Lesley Visser

Lesley Candace Visser (born September 11, 1953) is an American sportscaster, television and radio personality, and sportswriter.

Visser is the first female NFL analyst on TV, and the only sportscaster in history who has worked on Final Four, NBA Finals, World Series, Triple Crown, Monday Night Football, the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the World Figure Skating Championships and the U.S. Open network broadcasts.

Born on September 11, 1953, in Quincy, Massachusetts, to a school teacher and engineer, Visser loved sports from an early age.

On Halloween, when other little girls would dress up as Mary Poppins, she would go as former Boston Celtics guard Sam Jones.

From the age of 10 she wanted to be a sportswriter, but there was one problem—the job didn't exist for women.

Her family didn't discourage her.

“My parents didn’t say girls can’t do that, and my mother told me, ‘Sometimes you have to cross when it says “don’t walk.”’” After graduating from South Hadley High School, Visser was educated at Boston College, majoring in English.

In 1974, Visser won a prestigious Carnegie Foundation grant which entitled her to work as a sportswriter at The Boston Globe.

In 14 years at the Globe, she covered college basketball, the NBA, Major League Baseball, tennis, college football, golf and horse racing.

In 1976, she was assigned to cover the New England Patriots, becoming the first ever female NFL beat writer.

In January 1981, Visser made national news with her story regarding the 1978-79 Boston College basketball point shaving scandal after gamblers and members of the New York Mafia erroneously told her Boston College Eagle basketball player Michael Bowie was involved.

The Globe subsequently reached a settlement with Bowie which included a confidentially clause.

ESPN producer Joe Levine convinced Bowie to break and speak to the network.

In 1983, she did a few features for CBS.

In 1984, Visser joined CBS Sports part-time and went full-time in 1987.

Her assignments included the NBA including the NBA Finals, college basketball including the Final Four, MLB including the World Series, College World Series, college football, horse racing, Tennis including the U.S. Open of Tennis (1984–1993) and the Olympics.

In 1989, she covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, focusing on how sports would change in East Germany.

In 1990, she became a regular on The NFL Today with Greg Gumbel, Terry Bradshaw and Pat O'Brien.

Also in 1990, Visser became the first woman to cover the World Series.

In 1992, she became the first and to date, only female sportscaster to preside over the Super Bowl Trophy presentation.

After CBS lost television rights to NFL games in 1993, Visser went to ABC Sports and ESPN.

In 1995, she became the first woman ever to report from the sidelines during a Super Bowl when she covered Super Bowl XXIX for ABC.

She also contributed to horse racing including the Triple Crown, ABC's Wide World of Sports, Major League Baseball, including the 1995 All-Star Game and World Series, figure skating, Special Olympics, skiing, the Pro Bowl, and an ABC series A Passion to Play.

She co-hosted the network's coverage of the "Millennium Tournament of Roses Parade."

For ESPN, Visser covered the Super Bowl, college basketball, figure skating, and horse racing including the Triple Crown.

She also contributed to SportsCenter, NFL GameDay, and Monday Night Countdown.

In 1998, she became the first woman ever assigned to Monday Night Football.

A pioneer among women sports journalists, Visser re-joined CBS Sports in August 2000 after a six-year hiatus.

She was formerly the sideline reporter for Monday Night Football among other assignments she had at ESPN and ABC Sports, such as the World Series, the Triple Crown and the World Figure Skating Championship.

She serves as correspondent for the network's NFL and college basketball programming.

She also covered Super Bowl XXXIV for ABC in 2000.

While at ABC Sports, Visser served as a reporter for college football bowl games and the NFL playoffs games during Wild Card Saturday.

In August 2000, Visser returned to CBS, with her assignments being NFL, college basketball, Tennis, Figure skating and Horse racing as well as special projects for CBS News.

Today Visser's assignments are a contributor to The NFL Today and college basketball.

Visser was the first woman to be recognized by the Pro Football Hall of Fame as the 2006 recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award which recognizes long-time exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football.

Pro Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman said about Visser in his 2006 induction speech, "[She] brought respect and professionalism to the field of journalism for her work in print and broadcasting. It makes me proud to be in [her] company today."

In 2009, Visser became the first woman to be an analyst for an NFL game on TV.

She is currently a reporter for CBS Sports and News, writes for CBSSports.com and is also part of WFTL 640 Fox Sports' morning drive in South Florida, as well as one of the hosts of a CBS Sports Network weekly television show, We Need to Talk.

In 2009, Sports Illustrated named The Boston Globe sports sections (1975–1980) the best sports section of all time.

Visser, who was voted the No. 1 Female Sportscaster of all time in a poll taken by the American Sportscasters Association, was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association's Hall of Fame in 2015 and the International Sports Hall of Fame in 2020.