Sometimes You Have to Cross When It Says Don't Walk

by Lesley Visser

  I’ve found that dressing the part doesn’t hurt. I try not to go on planes in shorts and flip-flops; I try to be clean and proper for every interview. This doesn’t mean staid, just appropriate. I think it makes people feel secure. When I go on vacation, it’s another story. I wear sneakers everywhere, from the Trevi Fountain to the Grand Canyon. (By the way, did you know that tourists toss an average of $22,000 into the Trevi Fountain every week? It goes to a charity that feeds the poor of Rome.)

  I think young women still run harder to stay in place. But the rewards have been enormous. In 1986, I went back to Prague with Martina Navratilova, who hadn’t returned to Communist Czechoslovakia since she’d defected ten years before. She won five straight Wimbledon titles (1982–86) and not one word had been written about her in the Czech media. She was considered a nonperson. In 1986, Martina went back to Prague as a member of the U.S. Federation Cup, the women’s equivalent of the Davis Cup. Officially, no one said she was coming; it spread by word of mouth that the great Martina was coming home. And when she took the court, people cheered and cried. We all did.

  One of my early events for CBS was a near disaster. It was at the U.S. Open in 1985, when another player from Prague, Hana Mandlíková, had a big win on an outer court. She was having a huge summer, going from something like fifty-fifth in the world up to fifth. After one of her early-round victories, our host, Brent Musberger, said, “Let’s go to Lesley Visser, who’s with Hana Mandlíková.” Nervous and wooden, I said, “Hana, how do you account for your sudden rise in the rankings?”

  And she said, in her thick Czech accent, “Vell, I sink it is my new couch.”

  Somewhat stunned, thinking maybe she was sleeping better, I stammered, “Oh, did you get some new furniture?”

  She looked at me as if I were from Pluto and responded, “Don’t be ridiculous, Betty Stove, my new coach.”

  Oops.

  Interviewing all-time great tennis player Venus Williams in New York in 2009

  All the years I covered tennis, from Bjorn Borg to Connors to McEnroe to Martina and Chris and Steffi Graf and Agassi and Sampras, I remember the thrill of being there for Serena Williams’s eighteenth grand slam title at the U.S. Open against Caroline Wozniacki. Williams had the burden of trying to tie Evert and Navratilova in grand slam victories, and Wozniacki was both stunning and popular. I’ll always remember when Serena joined the two great players, Evert and Navratilova, hugging the trophy as if it were her child.

  There’s almost no place I haven’t been because of sports. I took a swim in the winter in Helsinki—which feels exactly like it sounds—followed by a delicious sauna, and I got to see the Northern Lights from the airplane cockpit on my way to Edmonton, Canada, to cover the World Skating Championship, back in the mid-nineties when life was a lot looser. It was jaw-dropping, mystical, the way it spread out against the Canadian sky. Then we landed and I went to a production meeting. Sigh. Since half my life is flying to an event, I’ve become an expert on airports, and the two best—should you be headed that way—are Dubai and Singapore. Both have wonderful duty-free shops, great restaurants, and giant playgrounds for kids. Throw in a massage and you might not even need to see the city!

  At the 2015 Final Four in Indianapolis

  In 2001, I went to Shanghai for HBO’s Real Sports to do the first American interview with a young Yao Ming. China was just emerging from Communism and it was thrilling. A wonderful producer, Valerie Gordon, and I spent a week with Yao and his family. Although we had a government “minder” and an interpreter the whole time, Yao took us to the famed promenade called the Bund and to the newer buildings that make up Shanghai’s futuristic skyline. Yao only spoke English to me one time the entire week, but it was hilarious. When you do interviews in Communist countries, you ask the interpreter the question, then it goes through the government minder to the athlete, and the answer eventually loops back to the reporter. I asked the interpreter to elicit Yao’s reaction to the fact that he earned $20,000 playing for the Chinese national team but he was about to make millions of dollars in the NBA. Before I could even finish the question, Yao cut me off, ignored the interpreter, and said, “I’ll get used to it.” Slam dunk.

