Six Questions for ESPN's Sage Steele

How sports led her to the career of her dreams.

Sage Steele is enjoying her career to the fullest. The "SportsCenter" co-host was on the road covering the NBA Finals for the first time in her illustrious career and it's a job she doesn't take lightly.

Steele sat down with Loop 21 to talk about the lengths she's gone through to keep balance in her life and how she stays grounded as her career goes to new heights.

Loop 21: What sparked your love of sports?

Steele: My father was a pretty good athlete. He was the first black football varsity player at West Point. He was drafted in the NFL, but couldn't play because of his military obligation. We lived in Greece and Belgium for a period growing up and there was only one TV station in English and every weekend it was always on sports -- Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins. That's what I grew up with.

I also ran track and played some volleyball. I knew at a young age that this is what I wanted to do. When I was in the eighth grade I actually announced at the dinner table that I was going to host "SportsCenter." My parents were kind of like, "Oh, that's nice." [Laughs] Because I was a painfully shy child. I feel pretty blessed. At 12 years old, I announced it and it came true. It was a hard road to get here, but I'm here.

Loop 21: You recently tweeted about missing your kids while on the road covering the NBA Finals for an extended period of time. How do you balance motherhood and your career?

Steele: I knew that if my boss thought enough of me to send me to an event of this magnitude, I needed to take it. I would be crazy not to. On the flip side, I had never been away from my kids for more than five days. This is by far the longest. Thank goodness for technology — Skype and FaceTime.

[ALSO READ: John Legend Debates Skip Bayless]

Loop 21: So your support system is pretty solid, with some of the travel that's required for your career?

Steele: I have the best support system. My husband has sacrificed his career for us as a family. He's been a stay-at-home dad for 10 years. There's no way I'd be at ESPN right now if it wasn't for him. It was not our plan at all. We thought about it for a couple weeks and did some number crunching. I'm pretty traditional and was willing to be the one who would stay home, but I made more money. It's a blessing, but it was a very difficult decision. I didn't want to miss a thing.