As Sarah Kustok stares down history, she remembers the days not so long ago when a career in sports television wasn’t even on her radar.
The former Division I basketball standout watched each old dream — finance, business and coaching — come and go, while a college side job in the ESPN production truck increasingly captivated her. Fast-forward 13 years, and YES Network on Friday announced Kustok as the Nets’ full-time color commentator, making her the only woman handling the analyst duties on her own for an NBA team this season.
“It’s funny, I’ll talk to so many people, whether it’s classes or young kids or aspiring broadcasters, and they’re like, ‘When I was in third grade, I knew this was it,’ ” Kustok said of her winding path to sports broadcasting in a sit-down interview with The Post at the Nets practice facility in Brooklyn this week.
“For better or worse, that was never me. I was kind of all over the board. Early on I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a lawyer, and education was always very important to me. Then yes, when I finished grad school, I figured out that this is a pretty cool job, and it doesn’t feel like you’re going to work. Once I got into it, it’s been a dream.”
Kustok, who has spent the past five years as the Nets’ sideline reporter for YES, isn’t sweating the pressure of delivering on-the-spot analysis during the 82-game season. Since she started in the business, Kustok, 35, has been preparing for each season as if she’d be called on at any moment to share her expertise — consuming NBA League Pass, studying game film and breaking down players’ skill sets.
The surprise call came three seasons ago, when a scheduling conflict pushed her into the analyst role alongside longtime play-by-play man Ian Eagle for a game against the 76ers. The fill-in gigs slowly picked up from there and opened Kustok’s eyes to a thrilling possibility.
“She is smart, passionate, prepared, likable, everything that you look for in a successful analyst,” said Eagle, now Kustok’s permanent partner, who has been calling Nets games on YES since 2002. “She knows the game. She knows how to communicate the game, and her enthusiasm bursts through the TV screen.
“And she’s genuine. … What you see is what you get.”
“The more that I’ve done games, you just gotta be you,” said Kustok, the third woman to work for a team as an analyst, joining Stephanie Ready, who is part of a three-person booth with the Hornets, and Ann Meyers Drysdale, who does games part-time for the Suns. “How would you talk about a game if someone was sitting there next to you watching a ballgame? How would you react and what would you say? I think those types of things are what’s always in my mind.”
Growing up in a sports family, the Illinois native began carving her athletic path at a young age, taking the skills she learned playing pick-up with her older brother, Zak, and six male cousins into a middle school basketball tryout with 70 boys.
She was the only girl on the court and made the team, much like in her future jobs covering college football and basketball for ESPN, NHL and MLB for Comcast SportsNet and now NBA for YES.
“There were no girls teams in middle school, so it was, ‘Oh, OK, we’ll just have you go try out for the boys team,’ and it was no big deal,” Kustok said.
“I think that’s always been a part of why this has been such an easy transition. It’s not about being a girl or a boy. It’s, ‘Are you good? Are you good enough to make the team? OK, then go do it.’ ”
As captain at DePaul in 2003 and ’04, Kustok led the Blue Demons to a top-25 ranking and the NCAA Tournament each season, finishing her career fourth on the school’s all-time 3-point percentage list.
For someone who welcomes the challenge of wearing her knowledge and personality on her sleeve, Kustok admits she is a private person who probably wouldn’t be on social media if her job didn’t require it.
Kustok has yet to comment publicly on the family tragedy that found her father, Allan, guilty three years ago of shooting and killing her mother, Anita “Jeanie,” in 2010, while Jeanie was asleep. Sarah Kustok defended her father’s innocence during the four-week trial, as he claimed his wife, an elementary school teacher, had shot herself. Allan was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Kustok declined comment on her relationship with her father.
She remains close with her 37-year-old brother, who starred at quarterback for Northwestern from 1999-2001 and bounced around a couple of NFL practice squads.
Just like the days Zak let her play with the boys, Kustok’s colleagues don’t see gender when it comes to the X’s and O’s expert doing her job.
“The great thing about this with Sarah is she’s a wonderful example to young girls about what you are capable of,” said Ryan Ruocco, Eagle’s backup. “It’s not like she’s good for being a woman; she’s good as a human being, and you can be, too.”
Ruocco points to Kustok’s ability not to take herself too seriously as her greatest attribute on camera. There was the time in August 2012, when Kustok took a pie in the face from A.J. Pierzynski of the White Sox during her last on-field interview before moving to YES and pledged over the microphone, “I promise I will get him back.”
Following in the footsteps of sports TV trailblazers such as Drysdale, Doris Burke, Beth Mowins and Jessica Mendoza, Kustok recognizes there’s a fine line in their business between ignoring gender and embracing it, so the next generation of female voices feels inspired.
“I love the idea of young girls, young boys seeing this as the norm … [and] not turning on the TV and thinking, ‘Oh, there’s a woman calling an NBA game,’ ” Kustok said.
“But there’s a greater responsibility because you get this opportunity — not many females have had this opportunity — so you have the responsibility of making sure that you are putting in the type of work and having the type of success so those after you are afforded the same opportunities.”