  The Globe would also send me to Marblehead, Massachusetts, considered the “sailing capital of the world,” to cover the races along with expert John Ahern. The yacht clubs are gorgeous there; all of them look like Claude Monet’s painting The Garden at Sainte-Adresse, with their wind-whipped flags flying free. John Ahern knew everybody—one time I heard him greet King Constantine of Greece in his Boston accent, “Connie, how the hell agh ya?”

  There have been other events that I’ve witnessed, both good and bad for my soul. I was there in 1978 when Bucky F-ing Dent homered to beat the Red Sox after the Yankees had trailed by fourteen games in July. Living in New York all those years was like being in enemy territory. In the 2000 World Series, the Mets against the Yankees, I felt both electric and dismayed. In Game 1, when Roger Clemens threw the bat at Mike Piazza, everyone at Yankee Stadium was completely confused. I was there with my friend Carl Pascarella, the former CEO of Visa, and we didn’t know what to think. My husband and I have become good friends with Piazza—we were his guests at his Hall of Fame induction in 2016—and now we have a better handle on what happened that day. Piazza, the greatest-hitting catcher of all time, doesn’t talk much about the series, since he made the final out in Game 5 at Shea Stadium, but New York was riveted.

  One beautiful series I got to work on was the Triple Crown for ABC, which meant we had Jim McKay hosting, Al Michaels and jockey Jerry Bailey in the booth, and the great Dave Johnson calling the horses as they were coming down the stretch. McKay once said the most beautiful moment in sports is “the brown of the earth, the blue of the sky, the horses coming on to the track, and the University of Louisville band playing, ‘My Old Kentucky Home.’ ” It was once called “the sport of kings” and it’s easy to see why. It began in England when King Charles II and his pals started little racing meets. By 1762, the dukes and lords had their own racing silks. Now, in the state of Kentucky, the horse is king. I went to my first Derby in 1977, and I was blessed that New York Times writer Red Smith asked me to walk the infield. He would do this with a young writer every year, and it was an honor. Passing through the youthful enthusiasm of the infield is a lifetime experience, and Smith gave me some great advice: “Lesley, wherever you are, whatever you are covering, look around—make a memory.” I never forget those words, whether I’m in Istanbul or Knoxville, Tennessee.

  With ABC’s Al Michaels at the Preakness Stakes in 1992

  With the legendary Michael Jordan in the locker room before the 1997 NBA Finals. He told me to “stay sweet.”

  With Muhammad Ali at the 1992 Kentucky Derby

  I’ve always said that in my forty years of covering sports, there have been three people who could shift the dynamic of the room—people you knew were there even before you saw them: Muhammad Ali, Dan Marino, and Michael Jordan. Ali, who we lost in 2016, was the most significant, the ultimate athlete/activist. Millions of people were affected by the world champion, because he shook up our preconceived notions about boxers and poetry and blended it with jaw-dropping skill. Some people reading this, especially those younger than thirty-five, can’t imagine Ali’s force or radiance. His longtime corner man, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, said he had an “inner excellence.” I remember listening on a cheap radio on the night of March 8, 1971, when Ali fought Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden and the fight went fifteen rounds. I was riveted, even though the updates only came every twenty minutes. Ali fought for what he believed in and he never backed down.

  By contrast, I got fooled on O. J. Simpson. When I covered him as a player or worked with him in television, I thought he was the most charming, considerate person on the planet. And then, like everyone, I watched People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson every day, compulsively, and came away with what many people believed: that the not-guilty verdi
ct was based on lack of technical evidence. I’d only seen the playful side of O. J.; I knew nothing of his darkness. But I was in the Kansas City Chiefs’ locker room when the verdict came down on October 3, 1995. The verdict had been decided the day before, in only four hours, but Judge Ito decided to postpone the announcement until the following day. In Kansas City, players were milling around the locker room, and a small group of us from CBS were setting up for interviews. It was close to noon and suddenly everyone in the room stopped moving. The verdict was announced on TV, and I will never forget the scene. Every black player in the room cheered wildly and every white player looked shocked. The dueling themes—was he a sociopath or a nice guy who’d been framed?—were never fully answered. But the story of that moment in the Chiefs’ locker room was simple: Our race relations were in terrible shape.

