Lesley Visser: Trailblazing Sports Journalist
In ten Halls of Fame, LESLEY VISSER is the most highly acclaimed female sportscaster of all time. She has almost always been the First – The First woman inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame; the First woman to win the Lifetime Achievement Sports Emmy; the First woman to win the Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Broadcasting and the First woman on the Network broadcasts of the Final Four, the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl and the World Series. She was the First and the only woman to have presented the Championship Lombardi Trophy at the Super Bowl. Lesley was the First woman on ABC’s “Monday Night Football,” the First female sportscaster to carry the Olympic Torch and the only winner of the Billie Jean King “Outstanding Journalist Award.” She’s been named a Muhammad Ali “Daughter of Greatness,” and was inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists along with Marvin Kalb, who opened CBS’ Moscow Bureau during the Cold War.
In her 50+ years career, Visser has done stories from the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, to Prague when Martina Navratilova returned for the first time since she defected, to Shanghai for HBO’S “Real Sports” with Yao Ming before he entered the NBA draft. Three years ago, she was invited by the US State Department to speak to aspiring women in Uzbekistan, which has no freedom of the press and where domestic abuse is the number one issue women face. Safeguarded by the US Embassy in Tashkent, Lesley spoke to women’s groups about using their collective voice to make a change.
She was voted the No. 1 Female Sportscaster of All-Time by the National Sportscasters of America. Her career began at the Boston Globe in 1974 after winning a Carnegie Foundation Grant, given to only 20 women in the country who wanted to go into jobs that were 95% male. Two years later, the Boston Globe made her the first woman to cover the NFL as a beat, at a time when the credentials said, “No Women or Children in the Press Box.”
A graduate of Boston College, which awarded her an Honorary Doctorate in 2007, Visser has mentored young women for decades, and been invited to speak everywhere from Abu Dhabi to London to Doha to Charleston, where she delivered an address for President Clinton’s Renaissance Weekend. Visser’s book, “Sometimes You Have to Cross When It Says Don’t Walk” is a memoir of breaking barriers.
The videos below were recorded via Zoom, are organized by Success Factor, and run between 30 seconds and 3 minutes. Click on any video. You must be connected to the Internet to view the videos.
EXPOSURE TO BROAD INFLUENCES: 0:51 sec.
COMMUNITY VALUES: 0:22 sec.
INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 1:04 min.
EXPOSURE TO BROAD INFLUENCES: 0:33 sec.
INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 0:53 sec.
CRITICAL THINKING: 1:18 min.
SEIZES OPPORTUNITIES: 1:54 min.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 2:05 min.
CREATES A UNIQUE PERSONAL BRAND: 0:45 sec.
HAPPINESS: 0:42 sec.
SELF-CONFIDENCE: 0:55 sec.
DEVELOP A VOICE: 2:13 min.
SERENDIPITY: 0:43 sec.
OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 0:41 sec.
INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 0:54 sec.
EMPATHY: 2:18 min.
CRITICAL THINKING: 1:02 min.
OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 1:43 min.
COMMUNITY VALUES: 0:32 sec.
OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 0:23 sec.
CRITICAL THINKING: 1:07 min.
