With the Nets having capped off a successful regular season that led to a first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers, Love spoke with FORDHAM magazine about her game night responsibilities, her passions and pursuits, and what was special about the education she received at Fordham.

How did you first come into the Nets hosting gig?
I fell in love with on-camera work, so I started taking hosting classes. When I finished, I emailed the class reel to everyone in my contacts, most of whom I didn’t even know, letting them know I was open for hosting business. Next thing I knew, I got an email offer to host the Brooklyn Nets!

What does a game night look like for you? Can you walk us through the process and timing from when you get to the arena to when you leave?
I get to Barclays Center two hours prior to tip-off, and we have an entertainment meeting, which includes going over the “run of show” for that evening’s game. Afterwards, I get ready for the game and review my lines. My first hit happens around 7 p.m. if it’s an evening game. Then, I welcome everyone to the game and introduce the teams around 7:10 p.m. From then on, I am on pretty much every timeout during the game. I’m on court and in the stands doing fan interactions, on-court games, interviews, and marketing plugs. I leave at the end of the game.

With the team having such a successful season and now being in the playoffs, have you noticed a change in the atmosphere at Barclays?
Leading up to [and during the] playoffs, the energy is always taken up another level. Brooklyn has something so special about it, as a borough, community, and team, and that energy always spills into the arena. As we got closer to the postseason, you could feel the grit and energy of our team taking it to the next level.

You are also a Peloton instructor, model, and the founder and CEO of Love Squad. How do you balance all that in your day-to-day? And what are your plans for the future in these different areas?
Well, I love all the things I do, so they fuel me. The thing that all of these platforms have in common is the opportunity to affect my community positively by utilizing live, on-camera interaction. I plan to continue to create content that will inspire communities across the world.

I also have big hopes for my company. Love Squad is a big part of who I am and reflects what I stand for, which is diversity, empowerment, and love. I founded it on my own a few years ago and want to continue to grow it into the platform I know it can be. Love Squad creates a space that champions inclusivity and diversity, and deconstructs the disparity in who is able to receive information that could change people’s personal and professional lives. If you have the network, you learn and you’re exposed to more, which offers a chance at a better opportunity in life. So the more we grow, the more people we can help. That’s what my main focus is right now.

You earned your B.F.A. from Fordham through its partnership with the Ailey School. How has your training there impacted your career?
I think it gave me discipline. It afforded me an opportunity to establish a personal metric for success safely, within the construct of school, while experiencing a big city. It also encouraged me to immerse myself in elements that allowed me to be creative, and to use that as a conduit for production beyond basic utility.

What first attracted you to the program at Fordham?
I loved that it was in New York City, specifically right in midtown. I also felt like it was the perfect hybrid of arts, culture, and academics while offering independence, which were very important characteristics.

What did you get out of the combination of a high-level dance program and a Jesuit core curriculum?
I was able to find myself. I was always dancing (pun intended) between the arts and religion. Fordham provided the foundation and opportunity to explore both simultaneously, and it opened my mind to the fact that they were not mutually exclusive. There was room for me to merge both, and it ultimately molded me into the woman I am today.

This year, Fordham’s performing arts programs have taken center stage.

Over the past few weeks, several nationwide rankings have been released online, including lists from OnStage Blog, a theater website, and Playbill. Fordham found its name among the top programs for 2018-2019.

Fordham Theatre is listed as No. 1 on OnStage’s list of Top 25 B.A. Theatre Programs, beating competitors like Vassar College and Brown University. OnStage considered various facets of Fordham’s program: the facilities, faculty, cost/scholarship opportunities, selectivity, curriculum, and performance opportunities.

“The program features tracks in not only performance and design/technology but also playwriting and directing,” the blog wrote. “With four mainstage shows and up to 20 studio shows each year, students are continually learning by doing.”

OnStage also ranked the Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. in Dance program as the No. 2  dance program in the country, second only to NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

“This mecca for dance is located in the heart of midtown Manhattan,” the blog wrote about the Ailey School. “It houses 16 climate-controlled studios equipped with sprung floors, pianos, sound systems, state-of-the-art acoustics, the 275-seat Ailey Citigroup Theater, physical therapy facilities, the Ailey Boutique, a library, and student and faculty lounges. It is [the] largest building for dance education in the dance capital of New York City.”

The program not only has state-of-the-art facilities, it also allows students to study full time at both the Ailey School and Fordham. At the Ailey School, they are trained in classical ballet, jazz, and West African Dance; at Fordham, they are educated in the liberal arts.

