Roberts noted on the January 14, 2007, edition of Costas on the Radio that she was offered a scholarship to play basketball at Louisiana State University but thought the school was too big and impersonal after visiting the campus. She followed in the footsteps of her older sister Sally-Ann Roberts, an anchor at the CBS affiliate WWL-TV in New Orleans. Roberts attended Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, graduating cum laude in 1983 with a degree in communication. Her father was a pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen. In a 2006 presentation to the student body at Abilene Christian University, Roberts credited her parents as cultivating the 'three 'D's: Discipline, Determination, and 'De Lord.'' She is the youngest of four, following siblings Sally-Ann, Lawrence, Jr. She is the daughter of Lucimarian (née Tolliver) and Colonel Lawrence E. She attended Pass Christian High School and graduated as the class of 1979 salutatorian. Roberts was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, and grew up in Pass Christian, Mississippi, where she played basketball and tennis, among other sports.
