License to Thrive

Lesley Visser, Sports Broadcasting Pioneer

Lesley Visser is almost always associated with the word "first." She was the first  woman enshrined in the National Football Hall of Fame.  She was the first woman sportscaster to carry the Olympic Torch, being honored as a "pioneer and standard-bearer" for her more than 30 years of covering sports, nearly half of them at CBS. She was the first woman assigned to the legendary series Monday Night Football, the first woman assigned to a Super Bowl sideline, the first woman to handle a Super Bowl Trophy presentation and is the only sportscaster, male or female, to have worked on the network broadcast of the Final Four, the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals, the Triple Crown, the Olympics, the US Open and the World Figure Skating Championship. She was the first female NFL beat writer while at the Boston Globe in the mid-1970's and later became the first female NFL color analyst for CBS
Radio in 1999.

One of the most honored and versatile reporters, Visser worked her 29th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship last March, having worked the tournament for the Boston Globe, ESPN and CBS. This year marks her 35th year covering the NFL. Last June, Visser became the first woman sportscaster to win the Gracie Allen Award which celebrates women who have made exemplary contributions to the television industry, and this year, she became the first woman sportscaster to host the Gracie Awards.  In 2005 she won the Pop Warner Female Achievement Award and was inducted into the New England  Sports Museum Hall of Fame, along with Boston Celtics legend Bob Cousy and the 1980 United States Olympic Hockey team.

Visser was a reporter for the CBS network coverage of Super Bowl XXXV in January of 2001 and Super Bowl XXXVIII in February of 2004. She also served as a reporter for HBO's "Real Sports" and was the first woman analyst for NFL broadcasts when she returned to Monday Night Football to cover selected games for Westwood One/CBS Radio Sports.

Visser returned to CBS Sports after seven years at ABC, where she covered Monday Night Football, college football, the Triple Crown, figure skating and gymnastics. She also contributed to "ABC's Wide World of Sports", Major League Baseball, including the World Series, the Special Olympics, skiing and the Pro Bowl. Among her additional credits are the ABC series "A Passion to Play" and the "Millennium Tournament of Roses Parade", which she hosted. She also covered the NCAA basketball Final Four and the Super Bowl for ESPN.

Visser first worked at CBS in 1984 and became full-time in 1987, with assignments including "The NBA on CBS", college basketball, Major League Baseball, college football, the US Open Tennis Championship and the Olympic Winter Games. She was a regular on the NFL TODAY pre-game show, and in 1989 covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, focusing on how sports would change in East Germany.

Visser began her career in sports journalism in 1974, at a time when the credentials often said, "No Women or Children Allowed in the Press Box." Visser started at the Boston Globe on a grant from the prestigious Carnegie Foundation. Two years later, she was assigned to cover the New England Patriots, becoming the first female NFL beat writer. While at the Boston Globe, she covered the NCAA Final four, the Super Bowl, the NBA finals, the World Series, Wimbledon, the Olympics and college football.

In 2003, Visser was honored with the Compass Award for "changing the paradigm of her business" and was one of the 100 luminaries commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the CBS Television Network. In addition, she was named WISE Woman of the Year in 2002, and she won the first AWSM Pioneer award in 1999. In 1983, Visser was named the best female sportswriter in America and won the Women's Sports Foundation award for Journalism in 1992.

Visser graduated cum laude in English from Boston College. She is married to Fox/Turner sportscaster Dick Stockton.