Kimberly Pressler’s Daredevil Ride to TV Success

What does Kimberly Pressler have that separates her from the herd? A certain daredevil courage, for starters. The 46-year-old television personality—who is regularly seen on Fox Sports interviewing athletes during Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) telecasts—knows a thing or two about doing things the hard way, about earning your luck. On her way to becoming Miss USA 1999, she rallied the steep pageant entry funds by finding sponsors amid businesses in her hometown of Franklinville, New York.

But this beauty queen was also a sports fanatic. When she wasn’t cheering on the Buffalo Bills, she was building winning stock cars for racing family members. From there it was an easy progression to ATVs, dirt bikes—and jumping out of planes.

Her Miss USA triumph became the catalyst for a career in front of the camera. “MTV called me to audition as host for a show called Senseless Acts of Video and I was like, ‘Sure!’ ” says Pressler. “Then they said, ‘We’d like you to jump out of an airplane for your audition,’ and I was like, ‘Name the time and place!’ So we drove to Perris, California, and I talked to the camera and… jumped. When I landed they said, ‘You’ve got the job!’ ”

During the filming of Senseless Acts of Video, Pressler recounts, “I rolled a car, I had knives thrown at me, I had an apple shot off my head with a bow and arrow, and I was harnessed standing up to a semi while crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. I also flew in an L-39 fighter jet. We pulled, like, five g’s but I never passed out.”

Kim Pressler hosting Fox Sports / Photo: Courtesy of Kim Pressler

But it wasn’t a sky jump or a mishap on a Mack Truck that upended those madcap moments in Pressler’s career. It was a go-kart course in Northern California. During a death-defying high-speed turn she swerved right into a car that was stopped in front of her. The metal rod that held the car cam went through her ankle, ripping her Achilles tendon and resulting in a series of painful surgeries that ended her time on the show.

“I’ve got a pretty gnarly scar, but I’m good to go,” she says. Pressler got back on her feet and went on to join ESPN to cover ATV racing, snocross competitions, X Games matches and Red Bull rallies. This eventually led to her current post with Fox Sports covering PBA bowling championships.

So what’s next when you have had the dream jobs of a lifetime and endured every adrenaline spike possible? Today, Pressler continues to support such causes as breast and ovarian cancer, Special Olympics games and Veterans Affairs, all while traveling as much as 200,000 miles a year while successfully raising a teenage daughter.

“I love to travel the world and share those experiences,” she says. “We only have one life and I want to make sure I do all the fun things at least once. I’d love to jump out of a plane in another country. I would love to care for elephants in a sanctuary in Thailand. I have eaten crickets there and fell in love with all of it. These are not things I could have imagined doing years ago.”