{"id":1799,"date":"2026-05-27T13:37:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1799"},"modified":"2026-05-27T13:37:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:37:44","slug":"for-espns-mina-kimes-calling-the-national-spelling-bee-is-a-homecoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1799","title":{"rendered":"For ESPN\u2019s Mina Kimes, calling the National Spelling Bee is a \u2018homecoming\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>She breaks down NFL film on ESPN and won \u201cCelebrity Jeopardy!\u201d Now Kimes will help viewers understand the competition of her youth: spelling.<\/strong><\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1791\">Climbers meet in Nepal to discuss the challenges of scaling Mount Everest<\/a><\/p>\n<figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1793\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ac3bb97e8881e5415c7bf557230748ec-668x1024.jpg\" width=\"668\" srcset=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ac3bb97e8881e5415c7bf557230748ec-668x1024.jpg 668w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ac3bb97e8881e5415c7bf557230748ec-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ac3bb97e8881e5415c7bf557230748ec-768x1177.jpg 768w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ac3bb97e8881e5415c7bf557230748ec-1002x1536.jpg 1002w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ac3bb97e8881e5415c7bf557230748ec-1337x2048.jpg 1337w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ac3bb97e8881e5415c7bf557230748ec-scaled.jpg 1671w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<figcaption>Mina Kimes, one of ESPN\u2019s most prominent NFL analysts, won multiple spelling bees during her elementary school years. (Alisha Jucevic\/For The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n<p>In a way, Mina Kimes\u2019s next assignment isn\u2019t all that surprising.<\/p>\n<p>Before Kimes was one of ESPN\u2019s most prominent NFL analysts, she was a studious kid who aced tests, devoured books and won trophies for spelling. If someone who knew her then had been asked whether she was more likely to grow up to analyze football on television or host the National Spelling Bee, Kimes said recently, \u201cI think 9 out of 10 people would say the spelling bee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She won school spelling bees in the second, third and fifth grades and read so much that losing library privileges counted as punishment. \u201cObviously, I was very cool,\u201d she joked. So as strange as it may sound that Kimes will play a prominent role on this year\u2019s Scripps National Spelling Bee broadcast, she sees the assignment differently.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn some ways,\u201d she said, \u201cdoing the spelling bee is actually more of a homecoming for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1794\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/47df06beed2af793a7cba1f6110ed20f-683x1024.jpg\" width=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/47df06beed2af793a7cba1f6110ed20f-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/47df06beed2af793a7cba1f6110ed20f-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/47df06beed2af793a7cba1f6110ed20f-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/47df06beed2af793a7cba1f6110ed20f-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/47df06beed2af793a7cba1f6110ed20f-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/47df06beed2af793a7cba1f6110ed20f-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<figcaption>Kimes after winning the second-grade spelling bee in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Mina Kimes\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Kimes will co-host the Bee this week with longtime spelling broadcaster Paul Loeffler, as 247 spellers gather at Constitution Hall for the 101-year-old competition\u2019s return to D.C. proper. (The last 15 have been held in Maryland.) For Kimes, 40, the unique assignment is a chance to revisit the world of academic competition that shaped her long before football did \u2014 and get an up-close look at how it has changed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought I cared a lot at the time,\u201d Kimes said, \u201cbut now as I read about these kids\u2019 preparation and everything they do, I realize I had no chance of ever going far in spelling bee, even if I was at my school level, because, holy mackerel, the studying that they do is impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1795\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2702fa629de1dcd8a0c7e57b1ccb6a92-1024x683.jpg\" width=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2702fa629de1dcd8a0c7e57b1ccb6a92-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2702fa629de1dcd8a0c7e57b1ccb6a92-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2702fa629de1dcd8a0c7e57b1ccb6a92-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2702fa629de1dcd8a0c7e57b1ccb6a92-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2702fa629de1dcd8a0c7e57b1ccb6a92-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<figcaption>Kimes on the set of ESPN&#8217;s &#8220;NFL Live&#8221; during the 2021 NFL Draft. (Phil Ellsworth\/ESPN Images)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Kimes has been preparing for the Bee the way she prepares for football analysis: studying film and trying to understand where she fits.