Brooke Nevels

And...

I saw those people as my family.

When I was growing up, it was Matt, Katie, Ann, and Al.

And it felt like family to me.

So I went to college.

I studied journalism.

I interned in journalism.

And then when I graduated, by some miracle, I got into the NBC page program, which is

a foot in the door for the television industry that I never quite could believe that I had gotten there.

I had no connections in media.

It really felt like a miracle.

And while I was in the Page program, I was assigned to the Today show.

From there, I met Meredith Vieira.

I eventually became her assistant and her associate producer.

And that's what I was doing when we were in Sochi.

So I was mainly there just as a talent assistant.

There was sort of this atmosphere of the surreal.

We were in Russia, which is a strange experience in and of itself.

Bob Costas, this legend of Olympic broadcasting, to be felled by pink eye of all possible things for Meredith to then have this incredible opportunity to solo anchor and to do it and to do an amazing job.

We went to celebrate afterwards.