  It was a tough observation for me, especially since most of the people I cover are African American and many of them are friends. We now have black coaches, black bosses, even a black president, but where are the boundaries and what can we learn? On the good side, sports is a cultural jambalaya, with people from all walks of life. Just think of your favorite team and what a mixture it is. Think of the three winning franchises coached by Pat Riley, the son of a cop from Schenectady, New York. He had Showtime with the Lakers, a physical Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley team with the Knicks, and a beautifully balanced group in Miami.

  Riley once told me that “defense is more about attitude than physical talent” and that the book he constantly read was The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I’ve since learned that many coaches turn to that book, because it teaches you to take a stand, no matter how tired you are. I love that about sports. People watching a game sometimes confuse the salary with the effort. Athletes carve out a vision on Day One—usually it’s a championship—and how many of us can say that?

  With Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, and Miami Heat basketball coach Pat Riley, who has nine championship rings

  The great writer Dan Jenkins used to say, “Recognize the defining moments of your life and kick the hell out of them.” This is the guy who gave us Semi-Tough and Dead Solid Perfect. Jenkins is the writer, along with the late Nora Ephron, that I wish I could be, funny and original and smart. I had a wonderful moment with Jenkins, although it didn’t seem so at first. In a press box in the mid-seventies, I told him, “Dan you’re what we all want to be.” He looked at me and said, “What, hung over?”

  In one of his books, You Gotta Play Hurt, he used me as a character. Her name was Jeannie, a young, ambitious sportswriter, while Tom was the older legend. The book takes place at sporting events from the Tour de France to the Indy 500 to the Masters—the ultimate passport. At one point, Jeannie and Tom go for a drink at Wimbledon at the famous pub called the Grenadier, on the corner of Wilton Row and Old Barrack Yard. Jack the Ripper drank there (of course, every London pub has a plaque that says the same thing), and Tom asks Jeannie about going to television. She says that CBS wants her. Angry to hear that, Tom says, “Why do you want to throw your writing away and spend the rest of your career saying, ‘Back to you, Jim Nantz!’ ” Which, of course, is exactly what I’ve done since I left the Boston Globe.

  And I’ve loved every minute. I did one of the last interviews with the legendary Pat Summitt, and it was painful because she couldn’t remember any of her eight national championships with Tennessee. But producer Charlie Bloom handled her Alzheimer’s beautifully, never embarrassing the iconic coach. Once I went bowling with Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis, who brought his own shoes and bowling ball. He beat me by 100 points. I also went horseback riding with Emmitt Smith and golfing with Marshall Faulk, both well beyond my abilities. My favorite player to watch was Lawrence Taylor, the Hall of Fame New York Giants linebacker, who was always testing positive for something. One time, on camera, I asked him what his problem was. He kind of laughed, looked down at the floor, and said, “I’ll tell you what the problem is—my drug dealer lives five minutes away and takes American Express.”

  After forty years of being around greats, near-greats, bust-ups, addicts, and billionaires, I hope I’ve learned some lessons about both humor and value. I read a book by New York Times columnist David Brooks and he put it into perspective. He said we all have two résumés. We have our work résumé, hopefully filled with bright stars and career success. And we have our moral résumé, virtues filled with goodness and light and things people talk about at funerals: Were you kind, were you brave, did you stand up for others? I had the privilege of being one of five speakers at the memorial service for Bud Collins—I spoke after Chris Evert and before Billie Jean King—and everyone had the same message about his moral résumé. That Bud was simply the nicest person we’d ever met, that he’d had a brilliant career and an even deeper inner light. At his request, his wife Anita spread his ashes at Wimbledon, and the only epitaph I ever heard that came close to what he asked her to do was when the great coach Bear Bryant was asked what he wanted his headstone to read. He answered quickly, “Never could beat Notre Dame.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The greatest scene in movie history is at the end of Some Like It Hot when Joe E. Brown finds out that Jack Lemmon isn’t the woman he’s been dressed up to be. Brown looks at him and says, “Well, nobody’s perfect.” Certainly not me or anybody I knew, except maybe Bud Collins or Dick Enberg or James Brown. But I made plenty of mistakes. I had people be loyal to me when it counted and people betray me when it hurt.

