Jeanna Trotman is a storyteller. She’s loved writing since she was little.
But she also loves sports. “My parents say my first words were ‘Pull the goalie,’” she says. So sports journalism was a natural career choice.
In September, Trotman, raised in Sterling Heights and now a Berkley resident, announced on X (formerly Twitter), to her fans’ dismay, that after three years, she was leaving her dream job — sports anchor/reporter at WXYZ Detroit.
It was not an easy road getting there, and leaving was “the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” she says. But it was the right one.
Trotman earned a communications degree from Lake Superior State University, where she was a four-year NCAA Division-II student-athlete playing volleyball, and a master’s in broadcast journalism from Boston University. While a junior as LSSU, she landed an internship at WXYZ, where she learned from sports directors Don Shane, Tom Leyden and Brad Galli.
“I immediately knew that broadcasting was what I wanted to do,” Trotman says. “But I was inexperienced and not yet comfortable on camera.” It was also the beginning of her pathway back to Metro Detroit.
After grad school, Trotman started her first job as a weekend sports anchor in Rochester, Minn., followed by becoming sports director for the NBC and Fox affiliates in Flint.
“In Flint, I covered the same things I covered at 7. I viewed it as the minor leagues — doing what I wanted to do but in a smaller capacity,” she says.
The same month she started at Flint, she married her longtime boyfriend, Zach Trotman, then an NHL defenseman, first with the Boston Bruins and then with the Pittsburgh Penguins. When Trotman left Flint, she headed to Pittsburgh to spend the rest of her husband’s hockey season with him after a decade-long long-distance romance. Three weeks later, Covid hit.
“Hockey got canceled,” she says. “But at the same time, we got pregnant — we had struggled for a while, and finally things were aligning.
“We were finally able to be together, be pregnant — Zach and I joke that quarantine was so much fun for us. We were literally stuck together,” she says.
A NEW CHAPTER
A month after the couple’s son, Luca Gregory (named after Zach’s father) was born in 2020, Trotman’s old friend Brad Galli called, asking when she’d be ready to come back to Detroit. “If it’s at 7 — it’s now,” she responded.
Trotman accepted an offer as sports reporter and weekend sports anchor from Detroit’s ABC affiliate. At the same time, after many injuries and surgeries, Trotman’s husband, Zach, had decided to retire from hockey. So the little family returned to Michigan — and Zach immediately jumped into medical sales, selling devices for spinal surgery.
“People assume he doesn’t work, or he’s a hockey coach,” Trotman says. “But he switched full gears. He has the tenacity of an athlete, but he’s also a natural at building relationships.”
Now a mom of two — daughter Quinn Dolly (named after her grandmother) is 19 months old — Trotman explains her decision to leave Channel 7: “A lot of people thought I left to become a stay-at-home mom. I got a lot of ‘choosing your family is Number 1,’” she says. “And a lot of that is a driving factor. But that’s not why I left. I think people can do it all — it’s not even a mom or woman thing. Parents can do both. We both want to set a good example for our kids of what hard work looks like.
“I’ve lived my childhood dream at the very station I grew up watching,” Trotman wrote on X. But now, she realizes, “It also has to be the right capacity, and it wasn’t for me anymore. When I was younger, I could take all the working nights, weekends and holidays, and put my head down and pay my dues. Now, I feel like I’ve paid my dues. I have a husband and two young kids at home, and it didn’t make a lot of sense anymore.”
The hardest part, she found, was “sticking up for myself,” she says. “I knew what the right choice was for so long. But there’s a mindset that’s forced on you — pay your dues and don’t complain about it. Finally having the guts to take a stand for myself was really hard. I do want other people to feel they have the ability to stand up for themselves.”
The state of local television and its future also factored into her decision. “What local television was when I started — when you had to start local and climb the ladder — versus where it is now are two very different things. I did climb the ladder and got to where I wanted to be,” Trotman says. “Now I’ll alter the goal or change what I expect that to look like. I’m excited for whatever the switch will be, whether that’s writing, radio or staying in TV in some capacity. I’m not done, just going in a different direction (but staying in Detroit). I’m patiently waiting to see what’s next.”
Storytelling, she says, is “what got me in it and what keeps me in it.” The stories about real life are Trotman’s favorites. “The stories within the bigger moments,” she says. She recently did a piece about a terminally ill grandfather and his grandson; another story was about a 12-year-old adopted girl who got life-altering hip surgery and now is a baseball star “who throws faster than the boys,” she says. “Those are what I love, and I think what I’m best at. That’s what I want to continue doing. I’m enjoying this little break, but I can only stay sitting for so long.”
THE LIONS’ ROAR
“I grew up as a fan. I was a season-ticket holder my entire life,” Trotman says. “In Flint, I covered the Lions during the Caldwell era and the Patricia era and now I’ve covered the Dan Campbell era. Being on this side after the Lions’ extraordinary season last year, I felt everything the fans are feeling. It was the highlight of my career,” she says. “That’s why I love covering that team. I remember those days of, ‘This is our beloved team, but guys, you’ve broken our hearts so many times, you’ve ruined so many Thanksgivings,’” she laughs.
