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CHRISTINE BRENNAN
Milwaukee Bucks

'It's great and it's time:' Lisa Byington takes a big step forward for women in sports broadcasting

For the longest time in this country, sports were for men and men alone. Men played. Men coached. Men officiated. Men commentated. Even when women started to make inroads in tennis, in golf, in the Olympics, it still really was all about men. Sports and men; men and sports, linked forever.

On radio and on television, men naturally became sports’ sole narrators. The voice of sports that came into millions of American homes was exclusively male. This was a perfect arrangement for the vast majority of fans who also were male. Men were talking to men about sports. The male voice was the undeniable soundtrack of our sports lives. 

But history started to move quickly, a newsreel flickering with images: Richard Nixon signed Title IX. Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs. The Atlanta Olympics became the women’s Olympics, starting a trend that hasn’t stopped. A women’s soccer tournament filled the Rose Bowl. Millions and millions and millions of girls continued to grow up in sports, becoming women who love and play sports the rest of their lives.