Michelle Steele, a longtime reporter and anchor at ESPN, announced Thursday that she will be leaving the network after 14 years at the end of the month.

Steele has appeared on SportsCenter, NFL Live, Outside the Lines and other ESPN platforms over the years. She has most recently been a reporter in Chicago.

She shared the news with an in-depth post on social media, shouting out the start she got in Boston, the wide-ranging events she covered during her time with ESPN, and why she's deciding to make the move.

She wrote:

I'm turning the page...

After a 14-year journey at ESPN, spanning assignments in Bristol, Boston, and Chicago, this chapter as a bureau reporter concludes on Aug. 1.

My Day 1 assignment in the Boston bureau was the day Aaron Hernandez was arrested - fulfilling my dad’s prophecy that you really will be surprised what you wind up doing in life. Great times with great people covering Monday Night Football on SportsCenter, the women’s hoops juggernaut, the National Spelling Bee and the Warrior Games, which I loved so much because of my family’s military connection. Along the way, there was a heavy dose of SportsCenter anchoring and a little podcasting, too.

ESPN has some of the best storytellers, producers and editors around, and I’m thankful to have learned so much.

Recently, I shared advice on a friend's podcast for those entering the industry: "walk through open doors.” Don’t be too rigid about your career, open yourself to possibilities. It's that approach that got me from reporting on Wall Street to the anchor chair in Bristol and front and center at championship games. Now, I'm taking my own advice.

Up next: Looking forward to building and growing…if you're at AAJA in Seattle this month, let's connect… watch this space.


More on Sports Illustrated


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Longtime ESPN Anchor and Reporter Announces She’s Leaving Network .

Test hyperlink for boilerplate