So long, Phyllis George

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Joe Hass

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May 16, 2020, 8:28:09 PM5/16/20
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PGage

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May 16, 2020, 9:08:47 PM5/16/20
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In the first sentence of the Variety Obit it says that she was “one of the first leading female sports broadcasters...”

Which got me thinking, why doesn’t it say she was the first leading female sports broadcasters? She premiered on NFL Today in 1975, can anyone think of a woman in that field prior to that?

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Steve Timko

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May 16, 2020, 9:26:39 PM5/16/20
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Europe and maybe Canada had female sportscaster's.

Doug Eastick

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May 16, 2020, 10:58:03 PM5/16/20
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She is also the mother of Pamela Brown on CNN.




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PGage

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May 17, 2020, 2:29:09 AM5/17/20
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Fair enough, though once you (appropriately) call me out on my USA-centrism, no need to stop at Europe and Canada. There’s a big wide world out there.


I did a little google searching, and could not find any pre-1975 women sports tv broadcasters outside of the US, but I suspect there are several and I missed them. 


More to the point though, my real question, properly specified, is something like: were there any women working on American network television covering major sports prior to George in 1975?


The best source I found on this was an article titled “Women in Sportscasting: A Brief History by Lou Schwartz: americansportscastersonline.com/womeninsportscasting.html


This identifies two women prior to George that meet my criteria ( or maybe just one, depending on definition): 


1. Donna De Varona (I kick myself a little for this, as I should have at least suspected her, or at least someone in the Olympic movement) worked on ABC (WWoS) starting at age 17 (most specific her Wikipedia article gets) so ~1964. But, frankly I was not really thinking of swimming or the Olympics...


2. Jane Chastain, who did local TV sports stuff, in 1960s, is credited as the first woman to work a network NFL game for CBS in 1974 (with Bob Criqui and Irv Cross).


So, in the limited, biased spirit in which I initially asked my question, the answer I guess really is Jane Chastain, who did network NFL broadcasting a year before George (and unlike George, was an actual sports journalist).  Chastain went on to be a conservative political commentator, so not my role model, but still, happy to give credit where it is due.


I was a kid watching the NFL in 1974, but don’t remember Chastain (though do now remember talk of a woman working a game that the adult men around me thought was so bad she set the case for women sports commentators back a decade). Maybe her game did not play in LA. I do remember George the following year, and not for her broadcasting ability or sports knowledge (sorry, I was relatively newly arrived into puberty that fall).



Steve Timko

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May 17, 2020, 3:14:24 PM5/17/20
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On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 11:29 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Fair enough, though once you (appropriately) call me out on my USA-centrism, no need to stop at Europe and Canada. There’s a big wide world out there.


I did a little google searching, and could not find any pre-1975 women sports tv broadcasters outside of the US, but I suspect there are several and I missed them. 


My brain cells are misfiring on this and I'm sure I'm not recalling it properly, but there was a former professional female tennis player who gave color commentary on TV in France and she really knew her stuff. One time a player lost the first set, went and changed her shoes and the commentator correctly predicted a change in strategy and she won the next two sets and the match.
The commentator retired. NBC was looking to bring her back for some commentary on NBC. Advertisers got worried because she was openly lesbian and they wanted to keep that under wraps, despite top players like Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King. It turns out she was fine reading a script in English but her extemporaneous commentary in English was unintelligible and NBC did not use her.
I tried Googling this to find her name but I couldn't.
Wasn't there an SCTV sketch based on a female Canadian sports commentator?


 

Doug Eastick

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May 17, 2020, 5:37:00 PM5/17/20
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Re: SCTV female sports.....

A quick google of "SCTV female sports" led me to the name of Phyllis Gumble -- while itself is funny.




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Brad Beam

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May 17, 2020, 7:49:53 PM5/17/20
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From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Doug Eastick

>She is also the mother of Pamela Brown on CNN.

 

The obit on the “CBS Weekend News” – this week live from KOIN/Portland - glossed over her time on the “CBS Morning News,” where she infamously suggested that a rapist and his victim hug it out.

 

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Doug Eastick

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May 17, 2020, 8:27:17 PM5/17/20
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Omg. I did not know if that event.


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Brad Beam

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May 17, 2020, 8:55:10 PM5/17/20
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During her time on the morning newscast, Miss George has been criticized by newspaper and magazine television writers for what they considered various on-air gaffes. The most noteworthy of these came during an interview with Gary Dotson, whose conviction on rape charges had recently been commuted by Gov. James Thompson of Illinois. Miss George was interviewing both Mr. Dotson and Cathy Webb, the woman he was accused of raping and whose recanting of earlier testimony resulted in his release from prison. At the end of the interview, Miss George asked the two if they would hug, and they declined.

PHYLLIS GEORGE QUITS 'CBS MORNING NEWS'

By Sally Bedell Smith, New York Times (8/31/85)

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