Saturday, May 19, 2007

Awesome Sports Reporters   I'm in Dallas at the 20th annual meeting of an AWESOME group -- which is how they pronounce AWSM, the acronym for the Association for Women in Sports Media. They number in the hundreds now, women writing, broadcasting and editing sports reports. When I started out in 1973 there were only a handful of us -- actually only four that I remember -- doing national sports reporting. Last night two busloads of reporters rolled to a reception at the Texas Motor Speedway -- where everyone donned firesuits and helmets and took several mind-blowing spins around the track (as passengers!). Just being in a bus filled with women doing sports journalism was a surreal experience for me. Much has changed since I left the field in 1978 and became a health and science writer. Still, there's more recuitment and hiring to be done. Too many of the women are still the only female journalists covering their team -- whether it be hockey or basketball or football. When a female journalist can literally be yanked from a locker room by the lanyard of her press pass -- because all the security guard could see was that she was female so she COULDN'T be a bona fide member of the sports press -- well, we're not far enough from the good old days. And in The Dallas Morning News this morning -- a nice feature story on  20-year radio veteran Suzyn Waldman STILL the only woman broadcasting baseball games. [AWSM members, correct me if the newspaper has it wrong; I'd love to be wrong] More from the AWSM conference later. -RH 9:55:34 AM    comment []

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