  My toughest defeat came in front of the whole country. I had been named the first woman in the history of Monday Night Football, and I loved working with Al Michaels, Dan Dierdorf, Boomer Esiason, and Frank Gifford. For reasons unknown to me, Kenny Wolfe, our Monday Night Football producer, who’d played basketball at Harvard, didn’t get along with new management at ABC, even though he’d been on MNF for a dozen years. I got a call in the middle of the summer from John Filippelli, a good man who later ran the YES Network for the Yankees. He told me that day that ABC was announcing I’d be let go. Out went Wolfe, Esiason, and myself, and in came Don Ohlmeyer as producer. He replaced me with twenty-six-year old Melissa Stark—I think she was as shocked as I was.

  When I was replaced, l was devastated. It was even on the front page of USA Today, above the Kuwaiti oil prices! My then-husband Dick Stockton bought as many papers as he could and hid them in the piano bench. ABC said I could work on the evening news or a Sunday show, but I was stunned. The NFL sent me a crystal football thanking me for being the first woman on MNF and doing such a good job, and someone sent me a note quoting a line by poet Emily Dickinson: “Fear not, the brain is wider than the sky.”

  I had covered the NFL for three decades; I knew the players and the game, and ABC’s Monday Night Football was the number-one show on television. I was having a blast. I got along great with the producers and stayed out of the way of the booth, where associate producer Steve Hirdt kept Al Michaels sane before kickoff. I remember one game we did in Green Bay that was Al’s favorite moment in all the times we worked together. Al despised the Clinton administration and was always talking about it. On this night at Lambeau Field, I did a sideline interview with former quarterback Bart Starr. It was during the time that President Clinton was being investigated, and l ended the interview by saying, “There you have it, Al, the Starr report.”

  Al howled. He mentioned it for weeks.

  Dan Dierdorf was another kind of fun, and I think he was the only player who walked to his Hall of Fame Induction. Raised in Canton, Ohio, Dan had size and speed and quickness and intelligence. His University of Michigan education also gave him a great vocabulary. During dinners, he would talk about playing for Bo Schembechler in college and Don Coryell in the pros. One time when we were in St. Louis, he took me to lunch with his old pal and former teammate Conrad Dobler, once labeled the “dirtiest player in the league.” I was terrified, but Dobler was proud and said he played fair, which was kind of curious since he was known for leg-whipping or even bit
ing opponents. Dierdorf would just shake his head and laugh. No one was a better host than Dan Dierdorf and no one had a better laugh.

  After the call from Filippelli, I went into a shell for ten hours, curled up and reread a line from Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Two of my friends came over in the morning to take me away. Kelly Neal (now Naqi) and Heather Albert (wife of Marv) said, “We’re leaving for Paris.” I couldn’t get on their flight, so I left on the next flight, and CBS CEO Les Moonves just happened to be on the same flight. He said only one thing to me as he moved easily into his seat. “You’re not staying at ABC, you’re coming back to CBS.”

  And I did. And I’ve been happy about it ever since, which is now more than fifteen years. They’ve stayed with me and I’ve stayed with them, even during some dicey times. One weekend, after I’d shattered my hip and was laid up in bed for months, I learned all the words to “Brown Sugar,” Greg Gumbel’s favorite song. He’s close friends with the Rolling Stones (they once consulted him about their set list for a tour—can you imagine?), so I wanted to get the words right. When I came back to the NFL Today set, Greg welcomed me. I told him I’d learned his song and started to sing it. He shut me off, saying we had to go to commercial, just as I was deep into “ship bound for cotton fields . . .” Greg turned to the camera and said, “The thanks of a grateful nation.” Humph.

  With the incomparable CBS CEO Les Moonves