RIP Phyllis George

We’ve also changed in how we watch NFL, especially pregame.

ESPN took the “sports viewer” by 2000 on pregame and it splintered. Now there are a million shows, TV, radio, streaming. You can follow your favorite angle.

Good for viewers. Bad for media executives.

 

Of course I am old enough to have watched Phyllis George. I didn't. I am also old enough that as a small child, my first NFL viewing experiences came before the national pre-game show. So I have tuned in at 1 p.m. and not before my whole life long. I'm amazed people did otherwise. Highlight shows, coaches shows, those I understand. But I never got "you are looking live at an empty stadium or guys doing stretching exercises" shows.

 

Didn't realize she was married to John Y. Brown Jr. when he was governor of Kentucky (and before that to Godfather producer Robert Evans). She also attended UNT at the same time as Mean Joe Greene....and she had a role in Meet the Parents.

RIP.

 

Really wasn't given credit for opening the door to women covering the NFL. First woman I can remember covering a male sport on TV. And I will say her interviews - while light - brought something out of the players she interviewed that a man couldn't have done.

 

John Brown left Phyllis to marry Jill Roach, who was my high school's Ms. Everything -- cheerleader captain, prom queen, etc. They divorced six years later.

 

When John Y owned the Celtics and the team traded three first round picks to the Knicks for Bob McAdoo, many fans blamed George for the decision, as if Brown couldn't have fucked it up on his own. In the event, the three picks turned into Bill Cartwright, Larry Demic and Sly Williams, so it wasn't THAT bad a trade.

 

The Celtics would eventually trade McAdoo to the Pistons in exchange for the #1 pick overall. That pick would then yield them Robert Parish and Kevin McHale after dealing it to the Warriors.

"Watch out for that guy, he'd trade the Kentucky Derby for the Indianapolis 500." Auerbach quipped when John Why?'s tenure ended in Boston.

 

Thanks for the photo of Theisman there, with Riggins about to whiff on a pass block.

 

I submit that Irv Cross was as big a barrier-breaker as Phyllis was.

 

Lisa Olson with a long tribute on Facebook:

I was a little girl when Phyllis George made her debut with CBS sports, appearing every Sunday morning to talk with men about the NFL. I'd watch with my dad and cringe as he'd mutter that she didn't belong there on that pregame show, that football was for boys. She was the first female in such a public, unusual role, and first females doing unusual things often get under the skin of even the finest of men.

While I knew back then I never wanted to be on TV, I felt in my bones that Phyllis George was luring me somewhere. She showed so many of us that there was a place for us at the table with all those men, talking about sports. Years later my dad became my biggest cheerleader, and he'd mutter at — and write scathing letters to — anyone who dared say I didn't belong.

Phyllis died yesterday at age 70, one of those true trailblazers who cracked the door for so many of us. I never met her, sadly and to my great regret, but two of my heroes in the sports journalism business knew her well.

Said Lesley Visser: "She was an American icon-She touched everyone around her with kindness & charm-One year at Derby, Phyllis insisted we switch hats; saying the one I was wearing was not up to network broadcast-I was probably the 25th person she helped that day."

And Melissa Ludtke wrote this long post: "Back when Phyllis George and I became fast friends – as women in sports media did in the 1970s – we didn't take selfies. So I never in all the time that spent together thought of shooting a photo of me with her. As I read of her death today, I sure wish I did.

Phyllis was a sports broadcaster with CBS Sports during the 1970s. She was the second woman they hired to fill what had fashionably and legally, in those days, become their one-woman, must-have quota. The men who hired her at CBS were not so much looking for a woman who knew much about sports, so her being a former Miss America was a perfect resumé title. They had hired a woman, Jane Chastain, to do sports on the CBS team the years before, but they'd let her go because she KNEW sports and the producers discovered that she actually wanted to share what she knew during the broadcast. The producers had something else in mind: they wanted her to improve her looks and smile as she talked during breaks in the action to the players' wives.

