Pam Oliver: She's Back!

Pam Oliver is coming back to the sidelines and she didn’t even see it coming.

"I was shocked, floored, a monumental surprise," says Oliver. "The call came out of the blue."

The call was from Fox Sports president Eric Shanks and executive vice president John Entz, and it came the second week of January prior to the NFL divisional playoffs. And the call came with a question.

Would Oliver consider coming back to do NFL sideline reporting for Fox in 2015?

"I think I was silent for a good 10 seconds and then screamed out, What?" Oliver recalled on Monday afternoon. "I thought: 'This makes no sense. What are they talking about?'"

"The call was so completely out of the blue," Oliver says. "I also felt it was one of those things like, 'Why would we go back to this possibility?' I felt we had all come through a pretty big ruckus and that door had been closed, dead-bolted, chained up. I had fully weaned myself from that role so to have that door open again, and I had difficulty wrapping my brain around it. So I put the decision on the shelf."

Oliver took a couple of weeks to think about the decision. She solicited opinions of family, her mentors, her agent and some friends. Finally, she decided that she wanted to continue and told her bosses on Feb. 3 that she would come back to the sidelines. Here’s the kicker: The new assignment isn’t just for 2015. She will be part of the No. 2 team of Burkhardt and Lynch for the 2015 and 2016 NFL seasons, which is the duration of her contract with Fox Sports. si.com

photo via nydailynews