better together S TELEVISION ANCHOR SAM CHAMPION AND ARTIST RUBEM ROBIERB ARE KEEPING A WEATHER EYE ON CAUSES THEY CARE ABOUT
By LINDA MARX Photography by JERRY RABINOWITZ
am Champion, weather anchor of ABC-TV Eyewitness News in New York City, admits he has few hobbies beyond meteorology. But Champion is anything but boring. Just ask his husband, artist Rubem Robierb, who will tell you that Champion is passionate about advocating for causes close to his heart. “Sam and I connected on every level early on,” says Robierb. “We have always connected on important social issues. As we have grown more as a couple, we enjoy tackling them together and being around like minds.” Whether they’re at their home in Manhattan (complete with a rooftop garden) or in Miami Beach (boasting panoramic ocean views), the couple devotes a chunk of their leisure hours to rallying for equal marriage, supporting the National LGBTQ Task Force, and advocating for organizations like GLAAD and Point Foundation LGBT. “As individuals, Rubem and I intend to spend the rest of our lives looking for deeper meaning and going the extra mile to help others, as well as build on our own love,” says Champion. “We are interested in climate change and major social issues affecting everyone. We want to do our part in finding equality for all.” Champion grew up in a military family, which meant moving to a new city every two years. It was tough going, but it shaped him—helping him develop a talent for meeting and understanding diverse types of people. It made a career in broadcast journalism (where constant relocation and reinvention are required for success) seem like a natural fit. After graduating from high school in Fairfax, Virginia, he earned a degree in broadcast news from Eastern Ken-
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tucky University in 1983. Then there was a string of local broadcast markets: First, Paducah, Kentucky, where he cut his teeth in the weather department. Then it was on to Jacksonville, Florida, until he landed the most coveted local market of them all: New York City. In 1988, he left Florida for a weather forecasting gig at WABC-TV’s Eyewitness News. In 2006, Champion was called up to the TV big leagues: promoted to ABC’s Good Morning America and ABC News. “This was great for me because I could concentrate more on my passions of environment and climate,” says Champion. “Working for a network is different from local. Local is meritbased, while network is exciting but political.” In 2013, he went from network TV to cable TV, leaving ABC to become an on-air broadcaster and a managing editor at The Weather Channel, a time, he insists, when he “didn’t take a day off.” He left three years later. But eventually, Champion missed television. He returned to ABC as a fill-in weather forecaster on Good Morning America during chief meteorologist Ginger Zee’s maternity leave. By 2019, he had re-installed himself on the weather beat at WABC-TV, where he now broadcasts four days a week. To balance his on-air life with the love of his life, Champion splits his time between New York and Florida—flying to Miami Beach each Thursday for long weekends with Robierb at their South Beach condo, and heading back to New York each Sunday. That schedule might exhaust some couples. But it suits Champion and Robierb—who met at a Miami Beach New Year’s Eve Party in 2009—just fine. The pair was married
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