The institutional expertise that props up a Rockies television broadcast includes a variety of backgrounds, from play-by-play Drew Goodman (a veteran broadcaster), analysts Jeff Huson, Ryan Spilborghs and Cory Sullivan (each former players) and reporter and play-by-play Jenny Cavnar (daughter of a longtime high school coach).

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And Taylor McGregor, the youngest tenured member of their on-air team, is a hybrid, a broadcaster with a behind-the-scenes framework of a front office executive and the training of a journalist.

In her second season as a baseball reporter, McGregor, 26, holds a unique and tricky position among the Rockies’ press corps, both as a TV broadcaster and a member of the club’s extended family. She is required to report critically and honestly on the team, even as the Rockies build a massive new development across the street from Coors Field with her family name on the marquee.

Four memorial icons hang along Coors Field’s outfield facade above the bullpens, including two retired numbers, for Jackie Robinson’s 42 and Todd Helton’s 17, and a 2007 National League pennant. The fourth lists “KSM,” for Keli Scott McGregor, the club’s beloved former president.

Nine years after his sudden death, when a rare virus attacked McGregor’s heart and he died in a Utah hotel room at the age of 48, his daughter, Taylor now patrols the ballpark as a sideline reporter. And when she is on camera at Coors Field, her dad’s initials always seem to be nearby.

She is just one year younger than the team itself and McGregor does not know of a life without the Rockies — some of her earliest memories are centered around Coors Field. But from Golden High to the University of Arkansas to Casper, Wyo., and now back to Colorado, she is making her own path, proud to be part of her father’s legacy and eager to be her own McGregor. She talked to The Athletic about growing up around the Rockies, leaving for the heat of SEC football, a small-town TV job and walking the line of a reporter with her distinct family history.

Your relationship with the Rockies is a little different and a little more personal than other broadcasters.

Our broadcast is special because we all have a different tie. Sully and Spilly both played for the Rockies at some point. Jenny grew up as a fan. And Drew has been with the organization basically since its inception as a broadcaster.

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And I was connected as a daughter. My dad was in the front office. Obviously, everybody’s relationship with the team is unique. And that’s what was exciting for me when I came here, to be able to bring a different perspective and a different mindset maybe. We’ve all experienced the same things in different ways.

What is your first real memory of the Rockies as a baseball team?

OK, so, people call me out and say there’s no way, but I swear I remember being at Mile High Stadium and walking down the ramps, leaving, and pointing to downtown and saying, ‘That’s where Coors Field is going to be!’ I would have been 3 at the time. I don’t think I made up that memory. It’s a real thing to me, I do remember that.

And then the All-Star Game as a kid was huge. The ’98 All-Star Game. I remember everything that went into that game. And the trips to spring training were always so fun. We would go down to Tucson for months.

That game was more than 20 years ago now. That feels like another lifetime. What do you remember most?

I remember the Beanie Babies, first of all. They were huge back then. And then all the festivities around the ballpark — there were bouncy castle and trampolines. And I remember 1998 All-Star Game license plate frames, for some reason.

One thing that’s crazy — and I’ve been thinking about this because I know the Rockies are trying to get another All-Star Game — my dad told me, ‘You need to appreciate this because it’s going to be more than 20 years until this happens again.’ And now, fast forward 20-plus years later, and they have a chance to host one again. That hit me earlier this season when I found out the Rockies were trying to get another All-Star Game in a few years.

Growing up, did you ever feel defensive about the Rockies?

Of course I did! Are you kidding? There were some lean years in there when it wasn’t too exciting to be a Rockies fan. When someone you love is connected to anything, you want the people you love to do well. And for me, that was my dad, who I loved immensely. He poured his heart and soul into the Rockies, trying to do the right thing. He so wanted to succeed. And when people tried to insult you or, let’s be honest, my dad used to say, ‘This is a job that everybody has an opinion about.’ Maybe people don’t have an opinion about somebody’s dad who works in oil and gas, but I can tell you, everybody has an opinion about how the Rockies are doing. And honestly, as a young kid, I probably took too much offense to what people said. But I definitely heard about it.

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Did you know back then that you wanted to be a broadcaster with the Rockies?