<\/p>\n<p>She has been revisiting old Bee broadcasts to understand the show\u2019s rhythm \u2014 where the host can explain, where an analyst can add context and where the spellers need room.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a little bit like my job grinding tape,\u201d Kimes said, \u201ctrying to understand how things are happening and also what I can bring to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her role during Wednesday\u2019s semifinals and Thursday\u2019s finals is akin to that of a color commentator in a sports broadcast booth. Loeffler, a former speller and the longtime voice of the Bee, brings deep institutional knowledge, and Kimes will try to frame the stakes and guide casual viewers through the competition without getting in the way of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m in some ways the voice of the everyman,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The more she has watched, the more she has come to understand that the Bee requires restraint. The competition moves quickly. The spellers do not leave much dead air. The drama often lives in the quiet between the moment spellers hear the word and recite the first letter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs much as it\u2019s important for me to figure out what to say,\u201d Kimes said, \u201cI think it\u2019s equally important for me to figure out when to not speak.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1796\" height=\"696\" src=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6698f3b13978387dac435fa3e556cd7b-1024x696.jpg\" width=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6698f3b13978387dac435fa3e556cd7b-1024x696.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6698f3b13978387dac435fa3e556cd7b-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6698f3b13978387dac435fa3e556cd7b-768x522.jpg 768w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6698f3b13978387dac435fa3e556cd7b-1536x1044.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6698f3b13978387dac435fa3e556cd7b-2048x1393.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<figcaption>Kimes and running back Jerick McKinnon, then with the San Francisco 49ers, during an event in the lead-up to the 2020 Super Bowl. (David J. Phillip\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The nightmare scenario, Kimes said, is not that she will be asked to pronounce the words. Jacques Bailly, the Bee\u2019s longtime pronouncer, has that job. She is more focused on the children\u2019s names and on rare contingencies that could suddenly reshape the broadcast.<\/p>\n<p>One possibility is a spell-off, the rapid-fire tiebreaking format adopted after the 2019 Bee ended with eight co-champions. If the competition reaches that point, Kimes knows the moment could be extraordinary television \u2014 and difficult to explain quickly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just want to make sure I\u2019m brushed up, that I\u2019m caught up or at least very conversant in all of the history of the Bee,\u201d she said, \u201cso that if a scenario like that emerges, I can properly give the context.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What has struck Kimes most about elite spellers is not the memorization, she said, but the method. As a child, she studied from hard copies of word lists. Today\u2019s top spellers prepare year-round, learning roots, language patterns, definitions and strategies for words they may never have seen before. She hopes the broadcast can show not just whether a child spells a word correctly but also how that child thinks.<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1788\">Iga Swiatek improves career record at French Open to 42-3 as she reaches 3rd round<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In other words, in an age of spell-check and artificial intelligence, spelling still matters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not just becoming a computer and mimicking words or memorizing them,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s learning how to study, learning how to solve problems, learning how to do that under pressure, in a short period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1797\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/596deac64af47fff2b29d63109093ef1-1024x683.jpg\" width=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/596deac64af47fff2b29d63109093ef1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/596deac64af47fff2b29d63109093ef1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/596deac64af47fff2b29d63109093ef1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/596deac64af47fff2b29d63109093ef1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/596deac64af47fff2b29d63109093ef1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<figcaption>Kimes won this year&#8217;s &#8220;Celebrity Jeopardy! All-Stars.