Visser - Sometimes you have to cross when it says dont walk: a memoir of breaking barriers

Praise for Sometimes You Have to Cross When It Says Dont Walk

Lesley has been part of the CBS family for more than thirty years and we consider her the trailblazer for women in sports journalism, blessed with both knowledge and heart. Enjoy this romp through her forty years of covering sports.

Les Moonves, chairman of the board and CEO of CBS

Ive known Lesley Visser for more than forty years. She covered our team at Boston University for the Boston Globe, which was my first head coaching job. Then she served with CBS and covered all seven of my Final Fours. Not much has changed with her from the 70s to now. Lesley has remained charming, talented, witty, and an incredible story teller.

Rick Pitino, Hall of Fame basketball coach and
winner of two National Championships

Every single woman writing sports today owes a debt to Lesley Visser, who proved that women could both out-report and out-write men long before we took that for granted, as we do now.

John Feinstein, Washington Post columnist and
bestselling author of more than forty books, including
New York Times #1 bestseller Season on the Brink

I have known Lesley for decades and she not only loves football, she really knows the game. I recommend this book to anyone who ever wanted to hear great stories from someone who has been around the game for forty years.

Dan Marino, NFL Hall of Famer

Lesley Visser was at Ground Zero for women covering sports, first for the Boston Globe, then at CBS. She is one of the greatest storytellers and framers of sports history and many of todays journalistsmen and womenstand on her shoulders.

Billie Jean King

Forty years ago, Lesley Visser covered my first professional team, the Boston Lobsters. She earned my trust then and has remained one of my favorite people in sports. Her accomplishments in a male-dominated industry allowed her to break through barriers and blaze a trail that has opened doors for generations of talented women in sports since. Lesley has always been one of the best at getting and telling a story. Now, she tells her story.

Robert Kraft, owner of the five-time World Champion
New England Patriots and CEO of the Kraft Group

Lesley Visser is a giant in womens sports journalism. I dont mean physically, of course. Physically, she has excellent proportions. What I mean is, she blazed the trail for all the women who followed after her. She also paved the way. Thats right: This woman blazed AND paved, as well as forging the path, charting the course, raising the bar, and breaking through the glass ceiling. She covered professional football when the gridiron was literally a grid made out of iron and women reporters were not allowed in the locker room without bustles, yet despite these obstacles she broke big story after big story, including the discovery of the forward pass. She was also the first journalist of any gender to spell Krzyzewski correctly. Lesley truly is a pioneer, and all those who followed in her footsteps owe her a debt of gratitude, which they could repay by buying this book. She will also accept cash.

Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prizewinning author and humorist

Lesley doesnt demand respect, she commands it.

Joe Torre, Hall of Fame baseball manager who helped
guide the Yankees to four World Series Championships

The events, locations, and conversations in this book, while true, are re-created from the authors memory. However, the essence of the story and the feelings and emotions evoked are intended to be accurate representations.

Copyright 2017 by Lesley Visser

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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First E-Book Edition: December

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Visser, Lesley, 1953author.

Title: Sometimes you have to cross when it says dont walk : a memoir of breaking barriers / Lesley Visser.

Description: Dallas, TX : BenBella Books, Inc., [2017] | Distributed by Perseus Distribution T.p. verso. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017030578 (print) | LCCN 2017031608 (ebook) | ISBN 9781944648893 (electronic) | ISBN 9781944648879 (trade cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781944648893 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH: Visser, Lesley, 1953- | SportscastersUnited

StatesBiography. | Women sportswritersUnited StatesBiography.

Classification: LCC GV742.42.V57 (ebook) | LCC GV742.42.V57 A3 2017 (print) | DDC 070.4/49796092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017030578

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To my husband Bob, my brother Chris, and my
mother Mary, who set wind to my sails when she said,
Sometimes you have to cross when it says, Dont walk.

My mother, Mary Visser, with John Madden on the Madden Cruiser in 1995

P eople used to ask me where I lived and Id say, Baggage claim. Its true. In more than forty years of covering sports, Ive been almost everywhere. For ten years with the Boston Globe, I covered everything from Wimbledon to the NCAA Tournament, in places like Pullman, Washington; Albuquerque; and two Philadelphiasthe City of Brotherly Love, and Philadelphia, Mississippi, where I had to sit outside Marcus Duprees house for three days hoping I could get a story out of the wayward running back. For CBS, I covered the story of the century, the fall of the Berlin Wall (I broke off small chips to give as Christmas presents), and for ABC I did World Figure Skating in places like London and St. Petersburg, Russia.

Those were trying assignments, and honestly, I didnt see any of them coming. I was just a young girl who loved sports. To imagine that I would ascend to the top of two professions, stay there for forty years, and influence thousands of young women was like saying that I would be the first woman on the Supreme Court (thank you, Sandra Day OConnor) or the first American woman to go up in space (heres to you, Sally Ride). But I had a true passion for the games; I really cared if the Red Sox moved the runner over or if Sam Jones banked it off the backboard. And I have accepted the scar tissue that has come with being a trailblazer. My husband says if I win one more Pioneer Award, I have to wear a coonskin cap.