Playing Ball with the Boys. Betsy Ross
of Cincinnati sports communications office; Mollie Busam from Impact Basketball Academy; Dana Rieger, director of basketball operations for the University of Cincinnati women’s basketball team; Michael Anderson from the Cincinnati Reds; Don North, WFLA, Tampa; Rebecca Cox, Nationwide Racing; the Association for Women in Sports Media for its research and member networking; Robin Gehl, Kevin Reynolds, and the staff at WVXU-FM for letting me conduct many of these interviews for my “Front Row” radio interview segment; Vicki Blackwell Morrison for your encouragement and your contacts; Joe Jareck from the Los Angeles Dodgers; Bill Tavares, media relations manager for the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun; and Bill Keating. Your help made these amazing interviews possible, and I thank you for your information and your contacts.
Those who encouraged my pursuit of a profession in sports also deserve a nod, including the sports staff at the South Bend Tribune who gave me my first sports break and let me cover high school sports while I was working on my master’s degree; Phil Lengyel, my first news director at WSJV-TV, who let me fill in for the sports anchor and fueled my dreams of doing it full time; Darrel Burnett, my colleague at WTHR-TV in Indianapolis, who got a job as a sports anchor at Sports Channel America and suggested I do the same (which I did); the staff at NBC NewsChannel, who gave me the amazing assignment to cover the Olympic trials and 1996 Olympics in Atlanta; Al Jaffe, who gave me the opportunity of a lifetime at ESPN, and Pat Casey (and later Steve Ackermann), the news directors at WXIX-TV in Cincinnati, who continue to keep me involved in sports. Each of you has played a role in helping me pursue my passion.
Next, thanks to my unofficial posse of “editors,” including Jackie Reau, Suzanne Vanderhoef, and Dr. Linda Schoenstedt. Anyone who works on a project knows you can get a little too close and a little too possessive, and they were able to give me perspective. Their writing and editing skills went a long way in the construction of this book.
Thanks as well to the real editor of the book, Jack Heffron at Clerisy Press. He was the one who looked at my idea and envisioned its possibilities. I saw a small business book, but Jack saw a book that could have a much wider reach. He helped me broaden my expectations of what I could do and those I could reach with it. I appreciate his vision and his guidance in making this possible.
And while my mother encouraged my love of sports, my teachers encouraged my passion for writing. Mrs. Crawford and Miss Brantley at Connersville High School taught me to write to my own style and spell correctly (most of the time), and Mrs. Lee gave me my first opportunity to see my name and columns in print in the high school newspaper, the Clarion. I’ll never forget the thrill of seeing my first byline.
None of this could have been possible without all of you and your support. I thank you, and the young women and girls who I hope will be inspired by this book. Thank you.
foreword
Phyllis George is one of the best-known Miss Americas and became a familiar face even before she began her television career. Her broadcasting skills are legendary from entertainment to news to sports and make her one of the most successful women broadcasters of all time. From guest spots on late-night television to co-hosting Candid Camera with Allen Funt and the Miss America Pageant with Bert Parks, she caught the eye of the late Robert Wussler, then vice president of CBS Sports, who convinced her to join CBS Sports in 1974. Her interviews and feature stories were the first to show viewers the personal side of athletes—and led her to the set of The NFL Today after covering many sports and interviewing basketball stars, tennis stars, and more. She became co-host of CBS’s The NFL Today in 1975. Her work on the groundbreaking pregame show helped other women break into sports media, and her interviews helped The NFL Today win multiple Emmys and become the best sports show of its time. Though she was the first woman in this all-male fraternity, she didn’t allow the bumps to get in the way of a successful ten-year run at CBS Sports.
She has enjoyed success in a variety of national roles as an author, inspirational speaker, entrepreneur, and in politics as the First Lady of Kentucky. But it’s her time with CBS that made her one of the best-known pioneers for women in sports broadcasting and paved the way for women to be included in NFL coverage. Her work earned her the distinction of being the only female listed in the “50 Greatest Network Announcers” as compiled by David J. Halberstam for Yahoo! Sports. She is in the first class of The Paley Center for Media’s “She Made It” initiative, celebrating the achievements of creative women and businesswomen in the industries of television, radio, and new media.
The climate now for women sportscasters is a hundred times better than when I started in the ’70s and ’80s. I look back now and say, “What was I thinking?!”
As I recall those early years—maybe it was my youth—I believed I could do anything and wanted to make a difference.
It’s only now and in the last few years that I have realized what I, indeed, did. Maybe that comes with being a “seasoned,” more mature person.
I’m a veteran, one of the “firsts.” I didn’t have time “back in the day” to think much about what was being said about CBS hiring me, or the catty, sometimes mean-spirited comments.
I had a contract—a job to do—so I just put my head down and worked hard. I felt as if I was filling a void in sports, by interviewing and humanizing—personalizing—the athletes. I asked questions the men couldn’t ask.
This is important—I NEVER mixed business and pleasure. That would have been the “Kiss of Death.”
When you are one of the “firsts”—at anything—there are naysayers and doubters hurling comments at you so fast that you just have to stop reading everything and anything negative.
Once I stopped reading the “reviews,” my work was better and the critical comments became fewer and fewer.
Our team on The NFL Today, I’m told, was the gold standard, even today, for other pregame shows.
Bob Wussler, a visionary who had the foresight to put together our team—Brent Musburger, Irv Cross, me, and eventually Jimmy the Greek—knew what he was doing.
I did have to deal with the crude comments and rude behavior of Jimmy the Greek. He made my life miserable, but I never talked about it. I just put up with it until one day he really crossed the line and I finally said, “It’s either him or me.”
We compromised. CBS kept both of us. He taped his piece in the morning and Brent, Irv, and I did the show LIVE. Jimmy’s picks were inserted into the live NFL Today telecast. At the end, I forgave Jimmy, and we became friends. And all in all, my time on The NFL Today at CBS was one of the most rewarding and exciting times in my life.
I am so happy there are more women in the sports world than ever before. But there needs to be more. Even today, it’s hard to break into “the old boys club,” but we can’t give up—never give up.
The woman’s perspective must be listened to and read about in sports. Just look at the statistics regarding female fans/ participants/viewers: We represent close to 50 percent of all of the above, and we buy three-fourths of everything for the home.
Hopefully the networks will continue to realize this because the advertisers will cater to us—it makes so much sense.
Young girls now have options of what they want to be when they grow up, thanks to all of the pioneers who were there in the beginning.
I’m incredibly proud to have been one of those women who people remember as one of the “first” female sportscasters.
Women power!
introduction
I can remember exactly where I was when the idea hit me that I wanted to cover sports for a living, and do it on television. While I was in college at South Bend a group of us drove