RAMONA SHELBURNE, ET AL.
I love Ramona Shelburne. She’s as good as they get. She knows everything and delivers. She breaks big stories. She dispenses information professionally and thoroughly in a gentle yet authoritative manner, either verbally or in writing after careful research. She explores, analyzes and dissects all possible takes. Her contact list of insiders and reliable sources is endless and legit, befitting of her stature in the field.
Shelburne, a former Stanford softball teammate of heralded U.S Olympian and ESPN baseball analyst Jessica Mendoza is a sports journalist nonpareil. An NBA Insider for ESPN, Shelburne grew up in the West Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles and graduated from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills in 1997. She received both her bachelor’s degree in American Studies and a master’s degree in Communication from Stanford where she was a three-time Academic All-American softball player appearing in the 1998 NCAA tournament and the 2001 Women’s College World Series. As a college freshman she began honing her writing skills with a submission to the The Stanford Daily on the men’s golf tournament and upon graduation she spent seven years (2002-’09) at the Los Angeles Daily News as a reporter and columnist prior to joining ESPN.
Shelburne and other Gen Xers and Millennials have followed in the journalistic trails blazed by Lesley Visser, Jackie MacMullan, Doris Burke, Robin Roberts, Hannah Storm, Michele Tafoya, Tracy Wolfson, Pam Oliver, Suzy Kolber, Bonnie Bernstein, Andrea Kremer, Lisa Olson, Linda Cohn, Lisa Salters and of course the inimitable grande dame of them all, Phyllis George. Erin Andrews, Rachel Nichols, Wendi Nix, Cari Champion, Michelle Beadle, Kathryn Tappen and Sage Steele represent those among the first wave of women to reap the benefits of the hearty souls who preceded them. The youth not wasted on the young include the likes of Sarah Spain, Emily Kaplan, Sam Ponder, Mina Kimes, Maria Taylor, Katie Nolan, Elle Duncan and Amanda Balionis.
So the field gets fuller by the moment, but an easy road it has not been.
Women in a man’s world.
Lisa Olson could relate.
Beginning in the 1970s when increasing numbers of women sought to enter the field of sports journalism, female sportswriters took it on the chin. They were discriminated against, harassed, intimidated and denied equal access to post-game locker room interviews until a 1978 federal court decision was rendered in their favor. It took the NFL until 1985 to enact an equal access policy of their own.
On September 17, 1990 Olson, working for the Boston Herald at the time was on assignment interviewing New England Patriots players in the locker room after practice. Several players felt violated by the presence of a woman fouling the sanctity of their domain and taunted Olson by walking naked in front of her and making vulgar remarks and gestures. The behavior escalated and Olson complained, describing the experience as a “mind rape.” An investigation ordered by NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and spearheaded by former Watergate scandal prosecutor Philip Heymann produced a 60-page report which concluded that Olson had been “degraded and humiliated.” Fines were assessed to several individuals — never actually collected according to the esteemed Jackie MacMullan — and to the team and Tagliabue made it quite clear to Patriots brass (see Victor Kiam) that he was furious; the incident had “damaged” the league.
Not as much as it hurt Olson. After the raunchy episode became public Patriots fans were merciless and their target was Olson. Her tires were slashed, she received hate mail and death threats and her apartment was burglarized. The Herald’s then-owner, News Corporation offered Olson a transfer to Sydney, Australia — roughly 10,000 miles away — which she accepted. She began working for The Daily Telegraph and the Sydney Morning Herald.
On April 25, 1991 Olson filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts state court against the Patriots, Kiam, GM Pat Sullivan, Director of Media Relations James Oldham and three players (Zeke Mowatt, Robert Perryman and Michael Timpson) alleging violations of her civil rights, sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and intentional damage to her professional reputation. On February 24, 1992 her attorney reported that Olson had settled the lawsuit on undisclosed terms.
Lesley Visser was all too familiar with the roadblocks facing women in journalism, sensational in nature or simply part of the daily drill. She didn’t just muddle through it though, she broke the doors down and then smashed — not shattered — the glass ceiling to smithereens.
Visser was the first female football analyst featured on broadcast television and the only sportscaster in history (male or female) who has worked the Final Four; the NBA Finals; the World Series; the Triple Crown; Monday Night Football; the Olympics; the Super Bowl; the World Figure Skating Championships; and the U.S. Open network broadcasts. In 2006 she was the first woman to be recognized by the Pro Football Hall of Fame; her recognition came in the form of enshrinement alongside John Madden, Reggie White and Troy Aikman. In 2008 she became the first woman sportscaster to host the Gracie Awards (“recognizing exemplary programming created by, for, and about women in radio, television, cable, and interactive media.”). Voted the #1 Female Sportscaster of All-Time in a poll taken by the American Sportscasters Association (ASA), she was elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Associations Hall of Fame in 2015.
She is a legend, an icon.
A Boston College cheerleader back in the day, Visser has been covering sports for so long she could personally differentiate Jim Nantz from (the late great) Jim Nance. And did. She began her acclaimed sports journalism career in 1974 at the Boston Globe as the first female reporter assigned an NFL beat (Patriots). She joined CBS in 1984 and moved on to ABC, ESPN and NBC. Calling those who followed her path “my puppies,” she is unabashedly “proud of [her] status as a pioneer in this business.”
Historic achievements a mile long and wide but when she started out it was rough. She notes, “We’re not talking 1873, but it was like that. All the jobs were 95 percent white men. Everybody was a giant…It was intimidating but my passion outweighed the hurdles.” Growing up in the ’60s, all she had to do was look around her to see what she didn’t want. “Women in the early ’60s were just about three or four things. They were teachers, secretaries, or domestics.”
Oversimplified perhaps but she doesn’t miss the mark by much. And she was determined to make it in the “man’s world” of sports journalism despite the overwhelming odds stacked against her.
#1.) Female Sports Journalists Aren’t Taken Seriously By Men:
Visser remarks that not only does a woman’s appearance become the overriding factor, it obscures the quality of the content being delivered. Also, “some men were very difficult, not wanting any women around.”
#2.) Female Sports Journalists Often Face Harassment:
In the past (see Lisa Olson) it was a face-to-face deal; today social media and tweeting in particular is rife with sexism aimed at the female journalist.
#3.) Female Sports Journalists Have To Deal With Double Standards:
Erin Andrews laments that no one seems interested in the wardrobe and appearance of her male counterparts, some of whom wear “gorgeous suits, beautiful clothes, no one says anything about…” Not so with women who are prized for their appearances above all else.
#4.) Female Sports Journalists Face Lack Of Representation In The Industry:
Sports editors and sports talk radio hosts are overwhelmingly represented by white males underscoring the need for mentorship according to Visser. “We all need mentors,” she says. “I have never been hired by a woman (I began in 1974 and now I still have male bosses), but I try to help all young women who seek me out. I wish I’d had that kind of help four decades ago.”
#5.) Female sports Journalists Fight The Wage Gap:
The Washington Post has reported that male staff makes 13.5% more than female staff at the same level. Experience improves work compensation but the needle doesn’t move: men with 20 years of experience still make 13.5% more than “women at the same level.” That 75% of high level management roles are occupied by men further contributes to the widening of the wage gap.
Nuthin’s easy. People can be mean and nasty. Downright cruel in fact. Discrimination in one form or another is practiced routinely. A lot of it stems from insecurity and the need to feed the beast, the bully. It’s a tough world out there.
But when a laser-like focus to succeed and fulfill one’s dreams is white hot, none of that matters. Forward movement with eyes squarely on the prize rules the day, something to which any one of these women would readily attest.
