ESPN College GameDay's Lada Welcomes Chicago Homecoming, Tacos

CHICAGO — ESPN College GameDay reporter Jen Lada loves a good homecoming story.

This weekend, the former Comcast Sportsnet broadcaster's return to Chicago — for No. 12 Notre Dame's showdown with No. 18 Wisconsin at Soldier Field on Saturday — is a welcome reunion.

She's planning to visit some gal pals and hoping against hope for a chance to make a stop at her favorite Roscoe Village taco shop.

Tony's Burrito Mex is home to "the best steak tacos in the history of my life,” Lada said.

Duly noted, Ms. Lada.

On Friday, the suburban Chicago native talked about her transition from Chicago pro sports to covering college football. Admittedly, she didn't really know what to expect of her College GameDay gig, which attracts a throng of sign-bearing fanatics who flood college campuses at ungodly early hours to be part of the action.

For Lada, who attended football-free Marquette University — which remains undefeated, she jokes — a love of college football didn't come naturally.

“This was really like being thrown into the deep end,” Lada told Patch on Friday. “To start experiencing college football, to understand the tradition, understand the allegiances, understand the rivalries [was new]. Like anything else, I was a quick study on it; but now, I see what an incredible environment it is, and I totally understand why so many people in America are absolutely in love with this sport.”

Each week, Lada finds herself smack-dab in the middle of the raucous game-day environment searching for meaningful tales that resonate with fans regardless of their college allegiances.

That’s even the case in Chicago, a pro-sports town that Lada says often get a bad rap for not caring about college teams. But in a metropolitan melting pot of a city, where many Big 10 college alums call home — and where Notre Dame, Northwestern, Wisconsin and other college football programs have loyal fan bases — Chicago isn’t exactly devoid of enthusiasm when it comes to collegiate teams.

That will certainly be the case on Saturday when GameDay sets up outside of Soldier Field after camping out in Grant Park on Friday.

While those loyal to the Fighting Irish and the Badgers will come out in full force and express themselves full-throated, the enthusiasm isn't something Lada immediately noticed. Instead, she said that for her first couple of years with ESPN, she was so focused on producing good stories and executing her storytelling techniques that she didn’t allow herself to totally immerse herself in her surroundings.

Now, amid all the face paint, mascots, cheerleaders and tailgating she is surrounded by each week, Lada gets it. It’s just been in recent years that Lada has come to appreciate what a phenomenon has become since it first began broadcasting in 1987.

While her ESPN colleagues Desmond Howard, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and others break down the X’s and O’s of each week’s games, it is Lada who brings more of a human-interest storytelling element to the broadcast.

Rather than getting fans to change their allegiances, Lada focuses on giving viewers individual players and coaches to root for. It's a job she takes seriously.

“I try to go in each week with a blank slate and let the subject fill the blackboard,” Lada said. “When you’re a storyteller, you find yourself rooting for people instead of programs.”

She added. “This (job) has taught me that [passion for college football] is immeasurable, that you can’t quantify just how much some people live for their college football teams. And it’s infectious.”

Saturday’s hometown assignment will be special because it gives her a chance to show her ESPN colleagues a side of Chicago you only get to see by living here, as Lada did in Roscoe Village during her time here in the city.

And then it's back on the road, a place that Lada says she's learned to love for the last five seasons.

“The week you’re [here], it feels like the greatest thing you’ve ever seen in college football,” Lada said. “Then you go to the next stop, and whatever they’re doing there feels like the greatest thing you’ve ever seen in college football. And it’s a testament to those fans and their dedication to their sport.”

But when it comes to tacos, Tony's on Belmont and Damen remains undefeated in Lada's heart.