No, no. I wanted to be in the CIA. There was a man who used to work for the Rockies who was a retired FBI agent and as a kid, he talked to me about the lifestyle and what went into it. I thought it was so cool. And my parents told me, ‘If you go into the CIA, your life as a parent or a spouse will be challenging because you’re going to be gone for extended periods of time.’ And now I’m in an industry where I work nights and weekends.

My dad died when I was 17, when I was a junior in high school, and that’s about the time I switched to the idea of broadcasting. But I never had a lot of conversations about doing this. I don’t know what he’d think of all this.

So you went from Golden High to the University of Arkansas to … Casper, Wyoming?

Market No. 196. It was a shock to the system, moving to a town of 60,000 people where I didn’t know anybody. But it was awesome. Did you start in a small market to write?

No, I started in Denver, but it was a small job. You were an actual TV news anchor.

Same thing. I just went to a small market. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, here we go.’ I knew it was something I needed to do to get where I wanted to go. It was awesome. I learned so much. I’m so thankful for that experience.

Why Arkansas for school?

My dad was the associate athletic director there when I was born. I was born in Fayetteville. I always wanted to go out of state for school. Funny story: My whole family went to Colorado State, both my parents, an older sister. When I was young, when my dad was with the Rockies, CSU offered him the AD job. My parents sat us down. My dad loved CSU, he loved Fort Collins. And he was like, ‘I’m considering taking this job. We’re going to check out Fort Collins and see what happens.’ And I threw a fit. I was in second grade. I was like, ‘I hate CSU, I never want to go there!’ And I never went there. I don’t know if that means I held a grudge. But I went out of state to Arkansas. It worked out.

Have you told this story to Jenny Cavnar or any of the one million CSU grads around the Rockies?

Oh yeah. And I still love Colorado State. I love Fort Collins now. But I’m the type of person who always likes to be different than people, good or bad. And so many people from my high school went to CSU, and I was like, I’m not going. That’s just my personality.

Arkansas is a different sports world.

It worked out. My senior year at Arkansas was the inception of the SEC Network and they co-partnered with ESPN. So there were so many opportunities when I was there to shadow reporters. Laura Rutledge, who is with ESPN, I shadowed her a ton in her first year with the network, my senior year of school. I learned a ton from her.

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It was a really cool opportunity to cover big-time sports. College football in the South is a big deal! And Alabama comes in, vying for the national title, and those were national broadcasts. To be a student and be involved in that was huge. I learned so much. I still definitely want to get into college football. I’ve always wanted to report on it.

Had you ever been to Casper before you worked there? Did you ever go to Ghosts games when they were the Rockies’ Rookie League team?

They were the Ghosts when my dad was still alive. And every year my dad would let us choose a baseball trip to go on with him, while he worked. I chose a trip that went through Toronto and Boston. And my sister chose to go to Wyoming. And then I became so jealous of her. ‘She gets to go to Wyoming?! That’s so cool.’

When I worked there, I met a lot of people who knew my dad and had a lot of connections with the Rockies. They follow all of Denver sports.

It’s a unique thing with you. Teams sometimes talk about becoming a family or feeling like a family. And sometimes that’s a forced cliche and sometimes not. But you really were part of an actual family that was part of a Rockies family. Is that what it felt like, that the club was your family?

Troy Tulowitzki and my dad were super close, for example. It really speaks to the family atmosphere in this organization. And also, to my dad’s legacy. When he passed away, players wanted to help us.

And Spilly and I have a unique bond in that sense. My dad was around a lot when his mom passed away. And that meant a lot to Spilly, that my dad spent time with his mom. And then, in turn, Spilly helped me a lot. He was part of me getting this job and he’s been huge (with) helping me grow in this job. It’s one big family, for sure.

Does that ever make your job more difficult though, as a journalist, to have that personal connection? Are you able to work your job dispassionately?

Before I was hired, I was sat down and was told, your biggest challenge will be separating the emotional ties from the job. And there have been times when I just want to be around because I care so much about this organization and I care so much about this team. Last year, going into the playoffs, there were days when I wasn’t working but I just wanted to be here and they had to tell me to go home.