“But now, the fans are getting rewarded. The Lions, and Monday Night Football, have turned Ford Field and the game-day experience into a party that’s all for the fans.
“This culture expends way past this locker room, and the city deserves something to cheer about,” Trotman says. “It’s so cool to be a part of that, which is why it was really hard to leave [Channel] 7.
“I had spent every Thanksgiving at Ford Field, looking around at the empty seats and bored fans. Lions fans couldn’t catch a break,” she says. “One night, we had just finished our pregame special for the Prime Time Monday Night Football. I was leaving the field as the players were coming out for introductions, which is the craziest time. It hits peak volume.
“Being on Ford Field at that moment, looking up to the stands — and there’s not one seat empty, not one person not on their feet, everyone screaming. After years of covering all sports at so many different levels, and being a fan of all sports — it was the loudest environment I’ve ever experienced. That moment really got me. And now, that’s the regular atmosphere.”
Perhaps it’s because she comes from the perspective of being married to a pro athlete that Trotman takes the hobnobbing with celeb athletes in stride. “I know how to respond to the players, or ask questions after a loss,” she says. “I know that seeing us is the last thing they want to do after a long day of practice and film.”
But she agrees it can be fun, too. “Last year, when I was very pregnant and my belly had really popped, one of the Lions, Jamal Williams [now with the Saints], was like, ‘Can I feel your belly? Do you know what you’re having?’ It’s fun to talk to them on a personal level — some of the interviews I’ve had aren’t just about sports, they’re about family and real life and the emotion. I don’t know if I would say we are ‘friends,’ but they come to trust you enough to talk to you. I talk to their parents, their wives, their girlfriends — I think that all helps, and being a regular in the locker room.
“Everyone sees this amazing culture that Dan Campbell has instilled, but it’s literally from top to bottom,” Trotman says. “It’s Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes above him and it’s Sheila, it’s their marketing department and their pr department and the players. There’s really not a bad egg in that entire locker room and that comes from them. My friends are like, ‘Is it real?’ It’s more than real, there’s not a bad day there. I love coming home from Allen Park. It’s just a really good place to be.”
WOMEN IN SPORTS BROADCASTING
When in undergrad, Trotman wrote her thesis on “Women in Sports Broadcasting” and its changing landscape. “It’s something I’ve studied and have been critical of. When I finished grad school, I had brown hair and wore sweaters on top of button-down shirts,” she says. “I was trying hard not to be the then-stereotypical blond girl in sports. I didn’t want to be the stereotype because I simply did not want people to think about it.”
When she met her agent, “He told me to be a blond, wear a bright color. ‘You know your sh*t, just own it,’” she says. “It took me a little bit to gain the confidence, but it comes with repetition over time.
“I’m in the middle of the generation before me, who were the first women in the locker room, and the generation coming up with a profound feminist outlook of being ‘a woman doing this job,’” Trotman says. “The first generation in the ’90s did the hard work — I did not. Because of them, I’m able to put forth that the more that you bring attention to yourself as the female in the room, the more you are just the female in the room. I want to be another reporter, just a person asking questions, even though I am often the only or one of the few women in the room.
“There’s a fine line that I pride myself on. I’m cognizant of the way I frame a question, the way I dress. I’ve had way more positive experiences with the men I deal with than negative,” she says.
IN THE NOW
Trotman is loving the break she’s on. “We’ve been to every Lions game, as fans. We’ve been to Tigers games. I never got to just be a fan,” she says. “I get to be present with my son going back to school and being there for drop-offs and bedtime.
“Being a full-time mom is much harder than being a full-time employee,” Trotman says. “But I love it.” The couple, who celebrated their 34th birthdays, three days apart, in August, got bikes for the occasion and take the kids on family rides. They hit the cider mills and orchards.
“And Luca is loving watching the Lions — he can name six players and he gets super pumped about it. Recently, we were watching football on the couch and Luca, Zach and I were all freaking out over a trick play. I never got to watch football with my family on the couch!” she says.
And this year, she’s looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with her family. Although the sports-loving couple find Thanksgiving food to be overrated, they are big fans of the holiday. “Thanksgiving to me was getting up early, going down to the Eastern Market in my parents’ RV to tailgate, play football, go to the game — and often be disappointed — then dinner at my uncle’s,” she says. “For us, the focal point was always the Lions.”
And being together. “I’m probably the most grateful person on Earth,” Trotman says. “I have the greatest support system and I’ve leaned on them a lot. My husband is my rock. Luca and Quinn’s personalities fill my every day. My parents, my in-laws, my friends, my WXYZ co-workers — the support I’ve had through this transition has been unreal. There’s nothing better than this season in life.”