Kudos to the First Female Sportscaster!

Lesley Visser

You don’t see many female sportscasters in the media, even today, but when Lesley Visser started working, she was the only woman on the field and in the locker rooms of major sports teams. We interviewed her to learn what her journey was like. We found out she’s a woman who won’t let anyone bring her down.

Teen Voices: Where did you first start working?
Lesley Visser: In my junior year of college, I won a Carnegie Grant which was available to women across the country who wanted to go into jobs dominated by men. Of course at that time sports writers were only male. I was awarded the grant, which allowed me to work at any place in the country and the Carnegie Foundation would pay for it. I went to the Boston Globe, which had the best sports center in America for many years. I got to play on a real serious team right out of the box.

TV: How old were you when you started reporting on professional sports?
Lesley: Well, I started my freshman year at Boston College. The newspaper there is called The Heights. Then I went to the Boston Globe on an internship when I was 19 and I wrote for the Globe when I graduated; they had me on full-time. I wrote for the Globe until I went to CBS for a while in the early 1980s, and then I went full-time on television.

TV: Wow, that must have been really cool!
Lesley: It was very cool! There isn’t any place in the world you could possibly mention that I haven’t been [for a reporting job]. I’ve been to the Olympics and all over the world. I covered Wimbledon, I covered the falling of the Berlin Wall, and I covered 20 Super Bowls and 15 World Series events. None of this came from being interested in fame or money, either; it was a passion. If there is anything you take from my example, take two things: first, you can do anything you want to do, and second, don’t do anything for the fame or money. I say to so many women [who want to be sportscasters], ‘Well, you want to be a sportscaster, great! Do you think the Indianapolis Colts will have a repeat [championship]?’ And they’re like, ‘I don’t know, I just want to be famous.’ So, if there’s anything you take from this, whatever your dream is—and maybe you don’t have the dream yet—but whatever it is, do not do it for the fame and the money.

TV: Was there ever a time when you were kept out of a locker room because it was all-male?
Lesley: Oh, of course. The events did not even have ladies’ rooms where I worked. There was no equal access for many years. I would be out waiting in the parking lot for the athletes. If I remember, the first equal access [to interview athletes in the locker room] was provided by the NBA. That was the late 1970s; I think the NFL finally came on board in the early 1980s. I was physically marched out of a Cotton Bowl locker room 30 years ago, but I don’t focus on the negatives. I understand that people have different opinions. It’s human nature. We’re not perfect.

TV: Were there any stereotypical comments made about you as a female reporter?
Lesley: In my experience, people were pretty respectful. You can’t hold the history of people’s prejudices against them. I’m going to tell you something I don’t normally tell other people: the black athletes [in particular] understood that it was hard to be the only one. It was a brave new world.

TV: Did you ever feel pressure as the first female sportscaster? How would you advise someone else in a similar situation?
Lesley: Of course, for many years I was by myself, so people had feelings that women didn’t belong in the press box. Nobody said to me, ‘Oh, you can’t do that,’ or ‘Girls don’t do that.’ But the same way African Americans used to have to sit on the back of the bus, women couldn’t play sports. When I started working there was no one before me. Being the first, that’s part of the price of being a pioneer. And I had the great opportunity of meeting Billie Jean King, one of the three or four most important athletes of our time, whom I idolized and now I’m friends with. I said to Billie Jean, ‘What is the pressure of always being in the Wimbledon final?’ And she said, ‘Are you kidding? Pressure is a privilege!’ When you’re going on your college interviews, anything will seem a little overwhelming, but when you’re doing those things you have to remember that one thing—pressure is a privilege.

TV: Was there a time when you were overwhelmed? If so, how did you overcome it?
Lesley: Oh, yes. Just picture in a year and a half and you are the only woman in what you are doing. Of course it was overwhelming. Everywhere I went people asked, ‘What’s it like to be the only woman?’ And that’s when I had to remember the saying from Billie Jean King: ‘Pressure is privilege.’ I was overwhelmed a lot! I wanted to be a sports writer, I had some skills, and I was given an opportunity. Of course I’m going to stumble occasionally.

TV: How does being a journalist now differ from when you first started? Do you think there are more opportunities for women?
Lesley: Of course, I wish there were more women [in journalism]… but it’s fantastic because girls can grow up and say, “I want to be a sports writer. I want to be a sportscaster. I want to be a Supreme Court Justice. I want to be an astronaut.” These jobs were all closed to women. It’s not perfect, but it’s encouraging.