In more than four decades of covering sports, Lesley Visser has almost always been the "first." The first woman enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the first woman to win the Lifetime Achievement Sports Emmy, the first woman on Monday Night Football, the first woman on the Network broadcasts of the Final Four, the NBA Finals, the World Series and the Super Bowl - and she's the only woman to have presented the Lombardi Trophy to the winning Super Bowl team. Along the way, Lesley's made many friends and acquaintances, from the wide world of sports, music, business and Hollywood. She's excited to bring her mirth and merriment, along with some serious interviews, to this new venture.
Jessica Mendoza is one of those people who make you want to, as Vin Scully says, "pull up a chair." Throw out a topic, and she's there. Olympic softball? Mendoza won a Gold medal in 2004 in Athens, then watched while the sport was jerked in and out of the Games for more than a decade. Softball won't be included in Paris in 2024, but Mendoza will be tenacious about it being added to the Games in LA in 2028. From her roots as a 4-year-old dragging a bat around the backyard, Mendoza's been a captivating pioneer. A beneficiary of Title IX, she squeezed every opportunity out of the landmark legislation - a scholarship to Stanford (plus a Masters), the US National Team, network television (including calling Jake Arrieta's no-hitter on Sunday Night Baseball), and most recently, the Women's College World Series, aka the Oklahoma Invitational. All this, plus why, as a child of the Dodgers, Brett Butler was her idol. More, please!
16 Jun 2022
Val Ackerman
As an attorney, Val Ackerman can usually see both sides. But not on this topic. With bona fides that include an early Title IX basketball scholarship to Virginia, a law degree from UCLA, being tapped by David Stern in 1996 to help design the WNBA, sitting with Pres. George Bush at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 as the first female President of USA Basketball, and thoughts born of her current position as the Commissioner of the Big East, Val Ackerman is certain of one thing. The men and women should play the Final Four in the same city at the same time. She tells us why, along with theories about NIL and how the Big East offers value beyond money. Val Ackerman is fearless - she grew up minutes from where Washington crossed the Delaware. And one of them is in the Naismith Hall of Fame.
9 Jun 2022
Julie Foudy
There was a time that the USWNT won a World Cup and no one really knew about it. Iconic former midfielder Julie Foudy said she came home from the US win in China in 1991 and her professor at Stanford wanted to know why she’d missed class! Eight years later, the sport exploded when Foudy and Co. won the 1999 World Cup in Los Angeles. She tells Lesley the joy of now being part-owner of the glittering Angel City FC, about what Title IX meant to young athletes, and why the benchmark decree still needs to be protected. Never shy with her opinion, Foudy disagrees with Hope Solo’s charge of a “toxic culture” in the USWNT, and has some circumspect thoughts about the intersection of Title IX and transgender athletes.
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