After 15 months at her hometown station, NBC Palm Springs sports reporter Olivia Garvey is moving on up.
Garvey, a Palm Desert High School graduate and daughter of former Dodgers and Padres great Steve Garvey, announced during Friday’s 6 p.m. newscast that it was her last day at the station.
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She did not disclose what her next job would be, but she did confirm that she will be moving to the Washington, D.C., area. If you like to keep track of these things, the Coachella Valley is the 141st biggest television market in the United States and Washington is the 7th largest.
“Obviously I’m really excited and I learned so much from my family here at NBC Palm Springs,” Garvey said. “I had never been on air before; I had always been in an editing bay. So I can’t thank everyone around here enough for making me the reporter I am now.”
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During her final send-off on the Friday night sportscast, Garvey thanked her colleagues, of course, but also the coaches, athletic directors and student-athletes in the valley.
Garvey herself was a desert athlete, playing softball and cheerleading at Palm Desert High School before graduating in 2012. That made covering the area extra special, she said.
“I loved showcasing the high school kids in the desert, I think because I was one and it was fun to see it from a different angle,” said the 25-year-old. “I played sports in high school so I didn’t watch them much, but to see all that passion and get to show it was fun for me. I loved those Friday Night Lights high school football shows. They were tense but that’s where I learned the most, I think.”
NBC Palm Springs News Director Gino Lamont said he would’ve loved to see Garvey stay longer, but it was not a shock to him that her tenure was short. He said that around December, he started fielding calls from four or five different affiliates and cable channels about Garvey.
“The fact that she wasn’t here very long is not a big surprise. The word was out, and this town is kind of famous for launching careers. How often have you seen someone leave the desert and five years later you see them on national TV or in a big market?” Lamont said. “Even though 15 months is a short run for someone moving to such a big market, she’s incredibly talented, the camera loves her, she’s hard-working and grew up in sports. She’s passionate about the topic and that comes across on camera.”
He said she was a natural as far as sports knowledge and her on-air presence.
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“All we had to teach her were some of the technical things of being on air, and then we just press the right buttons and let her go,” he said. “From Day One, it was clear she could do this.”
As far as replacing her, Lamont said there’s not a big rush with sports all but canceled in the near future, and the relative dead period of the summer in the desert. He said he expects to have a replacement in place before the high school football season starts in the fall.
Garvey said the coronavirus concerns are making things a little tricky, logistically. She is technically supposed to start her new job the first week of June, but obviously that could be in flux. She’s already resigned herself to the notion that she’s going to have to find an apartment online without actually seeing it in person before she gets to the East Coast.
Aside from the big jump in markets, it will be a leap for Garvey to move across the country. It was a unique situation in the desert as she was able to report the sports and then come home to her famously sports-loving family.
She said she’s going to miss those post-show breakdowns with her family the most.
“I’m a homebody and I’m very close with my family, so to come home and see my dad after a show and he’s giving me his critiques,” she said. “That’s what I’m going to miss the most, especially with a sports family that knows all the lingo and stuff, I’m going to miss coming home to them to talk sports. That’s going to be difficult for me. I’ve just been really lucky.”
Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at [email protected].
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