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Visser to become first female NFL analyst

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 12, 2001

A pioneer her entire career, CBS' Lesley Visser will make another leap into the history books Monday. The longtime NFL reporter, who started out at the Boston Globe in the mid 1970s, then moved to network television, will become the first female analyst on an NFL broadcast.

She'll join announcer Howard David and analyst Boomer Esiason in the booth for Westwood One/CBS Radio's broadcast of the Cowboys-Redskins game. It will be her first of at least four appearances on the Monday night radio broadcast, which airs locally on WQYK-AM 1010.

"What I'm going to be careful to do is not speak outside my experience," said Visser, who is keeping her Sunday gig as a reporter for NFL Today. "I haven't been in an NFL huddle. I think what I bring is 25 years of observation and reporting."

Visser, 48, brings a little bit more than that. She is warm, sharp and very funny, a quality that doesn't always come through when she is reporting. She equates Monday night's game between two winless teams with "the roller coaster at the amusement park, where you know it's going to make you sick, but you still buy the ticket."

The game will mark a reunion of sorts for Visser and Esiason, who worked together on Monday Night Football before producer Don Ohlmeyer fired both of them in a full-scale housecleaning last year. Though she said Ohlmeyer "came in and ripped a lot of lives apart," she added she harbors no bitterness toward ABC. She has more interesting things to do, starting Monday.

"I've covered 25 years of the Redskins and Cowboys, which is probably a good thing because we'll probably have a lot of time to talk about the days of old," she said.

LABOR PAINS: No doubt Warren Sapp, who complained about the booing during Sunday's game against the Packers, would like to make this required viewing for come-lately Bucs fans.

Lost Treasures of NFL Films: The Birth of the Bucs premieres at 7 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN Classic, and boy does it hurt. NFL Films, which followed the Bucs throughout their first season in 1976, marks the 25th anniversary of what it calls "the worst team of all time" with an hour's worth of old footage and new interviews. The show captures the essence of a team that still is the only one to finish a season with more players on injured reserve (17) than touchdowns scored (15).

Though the show drags at times, it's well worth watching -- if for nothing else than the chance to see frustrated coach John McKay, who died this year, at his funniest.

HEART-RENDING TRIBUTE: On Sunday, past and present stars of U.S. figure skating will mark the 40th anniversary of the plane crash that killed the U.S. national team. But an unremarkable skater with a more personal -- and recent -- tragedy likely will steal the show.

In A Skating Tribute on ABC (2-4 p.m.), junior skater Joanna Glick, 16, younger sister of United Flight 93 passenger Jeremy Glick, will skate to honor him and the thousands of others killed in last month's terrorist attacks. Joanna, who finished 10th in juniors at this year's national championships, will be joined by Michelle Kwan, Tara Lipinski, Nancy Kerrigan, Brian Boitano and others.

HAPPY "FAMILY": Fox Family, which had weak ratings for its Thursday night regular-season baseball games, is faring much better during the playoffs. The Tuesday afternoon Atlanta-Houston game earned a season-best 1.0 rating/3 share. The St. Louis-Arizona game in prime time Tuesday drew a 2.8 rating/4 share, better numbers than any of ESPN's eight division series games in 2000.

One ratings point equals 1 percent of households with televisions; share is the percentage of sets turned on that were tuned in. Fox Family could air as many as 11 playoff games.

FINE TUNING: Tampa Bay had the second-highest local rating of any NFL city over the weekend, garnering a 34.3 rating/52 share for the Bucs-Packers game. ... ESPN's College GameDay visits Tallahassee on Saturday for the Florida State-Miami game.

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