Lesley Visser - first woman to be inducted into pro football hall of fame
Michigan
Posts: 4,942 ✭
in Sports Talk
Lesley Visser, named Thursday as the first woman to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, graciously credits those who've helped her through the years — "nobody lands on Normandy by yourself."
She's grateful, for instance, to her supply lines when she was 9 years old: "I asked Santa for a pair of shoulder pads and a bongo drum. Can you imagine? My mother must have needed a vodka."
Visser, now at CBS after being the first woman to appear on ABC's Monday Night Football, is the 2006 recipient of the Hall's Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award. Recipients have included Roone Arledge, Frank Gifford, Curt Gowdy and Pat Summerall. She's covered lots of sports but is obviously enthralled by pro football. Consider what Visser and husband, veteran announcer Dick Stockton, say when asked to name their favorite city: "We say, 'Lambeau (Field) in January.' " Still, she says Stockton is "stunned" by her Hall honor.
Visser's longevity, for a woman, is unprecedented. After being a cheerleader at Boston College, she got a job in 1974 at The Boston Globe via a Carnegie Foundation grant "meant to get into jobs that were about 90% male — which was pretty much all jobs."
Visser, as the first female beat writer covering the NFL in 1976, chuckles in recalling trying to interview then-Pittsburgh Steeler Terry Bradshaw. Women weren't allowed much access at stadiums, so Visser waited in a parking lot until Bradshaw emerged. "He didn't even listen to my questions. He grabbed my notepad, signed an autograph and ran away. When I told him I was a reporter, he looked at me like I was from Mars." Visser says Bradshaw, now a friend, is unrepentant: "He always says his autograph is worth more than any 'junk' you would have written for The Globe."
Maybe Bradshaw was just making an honest assessment of his potential quotes. But it's a good thing he didn't manage to send Visser back to Mars.
She's grateful, for instance, to her supply lines when she was 9 years old: "I asked Santa for a pair of shoulder pads and a bongo drum. Can you imagine? My mother must have needed a vodka."
Visser, now at CBS after being the first woman to appear on ABC's Monday Night Football, is the 2006 recipient of the Hall's Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award. Recipients have included Roone Arledge, Frank Gifford, Curt Gowdy and Pat Summerall. She's covered lots of sports but is obviously enthralled by pro football. Consider what Visser and husband, veteran announcer Dick Stockton, say when asked to name their favorite city: "We say, 'Lambeau (Field) in January.' " Still, she says Stockton is "stunned" by her Hall honor.
Visser's longevity, for a woman, is unprecedented. After being a cheerleader at Boston College, she got a job in 1974 at The Boston Globe via a Carnegie Foundation grant "meant to get into jobs that were about 90% male — which was pretty much all jobs."
Visser, as the first female beat writer covering the NFL in 1976, chuckles in recalling trying to interview then-Pittsburgh Steeler Terry Bradshaw. Women weren't allowed much access at stadiums, so Visser waited in a parking lot until Bradshaw emerged. "He didn't even listen to my questions. He grabbed my notepad, signed an autograph and ran away. When I told him I was a reporter, he looked at me like I was from Mars." Visser says Bradshaw, now a friend, is unrepentant: "He always says his autograph is worth more than any 'junk' you would have written for The Globe."
Maybe Bradshaw was just making an honest assessment of his potential quotes. But it's a good thing he didn't manage to send Visser back to Mars.
0
Comments
Seriously, congrats to her. I kind of lost some respect for her when she was pitching some drug (I forget what it was), but her journalism has always been good and paved the way for other women.
<< <i>great, now she'll never go away.
And why's that bad? Are you among those who feel women shouldn't be covering football?
<< <i>not at all.. she just bugs me for some reason. she is better than that jillian barberie or wtfe her name is at least.. the chick on fox.. the embarassing one? the one that looks like a skank? her. >>
She is the one that does the game weather for Fox, of course the only reason she is really on there is for the guys
to have some eye candy to watch for a minute or so.
Fox may be crude but they know how to attract viewers.