Talking to you, and watching you on TV on the rare occasions when I’m not at the stadium, you know what bad baseball is when you see it and you’ll say so on the air.

I don’t think it’s impacted me in a negative way, making it hard for me to separate. The thing I’ve learned is, everyone in this organization knows what they see. It’s not like we’re saying something that is wrong or off-base. Those are facts. There were some tough seasons in the early 2000s. Those were bad years. It was not fun to be a Colorado Rockie during that time.

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The thing with managers and players is that they understand a lot better than we do or fans at home do, that there are ebbs and flows to a season. No season is ever perfect. Even the Boston Red Sox, who won more than 100 games and won the World Series, but there was a stretch in late August when they got swept by the Rays and fans freaked out. That’s just baseball. You have to remain positive through it all. That’s a trait of a manager.

Baseball is a unique game in the sense that more effort doesn’t always mean better results. Sometimes it means worse results. And managers are so intuitive about the actions of players. They know if they call a guy out and say ‘hey, that was a terrible outing,’ for somebody that could ruin his next outing, too. It’s their job to manage a clubhouse.

Have you learned tips to get through a long season? I’m all ears.

It’s only my second season. I probably need to find more keys. I don’t really know the answer.

You just press ahead. Kind of like players. Focus on that day and figure it out.

I always try to keep the mindset that my job is to come to a ball field and talk about a game. That’s awesome. If I complain about that, then I have bigger issues.

Yeah, but I know you work hard. Don’t discount that. Even if, eventually, we’re just sitting on our butts watching baseball.

One of the parts I’ve enjoyed about this job is that you work so hard when you get to the ballpark, the days end up just flying by. I’d much prefer that than a job that maybe I’m not working as hard, but the days are so slow and you’re looking at the clock. When I’m here, I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Your broadcasting experience was varied. College football in the SEC and general TV reporting and then baseball, those are not very similar jobs. Did you feel like you needed to learn something new when you started with baseball?

When I made the transition from local news to being a sideline reporter, I’d been on live TV before, but it was such a learning curve. And I didn’t expect that. On TV news, you have two minutes for your live shot. You have a time slot. And you know for the most part, this is how it’s going to go. You do your thing, then you toss to a sound bite, then toss back to an anchor.

Baseball, as a sideline reporter, people don’t realize the most challenging part is doing a story within a game and you have to learn to tie it all together and the timing can change in a second. Trevor Story is up and all of a sudden he homers on the first pitch and I have to lay out of my story. It’s a different type of storytelling. You have to be more aware of what’s going on. I didn’t understand that.

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And of course, the reporting is different. I get to tell more cute, fun stories. There’s a Tony Wolters fathead in the clubhouse. Or Raimel Tapia loves crabs and his nickname is El Cangrejo. Stuff like that. It’s different. Where, in local news, I never would have told those stories.

The Rockies are building a big new block across the street from Coors Field. And your name is going to be on it. Do you feel that in a personal way?

McGregor Square? When they announced it, it was very emotional, for sure. Anytime people want to go out of their way to honor my dad like that, it brings in a flood of emotions to me for a lot of reasons. It hasn’t really hit me yet. I think because it’s not fully built yet. I drive past it every day and I see the progress they’ve made, but that doesn’t impact me. When it’s done and I walk through for the first time, I’ll be a hot mess, crying.

Do aspiring broadcasters ever ask you for advice?

All the time. And it reminds me to be grateful because I was once one of those kids who wanted advice from reporters. I tell them my path and what worked for me, how I went to a small market and learned so many things about broadcasting.

But I also learned a lot about myself and what who I am as a person and what I wanted out of a career. I tell everybody: Kindness matters. It’s simple. But people want to work with people they like. And if you’re in an internship or a small market job and you think you’re above it or too good for it, people won’t hire you. Or if they do, you’ll have no friends. And the best part of the whole journey is the people you meet along the way.

One thing my dad always told me was, never be in such a rush to where you think you want to go, that you miss out on the best part of the whole journey, and that’s the people you meet. It opens your mind to what people are like in different parts of our country. As reporters, it opens your mind to tell stories in a unique way and not be close-minded.

My biggest advice is to be kind.

(Photo: Dustin Bradford / Getty Images)