So Phyllis and I first met in 1975, not long after she was hired. There I was, hardly a beauty queen, and working in print as the reporter on Sports Illustrated's TV/Radio column alongside the late great Bill Leggett.

One day I mentioned to Bill that I thought we should do a column on Phyllis as CBS Sports' "beauty queen" addition to their sports team line-up. "You write it," Bill said, ceding his byline and giving me the chance I wanted as an SI rookie reporter and even more inexperienced writer to prove that I could do this.

Off I went to the Belmont Stakes where I would first spend time with Phyllis. We hung out together that day and then on others, and after that I wrote my 1975 TV/Radio column (shown below) that introduced Phyllis to our readers. A few years later I pitched and, again with Bill's blessing, wrote a column about her 1978 departure from CBS Sports, as I reported on the network's nationwide hunt for her successor. (Hint: the men hunted far and wide among ex-beauty queens!)

In the meantime, Phyllis and I, close in age and as women in sports – I can't tell you what a rarity that made us then – had become fast friends. We'd bonded over country music and the love each of us had for Texas at that time. She'd been Miss Texas, and grown up there, and my brother Mark was attending the University of Texas and whenever he and got together Mark shared his favorite country music tunes. He made me a fan, too, so when I visited him in Austin in the mid-1970s, I bought a bunch of country music albums and played them at a New Year's Party I threw in New York City.

My second (1978) column – Fancy Figures vs. Plain Facts – about Phyllis' departure won me my only Newswoman's Club of New York Front Page Award for Best Magazine Column.

I am sharing a quote I used toward the end of that column. It's from Don Ohlmeyer, who was then the executive producer at NBC sports, and captures a sense of that time, though in some men's minds it's still accurate today: "In the past, women succeeded on local television because of their aggressiveness. They clawed to open doors. On the network level, whether you are a man or woman, you have to be liked as a person. The next groups coming along may not need to be so aggressive and thus may be more acceptable to the male viewers."

I turned over my concluding paragraph to Anita Martini, a TV broadcaster in Houston, who was a friend of mine AND the only woman to write an affidavit against me in my locker room access case. Here's what Anita said: "Why can women talk about wars, riots and presidential trips and not be able to talk about sports? Why is there such a sacred bond between men and sports?"

Thanks, Anita, who also died too soon, for your prescient words - words that could ( and should ) be spoken today.

And THANKS Phyllis for a cherished friendship and for so well leading the way as a woman sports broadcaster with grace, humility, and pathbreaking ease. And thank you for how you stood up for sports media women back in that day. As your CBS Sports colleague and my friend Lesley Visser recalled with me this morning as we spoke of our sadness in hearing of your death, you championed us.

It means much to call you my friend. R.I.P.

From today's Boston Globe: "Miss America in 1971, George joined Brent Musburger and Irv Cross in 1975 on “The NFL Today.” Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder later was added to the cast.

“'Phyllis George was special. Her smile lit up millions of homes for the NFL Today," Musburger tweeted. 'Phyllis didn't receive nearly enough credit for opening the sports broadcasting door for the dozens of talented women who took her lead and soared.'”

"George spent three seasons on the live pregame show, returned in 1980 and left in 1983, winning plaudits for her warmth of her interviews with star athletes. She also covered horse racing, hosted the entertainment show 'People' and co-anchored the 'CBS Morning News.'"

Finally, I was angry today when I opened the news report of her death today on CBS News, the network who hired her as a sports broadcaster. What's the first photo of her they show – Phyllis as Miss America. Please, in 2020 her network ought to be showing her doing the work she did when she worked for the network."

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(While Phyllis could talk the finer points of the game -- when the men allowed her -- this is perhaps my favorite of her interviews, because getting Roger Staubach to open up about his personal life was about as difficult as batting down his throws.)

 

That interview with Staubach is pretty good and includes this:

"I enjoy sex as much as Joe Namath. Only I do it with one girl! It's still fun, it's the same thing."