A Sound Barrier
Although women have made inroads in sports broadcasting, jobs as main announcers have been mostly elusive.

BY BARRY JACKSON
reprinted with permission from The Miami Herald; originally published December 12, 2005

When ESPN sportscaster Pam Ward walked into a meeting with Penn State football coach Joe Paterno a few years ago, she was met with a quizzical look.

''You're doing play-by-play, huh?'' Paterno asked, clearly surprised to be greeted by a woman.

''Yup,'' Ward said.

Ward wasn't offended. After all, those questions come with the territory when you're breaking barriers in a male-dominated industry.

In the past decade, networks that televise sports routinely have given jobs to women in the studio, in the field and on the sidelines. But for most women, announcing a sports event from courtside or the press box remains the last frontier -- a chance few get, particularly for men's events.

''Should there be more women doing play-by-play? Sure,'' said Linda Cohn, one of ESPN's most recognizable female anchors. ``I know there are women out there. But men got the head start, like [with a lot of things]. That's just the way life is.''

How rare is the opportunity? Ward and Beth Mowins, who announce college football for ESPN and ESPNU, respectively -- in addition to women's basketball -- are the only women assigned to play-by-play for big-time men's events on a major network.

Jed Drake, an ESPN senior vice president, concedes his networks are a ''bit more open-minded'' than others about using women in the booth.

''As long as someone speaks well, the gender of the voice is not an issue,'' Drake said, adding the company did no studies to determine how a predominantly male audience would respond to a woman doing play-by-play.

A SELECT FEW

Although several women announce women's basketball and lower-profile college sports, there are only a handful of others besides Ward and Mowins who work in the booth on men's sports -- CBS' Mary Carillo and NBC's Chris Evert on tennis, Suzyn Waldman on New York Yankees radiocasts and Doris Burke as an analyst on syndicated basketball games.

No network is using a woman in the booth for the NFL, NBA, NHL or Major League Baseball.

''I'm not sure it's going to happen with the NFL,'' said Neal Pilson, a former CBS Sports president who runs a TV consulting firm. ``[But] we can expect to see an increased number of women doing play-by-play. There might be a glass ceiling when it comes to analysis.''

Why aren't more women getting the chance? A couple of issues are at work. Networks usually hire play-by-play announcers with experience, and very few women are getting that at the local level.

''Women are relatively new to this,'' ESPN's Mowins said. ``They may not be ready to do the job. Women have to earn that right, just as the men do.''

Also significant: Nearly all of the analyst jobs go to former players and coaches. That virtually eliminates women from consideration for commentary work on any of the major men's team sports.

The obstacle for women, Pilson said, ``is more the perception of expertise, experience and knowledge than the fact a woman's voice may be higher-pitched than a man's voice.''

A LONELY PIONEER

In 1987, NBC used former Tampa newscaster Gayle Sierens on play-by-play for an NFL game televised in a small part of the country. By all accounts, she was competent, but hardly exceptional, and no woman has received the opportunity to do play-by-play on an NFL game since.

''I wouldn't categorize it as a setback,'' Pilson said of the Sierens experiment. ``It just didn't work out.''

Ward, who studied broadcasting at the University of Maryland, was handling play-by-play on women's events for ESPN five years ago when she asked for college football assignments.

''I was very pleasantly surprised they said yes,'' she said. She received some positive feedback, but that was offset by about 20 chauvinistic letters and e-mails during her first two seasons.

''One guy would rip me and said I was an idiot and I didn't deserve to be doing it,'' she said. ``I lost sleep over [the negative e-mails]. It got to me, but no longer.''

Ward also felt the weight of carrying an entire gender into the broadcast booth. ''I put a lot more pressure on myself than I needed to,'' she said. ``That led to mistakes.''

Now, nearly all of the feedback she receives is positive. But some doors remain closed.

''I would love to do men's basketball, but ESPN doesn't have women doing men's basketball,'' she said. Drake explained that ESPN already has a ''deep roster'' of announcers ``who happen to be male.''

AN EARLY START

Mowins, who recently completed her first year announcing college football for ESPNU, grew up broadcasting her brothers' football games on the lawn of their home in Syracuse, N.Y.

''Most of the boys got used to the fact I was standing there talking to myself,'' Mowins said. ``I had my Mr. Microphone next to my Betty Crocker easy-bake oven."

Mowins knew at age 6 she wanted to be a play-by-play announcer. Nobody attempted to dissuade her, ``but people were realistic with me. They said this won't be easy. I was wonderfully naive about any of the political and gender issues related to this sort of career.''

She had done various events for ESPN for 11 years before getting a chance to call college football this season.

''I would love to do [more] football . . . '' she said. ``A lot of it is the contacts. It would have to be a situation where a guy or a group of people really believes in you.

``Hopefully, that opportunity is out there.''

ADDITIONAL DUTIES

ESPN's Cohn gave up her regular gig on SportsCenter to take on other duties, including play-by-play for WNBA games next summer.

''I plan to kick butt,'' she said, hoping it leads to future NBA and NHL assignments.

Although women handling play-by-play is rare, women serving as analysts on men's events is even more unusual. CBS sportscaster Lesley Visser got the chance in 2001, as a one-year experiment in which she was paired with Howard David and Boomer Esiason on Westwood One's Monday Night Football radio broadcasts.

''I felt privileged,'' said Visser, who became the first woman to cover the NFL as a beat as a Boston Globe reporter in 1974. ``I enjoyed it, but being on the field was more rewarding.''

Suzy Kolber, a sideline reporter on ESPN's NFL games, feels the same way, saying she has a dream job without being in the booth. ''If I wanted to be great [at play-by-play], I would have to take too many steps backward,'' she said. ``I enjoy the view from the field.''

There's an undercurrent of concern among some female sportscasters that a few women -- none mentioned previously -- are being placed in roles they haven't earned. For example, ABC was heavily criticized in 2003 for giving the prized Monday Night Football sideline reporter's job to Lisa Guerrero, who later posed for FHM and Playboy.

'There are a handful of incredible people [on the sidelines] -- Suzy Kolber, [CBS'] Bonnie Bernstein, [Fox's] Pam Oliver,'' Cohn said. ``What I have a problem with is networks who hire women . . . just to say women are on. It's typecasting. If they're not qualified, get them off.''

Visser, who praised the same three reporters Cohn mentioned, said she wants women ``to know football as well as a male who would be considered. I would hope it's merit-based. There are occasions where it's not . . .

'A lot of times, women approach me and say, `I want to be Lesley Visser.' I say, 'What do you think of the Giants-Cowboys game?' They say, 'I don't know anything about that.' I say, 'You don't want to be me. You want to be famous. You want to be Paris Hilton.' ''