Lastly, Fordham tied for 10th place in the most represented colleges on Broadway in Playbill magazine. There are currently 12 alumni on Broadway who star in shows like Anastasia, The Lion King, and Wicked.

“Denzel, Denzel, Denzel.”

Upon receiving the 2014 Tony Award for best director, Kenny Leon thanked Fordham alumnus Denzel Washington, FCLC ’77, who is currently starring on Broadway in the Leon-directed revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. “He’s truly a theater inspiration.”

The play’s run ended June 15, but the bond between director and star will only strengthen this fall, when Leon is expected to join the Fordham faculty as the University’s 2014 Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham, an endowed position established in 2011 with a $2 million gift from Washington. Leon last directed Washington in the 2010 revival of August Wilson’s Fences, which won a Tony for best revival of a play and earned Washington a Tony Award for best actor.

Though Washington was absent from the June 8 awards ceremony in Radio City Music Hall, Fordham was not without stellar alumni representation and achievement on stage.

John Johnson, FCLC ’02, won two Tony Awards. As one of the executive producers of A Raisin in the Sun, he took home the Tony for best revival of a play. He is also a producer of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, which earned four Tony Awards, including the award for best musical. The musical comedy was a Fordham College at Lincoln Center reunion of sorts for Johnson. HIs former roommate Aaron Rhyme, FCLC ’02, did the show’s projection design, for which he won a 2014 Drama Desk Award.

Johnson adds these two Tony wins to his first, earned last year as a producer of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which won best play. After receiving that award last June, Johnson credited his Fordham Theatre training for his success. He recalled that the goal of the program is to create “eclectic professionals” who can fill multiple roles: actor, director, playwright, and producer.
As a producer, Johnson said, “you’re focusing on selling tickets, you’re focusing on advertising, you’re focusing on contracts, you’re focusing on the day-to-day aspects of working with actors, directors, crew members. … You need all of those things in your tool kit, and that’s definitely something that Fordham taught me right from the outset.”

Four alumnae of the Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. in Dance program helped kick off the Tony Awards ceremony, following host Hugh Jackman’s high-energy entrance into Radio City Music Hall. Marija Juliette Abney (FCLC ’07); Taeler Elyse Cyrus (FCLC ’08); Erin N. Moore (FCLC ’05); and Monique Smith (FCLC ’02), joined their cast mates from the Tony-nominated After Midnight in a special number choreographed by Warren Carlye just for the telecast. The jazzy spectacle, set to “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing,” also featured Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, and Fantasia Barrino.

Later in the broadcast, in one of two teasers for the upcoming 2014-2015 theater season, Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson sang “Neverland,” a song from the new musical Finding Neverland, which open this summer at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. Hudson will not be part of the cast, but Fordham alumna Melanie Moore, FCLC ’14, will be in the ensemble. Moore, winner of season eight of Fox’sSo You Think You Can Dance, performed the role of Peter Pan during the Tonys’ Finding Neverlandpiece.

Fordham alumni have earned six Tony Awards in the past seven years. In addition to John Johnson and Denzel Washington’s awards, Julie White, FCLC ’85, earned a 2007 Tony for best actress in The Little Dog Laughed, and John Benjamin Hickey, FCLC ’85, won in 2011 for featured actor in The Normal Heart.

– Rachel Buttner

The beauty, passion, and innovation of modern dance starts with a smile and a stretch backstage before moving into the realm of the fantastic. On March 7, members of the Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. program gave a generous performance
for friends, family, fellow students, seasoned and aspiring dancers, and their program’s loyal benefactors at the Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. in Dance benefit held at the Lincoln Center campus.

Photos by Eduardo Patino and Chris Taggart

Thursday, March 10, 2011 | 7 p.m. (5:45 p.m. pre–performance cocktail reception)

Pope Auditorium | Lowenstein Center | Lincoln Center Campus

In the last 12 years of her life, Denise dedicated much of her energy to the development of dancers in the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program in Dance. The University will remember and celebrate Jefferson in this performance. The proceeds will make it possible for Denise Jefferson’s’s dreams to continue in the training of exceptionally gifted dancers in the Ailey/Fordham program.

Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. Benefit Committee
William F. Baker, Ph.D.
Clifton Brown
Elizabeth Burns, FCLC ’83
Andrew H. Clark, Ph.D.
Patricia Dugan, FCLC ’79
Amanda Hearst, FCLC ’08

Tickets required. Register Online

For event information, please contact Jill Logan at (212) 636-6440.

To support the Ailey/Fordham BFA program, please contact Rodger Van Allen at (212) 636-6562 or [email protected].