&#8221; (Eric McCandless\/Eric McCandless\/Disney\/Sony Pictures Television)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Kimes has spent much of her ESPN career blurring the old line between jock and nerd, making football friendlier to the obsessively curious and carving out space for a reasoned, deeply researched voice in a sports TV culture that often mistakes loudness for authority. Her recent \u201cCelebrity Jeopardy!\u201d victory and her new Bee assignment suggest a comfort she did not always feel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf this had happened maybe six or seven years ago,\u201d she said, \u201cI would have been apprehensive about showing this part of myself or leaning into it. But now I\u2019ve sort of built enough confidence and equity in the football space to where I feel less apprehensive about leaning back into the things that I love and that I\u2019ve always loved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Michael Davies, the executive producer of \u201cJeopardy!\u201d and CEO of Embassy Row, which is producing the Bee, called Kimes a \u201cunicorn,\u201d with a rare mix of curiosity, humor, journalistic instincts and live-television skill. He said her sports background helps her understand how to frame the spellers as elite competitors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCovering sports really helps in terms of contextualizing these kids and their work ethic and their concentration and their focus and their preparation and just their star quality,\u201d Davies said.<\/p>\n<p>Kimes, a Yale University graduate who worked as an investigative business reporter before joining ESPN the Magazine in 2014, was always cut from a different cloth than many football analysts. She has appeared as a New York Times crossword answer, served as the phone-a-friend who helped chef David Chang win $1 million on \u201cWho Wants to Be a Millionaire,\u201d and this month won \u201cCelebrity Jeopardy!,\u201d earning $1 million for a Los Angeles charity focused on homelessness.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1798\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/70b92cf6dce21d87a3d9ae4d6ce3b7fa-683x1024.jpg\" width=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/70b92cf6dce21d87a3d9ae4d6ce3b7fa-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/70b92cf6dce21d87a3d9ae4d6ce3b7fa-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/70b92cf6dce21d87a3d9ae4d6ce3b7fa-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/70b92cf6dce21d87a3d9ae4d6ce3b7fa-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/70b92cf6dce21d87a3d9ae4d6ce3b7fa-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/70b92cf6dce21d87a3d9ae4d6ce3b7fa-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<figcaption>The Bee&#8217;s producer describes Kimes as a &#8220;unicorn&#8221; with a rare mix of skills. (Eric McCandless\/Eric McCandless\/Disney\/Sony Pictures Television)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s made her intellect part of her brand, and I feel like that matches the Bee so well,\u201d said Corrie Loeffler, the Bee\u2019s executive director. \u201cShe is so good on the sports side of things, so obviously is very in tune with the competitive drive behind what these kids do, but then also brings this intellectual side with her that will match the academic strength and kind of the brain-sport side of what these kids do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Bee is trying to refresh its television presentation at a transitional moment. This year, it tapped Davies and Embassy Row to produce the broadcast and enlisted Kimes to help give the competition a big-game feel.<\/p>\n<p>But the Bee\u2019s drama is delicate. Its tension is not loud. It is a child at a microphone, a word most viewers have never heard, long pauses and then the ding of a bell.<\/p>\n<p>Kimes believes the Bee can work on viewers the way the Olympics often do: Introduce a competitor quickly, reveal enough of a story to make strangers care, then let the performance carry the emotion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know when you\u2019re watching the Olympics and all of a sudden you\u2019re like, I love this athlete who I never heard of an hour ago?\u201d she said. \u201cI think the spelling bee can do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When Davies first called Kimes about the job, he said what struck him was not her reaction to the career opportunity but to the spellers themselves. To Kimes, they were \u201cthe coolest kids of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now her job \u2014 an assignment she\u2019s spent a lifetime preparing for \u2014 is to make everyone else see them that way, too.<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1785\">The Blue Wave from tiny Cura\u00e7ao is making World Cup history<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>She breaks down NFL film on ESPN and won \u201cCelebrity Jeopardy!\u201d Now Kimes will help viewers understand the competition of her youth: spelling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>For ESPN\u2019s Mina Kimes, calling the National Spelling Bee is a \u2018homecoming\u2019 - 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