You know her voice from Minnesota United broadcasts on FOX Sports North. She’s the one cueing you into the subtleties behind Ibson’s positioning on the pitch and how he distributes the ball. Maybe you’ve seen her out in the community on a hospital visit or an Academy camp. Kyndra de St. Aubin is the team’s color commentator, but she is also a tireless representative for the club.
Her journey with Minnesota United began over a Starbucks coffee in California in the summer of 2016. Across the table sat Ben Grossman, a minority owner of the club. The two had first met at the 2015 FIFA World Cup in Canada, where de St. Aubin was covering the tournament for Fox Sports. Grossman approached de St. Aubin about the color commentator position for Minnesota, who were about to become the new kids on the block in MLS.
“I almost fell off my chair,” said de St. Aubin. “I was incredibly honored that he even asked me and thought that I could do the job in the first place. I view it as a huge honor and responsibility. I read someone, maybe it was Doris Burke, had a quote once: I am really honored when people are talking to me about this, but you hope there’s a day when it’s not a big deal — when it’s not news that a woman is hired as an analyst in a men’s sport. And more and more women are doing it now in other sports. Jessica Mendoza for Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. Doris Burke, probably the best analyst in the NBA. I’m excited about it in the sense that I love that news gets out there and that girls think that they can do the same thing.”
Taking the job meant the Stillwater, Minnesota, native would return home and become the first and only woman analyst in the league and getting back in touch with the soccer world she grew up in. Growing up, she played club soccer in the Minnesota Youth Soccer Association. She coached Minnesota Thunder camps and attended Olympic Development Program camps. And of course, she spent countless hours where the team now trains at the National Sports Center in Blaine.
“Honestly, if this would have been a job offer from any other team, I don’t know that I would have taken it,” said de St. Aubin. “Not that it wouldn’t have been an awesome career move, but from a family perspective, it just made sense. It was so cool to kind of come full circle.”
During her junior year at the University of Minnesota, de St. Aubin took a career exploration class that included an assignment to shadow a professional in a career that interested them. She chose to spend the day with legendary sportscaster James Brown after connecting with him through her brother, a producer on Brown’s show on Sporting News Radio.
At first, she simply couldn’t believe that his job consisted of watching and talking about sports, but she quickly grew to appreciate how much work he put into his daily responsibilities. This was the moment when she first seriously imagined herself working in sports reporting.
“I think the most rewarding thing about my job, and why I really feel lucky about it, is because I literally get to do, every day, what I’m passionate about,” said de St. Aubin. “I get to watch phenomenal soccer every day, at the highest level in the United States. I get to go to practice every day and watch these training sessions, and that’s my job. That in itself is cool. But just the fact that you can love what you do, and you can call it work.
“The second most rewarding thing about my job is that I get to be a working mom and a stay-at-home mom at the same time,” she said. “I feel really, really lucky that I can go to practice or something for a few hours in a day, and still take my daughter to skating lessons at night. There’s a good balance of that. And honestly, it’s cool that my daughter gets to see that.”
Her Saturdays are generally spent in front of the camera with play-by-play announcer Callum Williams and sideline reporter Jamie Watson. But before the public-facing part of her job, there are the hours of preparation and research that go into making the broadcast work for 90 minutes.
In the week leading up to a match, de St. Aubin spends the first half of each day at the National Sports Center, watching the team train and listening to post-session interviews. This helps her to understand Head Coach Adrian Heath’s direction for the week, and see the tactical decisions that are being implemented through drills. The second half of the day is dedicated to research: re-watching film, watching the opponent’s film, digging through match notes, keeping up on rumors, trades, acquisitions, signings and roster changes happening throughout the league.
All of that information eventually finds its way onto one of two 12-by-18-inch construction paper boards that de St. Aubin keeps in front of her during the broadcast. She adds the teams’ rosters and any notes on individual players that she might have to touch on — less statistics than bigger picture things about a player’s career.
“Cal's job is to say what’s happening, and my job is why it’s happening,” said de St. Aubin. “When I do a game, I view it very much as if my husband and I are watching a game at home, and we’re sitting on the couch, and we are discussing it. I don’t try to find something that’s not there, or dig for some hidden gem. You want to teach people without making them feel like they’re being taught. It’s kind of like a weird balance. JP Dellacamera, who has done a million, gazillion World Cups, told me that before the 2015 World Cup in Canada. He said, that’s the goal.”
Much like Minnesota United itself, de St. Aubin is learning every day what it takes to get the job done. There are always ways to improve and more work to be done. Just because a job is your passion doesn’t mean it’s not a job. It seems like, though, de St. Aubin wouldn’t want it any other way.
