ESPN that I started to feel really confident in the actual job. But I certainly don't think I've learned all there is to learn.

-- Q: With your popularity came criticism, too, and you've at times become a lightning rod among sideline reporters for criticism. Do you pay any attention to what people out there might say about you?

-- A: It's always been like that. I remember my first year with the Lightning, I called my dad and told him that I had read something critical about myself on a message board, and I was crying, and my dad said, "Hey, toughen up. Get some thick skin.'' I just learned that there are always people out there, and there are going to be things on the Internet and things that people say, sometimes even co-workers or others in the business, and you just have to keep working hard. But it can be hard to deal with, for sure. It's not easy.

-- Q: Are you surprised how far you've come since you've been at ESPN and how popular you have become since those Lightning days?

-- A: Are you kidding? I've never looked at myself as someone special. I'm just a normal girl. I mean, look at me now. I'm not wearing makeup. I'm in sweats. I'm wearing a baseball cap. I've never thought of myself as a big deal or anything. I'm just a reporter at ESPN who works hard at her job.

-- Q: Where do you see your career going from here?

-- A: I'm happy doing sports. I feel every year I'm getting better and more comfortable, and I want to try to keep developing that. I'm not looking to do anything else.

-- Q: But don't you ever feel like you might have reached a ceiling as far as sideline reporting, that there isn't really any more for you to do in that job?

-- A: No, not really. I still feel like I have so much more to learn. I sometimes still feel like that girl who was doing Lightning games, so I just want to keep getting better.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service www.scrippsnews.com)