by Erin Harvego
Pam Ward was fed up.
Last fall she read an article in
USA Today about Melissa Stark being named a sideline reporter for ABC's “Monday Night Football,” replacing veteran journalist Lesley Visser. The article, written by Rudy Martzke, surveyed network executives and women sportscasters about whether female broadcasters were making progress in their field.
Several women said there still seemed to be a glass ceiling that prevented them from reaching certain areas. Although more and more women were appearing on the sidelines, no woman was doing play-by-play for football.
“It kind of ticked me off and the more I thought about it the more I'm like, ‘Hey, there is someone who can do it. I can do it,” Ward said. “Let's just get this over with so I don't have to read this crap anymore.”
Ward, a television veteran, had plenty of experience doing play-by-play for basketball and felt that that experience was just as valuable as it would be for a male sportscaster.
Then there was the issue of sideline reporting. Ward had done an obligatory stint as a sideline reporter when she first started working for ESPN in 1996 and despised it. In addition to having the worst seat in the house, Ward said sideline analysts have no access to statistics and aren't really involved in the coverage of the game. It didn't help that in 11 of the 12 games she worked that year as a sideline analyst, it either rained or snowed. “It was awful,” she said. “The last game I did was Tennessee-Kentucky. It rained and I was pulling my own cable. I was caked with mud and right there on the sidelines in Lexington I said, ‘This is it. The next time I do a game it will be play-by-play.' ”
With the issue in the forefront of the media, Ward approached ESPN's senior vice president and executive editor John Walsh about doing play-by-play for a football game. To her surprise, he said, “OK. Let me see what I can do.”
Shortly thereafter, Ward was assigned the Bowling Green-Toledo game. Despite the potential for tremendous advance publicity, Ward and ESPN agreed not to issue a press release beforehand.
“We weren't going to make a big deal out of it,” said Ward. “I certainly wasn't doing it as a publicity stunt. And they weren't.”
After her debut, Ward continued to make history. She did the play-by-play for the Division II football championship and became the first woman to do play-by-play for a college bowl game when she handled the telecast of the Motor City Bowl.
Although she has received a lot of attention for breaking barriers, Ward said her goal was to open up more job possibilities for women in sports television including herself. She remembers the hope women had in her industry after Gayle Sierens did play-by-play for NBC's telecast of the Kansas City Chiefs-Seattle Seahawks game in 1987. But instead of a new beginning for women, Sierens' appearance turned out to be a one-shot opportunity.
“We are still waiting,” said Ward. “Guys switch back and forth all the time (between football and basketball). Hopefully, if there is someone out there who has done play-by-play in another sport, they'll understand that it's really not that big of a leap whether you are a man or a woman.”
Before Ward started kicking down doors for other women, she had to kick down a few for herself. Ward started out doing the morning drive for a mom-and-pop radio station in Cambridge, Maryland. Although she was the equivalent of a news director, when an opportunity to do play-by-play for the local high school football and basketball teams opened up at the radio station, she jumped on it. “I kind of inherited the job,” she said. “Which was fine by me because I've always wanted to do sports, but you take what you get to get in, which was news.”
She made the transition to television when a position for a weekend anchor opened up in Salisbury, Maryland, about 30 miles away. “I said I had a tape but it wasn't that good and I wanted to come in and do an audition,” she said. “And they bought it. They let me do it and hired me.”
Because the station was so small, Ward had to do a little bit of everything: writing, shooting, editing, producing. After a year and half, Ward decided to make a move again — back to radio. An all-sports radio station, WKNR in Cleveland, had an opening. Despite the pay and the hours — she had to get up at 4 a.m. to do the morning drive — she loved it.
But Ward was there less than a year before taking another radio job for more money with WTEM, another all-sports radio station, in Washington, D.C. While doing her 31/2-year stint with WTEM, Ward also did work for ESPN Radio and continued doing women's basketball play-by-play on a freelance basis. In 1995, she then went to WBAL-radio in Baltimore, where she hosted the Baltimore Ravens' pregame show. She also served as a fill-in sports anchor for WBAL-TV.
ESPN decided to hire Ward full time in 1996 when the network launched ESPNEWS. Since then, the self-described “utility infielder” for ESPN has done a little bit of everything: anchored “SportsCenter,” served as a commentator for NCAA women's basketball, covered the NFL draft for ESPN radio and hosted several shows, including “NBA Today,” “NBA 2Night,” “NHL 2Night” and “NFL 2Night.”
Even with her recent success in reaffirming that women can do football play-by-play, Ward said she was concerned about networks' views on female broadcasters. Even with the advances women have made in the industry, Ward sees a trend to hire women for high-profile on-air sports journalism jobs for their looks not their experience.
“There's a whole offshoot there as far as the direction in which (on-air sports journalism) is going as far as hiring young, attractive women,” she said. You hope that it's 2001 and that it would be different by now,” she said. “But in a way it seems like it's reverting back to cheesecake.”