She’s the female face of SuperSport, a role model for new stars, but Carol Tshabala’s career started surprisingly: with a beauty pageant.
Raised in Soweto, Carol spent weekends glued to the TV, watching soccer with her family. “But as much as I loved sport, I didn’t think sportscasting was a career for a woman and there were no role models I could look to.”
Her break came when she won a school beauty pageant and used the opportunity to tell one of the judges, TV presenter Graeme Richards, about her interest in entertainment. He invited her to visit the SABC, and while she was there, she delivered lines for the show Sports Buzz so impressively that the producers took her on. Just 18 months after that, she became a presenter on the network’s biggest weekend sports show, Laduma.
“Hiring a young black woman was very bold at the time, and I had to be more prepared than the men, but that just drove me forward.”
In the 17 years since, Carol has added MCing to her portfolio, presented the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and joined the SuperSport team, which means interviewing coaches and players around the world. “Whenever I can, I take my sports-mad sons Mpho, Joel and Solly with me,” she says.
But the big highlight is the overall picture. “Now it’s Carol the broadcaster, not Carol the female broadcaster,” she says. “The days of being called ‘a woman in sport’ are gone.”
Follow Carol on Twitter or Instagram.
See all the 2017 GLAMOUR Women of the Year winners here.
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