Melanie Collins

Short Biography

Born in State College, Pennsylvania, Collins grew up an athlete competing against her two athletic brothers and fell in love with sports of all types. As time went on, her athletic talents continued to develop but upon realizing they wouldn't take her to a professional level, she focused more on modeling, acting, singing and ultimately broadcasting.Collins attended The Pennsylvania State University. Her first on-air job was as a weather reporter for AccuWeather during her sophomore year of college where she was seen internationally on Accuweather.com. Here, she learned the basics of being on camera and would perform weather reports for over 100 different U.S. cities.She then spent two years as a host and reporter for WPSU-TV during her junior and senior years of college. She was a weekly host on the show “Let’s Talk Sports” and served as a guest analyst on “Huddle Up”. She also served as the networks reporter for Penn State football, basketball, baseball and women’s volleyball.Collins graduated from Penn State in 2008 where she majored in Sports Journalism and minored in Kinesiology. Just after graduation, she was hired as a freelance host and reporter for the Big Ten Network. She served as a beat reporter for Penn State Football and hosted the on-campus programming show “Penn State Universe”.Shortly after finishing the football season with the Big Ten Network, Collins signed a contract with Turner Sports in Atlanta, Georgia, to work for NBA-TV and NBA.com as an anchor, host and correspondent. She covered the 2009 NBA All-Star game in Phoenix where she interviewed celebrities and athletes such as John Legend, Joe Torre, Snoop Dogg, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Chris Bosh, Nate Robinson, Seth Green, Eva Longoria, Dwight Howard and many more. She also covered the 2009 NBA Playoffs from multiple cities. In addition, she served as a host for NBA-TV and NBA.com where she was seen internationally covering special events and features for the website as well as for the broadband channel “TNT Overtime”. In addition to NBA coverage, Collins hosted segments on Nascar.com as well as PGA.com and PGATour.com.In the fall of 2009, Collins returned to the Big Ten Network to anchor the studio show “Big Ten Tonight” and the campus tailgating show “Big Ten Cookout”. As an anchor for “Big Ten Tonight”, Collins presented top news stories and anchored highlights covering college football, basketball, soccer, and a variety of other Big Ten sports. While hosting “Big Ten Cookout”, Collins interviewed and cooked with Big Ten coaches, players and chefs as well as local restaurant owners and fans at the different Big Ten Schools.Collins then signed on for a third season with the Fox Sports affiliate hosting its new show “Big Ten Tailgate” which combined sports and entertainment and was filmed at various Big Ten Schools across the country. In the Spring of 2010, she served as a freelance anchor hosting E! News Now for E! Entertainment Television.In 2011, Collins played a lead role in a comedic viral commercial for Sheets Energy Strips with NBA star Danilo Gallinari and is one of the faces of the product alongside LeBron James, Amare Stoudemire and Serena Williams.In June 2011, she served as a red carpet and backstage host for the 15th Annual Webby Awards in New York where she interviewed celebrities like Marlon Wayans, Lisa Lampanelli, Lisa Kudrow and Adrian Grenier. She also hosted the MLB Fan Fest stage from MLB All Star weekend 2011 for MLB.com.Collins now resides in Chicago, Illinois where she serves as the studio host for Total College Sports TV. As the studio host, she writes, hosts and assists in producing daily content seen internationally by tens of millions of viewers.