Another barrier is broken

Aug. 4--When Lesley Visser became the first woman NFL beat writer in 1976, covering the New England Patriots for the Boston Globe brought more indignity than prestige.

Not allowed in locker rooms, she was forced to conduct postgame interviews in the parking lot. The Foxboro Stadium press box had no women's restroom, so Visser prayed for holding -- and not just from her bladder. First-and-20 gave her time to take the elevator downstairs and make it back to her seat before the Patriots punted.

But nothing prepared her for the humiliation she said she suffered after a New England-Pittsburgh game early in her career when she waited outside for Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw. When he finally approached, he signed his autograph in her notebook and left.

Years later, when Visser and Bradshaw became colleagues at CBS, Bradshaw joked that the autograph he gave Visser was probably worth more than anything he would have said that afternoon. But even after 33 years of reporting on the NFL as a television network and print reporter, Visser still tells the story. She hasn't forgotten the sting. While she enjoys the prestige, she remembers the indignity.

Visser, 52, receives her highest honor this weekend, when she becomes the first woman recognized by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Chosen the winner of the Pete Rozelle Radio and Television Award, Visser joins the likes of Dick Enberg, Pat Summerall, Curt Gowdy, Jack Buck and Myron Cope.

"People who have won this, Gowdy, Summerall, Enberg, lasted for decades," Visser said. "I'm proud to be in that group."

Visser said she also felt humbled to receive an award named for Pete Rozelle, because he and Paul Tagliabue were so supportive of women covering the NFL.

"I've been first so many times; first woman on the sideline, first woman beat writer, the only woman at a Super Bowl trophy presentation, the only woman to do commentary on Monday Night, but this dwarfs those firsts. I'm aware of breaking barriers and some are easier than others," she said.

Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times received a similar honor last year, becoming the first woman honored by the Hockey Hall of Fame. Elliott, 49, started in the sports media business in 1977 covering soccer and writing a radio/TV column for the Chicago Sun-Times. She started on the hockey beat in 1981.

"I heard I'd been nominated before, but I wasn't sure they'd ever give it to a woman," Elliott said.

When Elliott started covering college football, she did parking lot duty at Notre Dame. After one game she kept getting pushed farther and farther back and eventually was locked out of the stadium.

"I had to scream and yell to get back in," she said.

At a game at Illinois, pregame notes and a flip card were distributed at every seat but hers.

In 2005, Elliott also had to suffer a little indignity with her prestige.

"Part of the ceremony is you get a blazer with the Hockey Hall of Fame insignia," she said. "They had six months to prepare and they said, 'We want to do this right, we're going to take you to a tailor shop.' But when I got there the day before the ceremony, all they had was a men's 52 short and a 52 long."

Joe Horrigan, the Pro Football Hall of Fame's vice president of communications, can empathize. When he started going to NFL press boxes with his father in Buffalo in the 1960s, press passes read, "No Women or Children Permitted."

"There was a woman who ran the hot dog rotisserie in the press box and they had to create a credential so she could get in," Horrigan said. "And the cheerleaders had to be 21 and married."

Rarely mentioned in regard to women in the media is what covering professional sports does to their personal lives. Elliott's husband works in public relations, so he understands her schedule. Visser has been married to Fox/Turner Sports broadcaster Dick Stockton for 25 years.

They met on the night Stockton called perhaps the most famous home run in Boston Red Sox history, Carlton Fisk's blast in the sixth game of the 1975 World Series. When she and Stockton walked into the New England Patriots' Super Bowl victory party in New Orleans in February 2002, some 30-something Bostonians yelled, "If it stays fair, home run!"

Michele Himmelberg, a founding member and past president of the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM), sued the San Francisco 49ers for equal access in the early 1980s. In 1979, she nearly sued the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after her presence forced an unworkable interview room in a foyer of the locker room with a giant partition dubbed the "Himmelberg Wall."

Now a business news reporter for the Orange County (Calif.) Register, Himmelberg considered attending the hall of fame ceremonies in Canton to celebrate Visser's achievement.

"I'm thrilled for her," Himmelberg said of Visser. "When one succeeds, we all succeed. When she's elevated to this status, we all gain more credibility and more acceptance."

But chances are Visser will bring up the Bradshaw autograph story one more time this weekend. Fortunately, women who hope to follow in her footsteps won't have to explain to linebacker Chip Banks that they weren't there just to tell their friends who was the best-built guy in the Browns' locker room. They won't report on a team's Super Bowl run while allowed to interview only the opposing team. That was the Cincinnati Bengals' rule mandated in 1981.

Thanks to women like Elliott and Visser, credibility and acceptance are growing. Past indignity makes it all the more satisfying.

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