With so many \u201cfirsts\u201d attributed to\u00a0Lesley Visser\u00a0throughout her storied career in sports broadcasting, it\u2019s fair to say that she didn\u2019t just blaze the trail for female sportscasters: she created it.<\/p>\n
When Visser was growing up in the 1960s, she says, \u201cwomen were only three things: they were teachers, nurses, or homemakers. So, when I said I wanted to be a sportswriter, it was like saying, I want to go to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Visser, through a combination of talent, perseverance, and a great deal of humor, accomplished her goal of becoming a sportswriter. Indeed, she would go on to become the most highly acclaimed female sportscaster of all time, the first and only woman inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the first sportscaster \u2014 male or female \u2014 to work on network broadcasts of the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, Triple Crown, Olympic Games, U.S. Open golf, and World Figure Skating Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be the first in anything is an accomplishment,\u201d says CBS Sports Chairman and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer\u00a0Sean McManus. \u201cLesley\u2019s career has been full of firsts as a pioneer in sports broadcasting. Her induction into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame is a testament to a career of being that pioneer for both women and men in sports broadcasting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boston Beginnings<\/b>
\nBorn in 1953 in Quincy, MA, Visser moved frequently throughout her childhood, due to her father\u2019s job as a scientific engineer, but she never lost her passion for Boston sports. Learning to score a baseball game with her older brother in the stands at Fenway Park, rooting for her beloved Celtics as they clinched championship after championship \u2014 Visser\u2019s love for her hometown teams carried her through multiple moves and helped her realize what she wanted to be when she grew up.<\/p>\n
Although there were no female sportscasters at the time, Visser\u2019s mother, a teacher, supported her precocious daughter\u2019s dream. \u201cShe said to me, \u2018Sometimes you have to cross when it says, Don\u2019t walk.\u2019 It was liberating,\u201d Visser recalls. \u201cIt was permission for me to pursue a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
She attended Boston College, where she majored in English and wrote for the sports staff of the school\u2019s paper. Her big break in the industry would come in 1974, when she applied for a Carnegie Foundation grant \u2014 which was established to enable 20 American women to begin careers in industries that, at the time, were 95% male \u2014 and won. As a result, she joined the sports staff of the\u00a0Boston Globe<\/i>, where she would work for the next 14 years.<\/p>\n
Unlike her tenure at the Boston College newspaper, during which she predominantly covered the university\u2019s less popular sports, her career at the\u00a0Boston Globe<\/i> quickly took off when she was assigned to cover the New England Patriots, becoming the first-ever female beat reporter for an NFL franchise. The job came with its fair share of challenges, ranging from the physical (women weren\u2019t allowed in NFL locker rooms until the early 1980s, making interviewing players particularly difficult) to the sociological, but Visser responded to each crude comment she received with a witty retort and, to prove her critics wrong, diligently studied the sport of football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to understand that it was new for [the players], too: a woman covering football,\u201d she explains. \u201cThe\u00a0Boston Globe<\/i> gave me great support. When I started, [famed\u00a0Globe<\/i> sportswriter] Will McDonough went to the Patriots and said, Look, we\u2019re going to have a woman cover us, and that\u2019s that. So I had great support.\u201d<\/p>\n
From Print to Primetime<\/b>
\nIn 1983, after more than a decade writing for the\u00a0Boston Globe<\/i>, Visser began to split her time with CBS Sports. And, although sportswriting would always be her first love, she transitioned to television full-time in 1987.<\/p>\n
During her first stint at CBS Sports, which would last until the network lost its NFL rights following the 1993 season, Visser covered a wide variety of sports, including the NBA, MLB, college basketball, and college football. She joined\u00a0Greg Gumbel,\u00a0Terry Bradshaw, and\u00a0Pat O\u2019Brien\u00a0on CBS Sports\u2019\u00a0The NFL Today<\/i> in 1990 and, two years later, became the first \u2014 and only \u2014 woman to handle the Lombardi Trophy during the Super Bowl presentation.<\/p>\n
Visser then transitioned to ABC Sports for nearly seven years, extending her string of notable \u201cfirsts\u201d: she became the first woman assigned to\u00a0Monday Night Football<\/i> and also to report from the sidelines during a Super Bowl. She also served as a reporter for ABC Sports\u2019 NFL playoff games, college-football bowl games, Triple Crown horseracing, and more.<\/p>\n
In 2000, Visser returned to CBS Sports and\u00a0The NFL Today<\/i>and played an integral role in The Eye\u2019s Super Bowl XXXV, XXXVIII, XLI, and XLIV broadcasts. Beginning in 2004, she teamed up with\u00a0Jim Nantz\u00a0and\u00a0Phil Simms, becoming lead reporter on CBS Sports\u2019 No. 1 NFL announce team. That same year, she was honored to carry the Olympic Torch, the first female sportscaster to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe broadcasting industry is blessed to have a pioneer like Lesley,\u201d says CBS Corp. Chairman\/CEO\u00a0Leslie Moonves. \u201cThrough 40 remarkable years of covering sports, including her terrific tenure as an NFL and NBA reporter for CBS, she has blazed a trail for women that will last forever. I congratulate her on this very well-deserved induction.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more than 40 years, Visser has forged her own path in sports broadcasting \u2014 a path for which many aspiring female sportscasters are surely grateful \u2014 but, for Visser, it isn\u2019t the praise and recognition or the idea of being a pioneer that keeps her moving forward. It\u2019s her love of sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it was never about the fame or the money,\u201d she says. \u201cI like the games. I like the competition. I always say that the great thing about sports is, it\u2019s not scripted. It doesn\u2019t matter where your mother went to college or if your father\u2019s really wealthy. Either you hit the jumper or you don\u2019t. You sink the putt or you don\u2019t. I think it\u2019s a great meritocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":746,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[20],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductees"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}