AMHERST – “Be prepared for serendipity.”
It’s an oxymoronic phrase that could not better define the career of Melissa Ludtke. The Amherst native became a national name in 1978 when she successfully sued Major League Baseball and commissioner Bowie Kuhn to allow her equal access to the locker room while she was working for Sports Illustrated. Yet her journey to get to that position was full of serendipitous moments, most notably the time she wowed Frank Gifford with her sports knowledge at a dinner party that kick-started her journalism career.
As impractical as the sentiment sounds on paper, it was arguably the biggest piece of advice Ludtke and South Hadley High School graduate Lesley Visser shared as the keynote speakers at Friday’s third annual Women in Sports Media Symposium at UMass. The event, which also had several UMass alums speak on a panel as well as a talk with ESPN anchor Victoria Arlen, was well attended by both genders. That was something important to Ludtke, who said the messages of these types of events matter just as much to the men coming up in the industry as the women.
“I was so delighted to see so many young men there because the stories we tell have a universality to them and some touchstones they can relate to as well,” Ludtke said. “Life is very different than it was in our day, there’s not so much a women’s movement as a movement to improve lives of women and men. It’s much more about this intersectionality, we’re not so much in silos anymore. We know women’s lives are not going to get better until men are part of the decision-making and making them better, too. It’s not that it’s going to be the men’s decision, but they’re going to be part of it.”
The conversation between Ludtke and Visser flowed through a wide variety of topics, but all of them seemed to hint back to dispelling the notion of women as “invaders” into the sports media landscape. It was a moniker both of them had to battle through in the early parts of their careers as trailblazers for women in the industry.
Visser became the first woman to cover the NFL as a beat reporter when the Boston Globe made her its Patriots writer. Ludtke, meanwhile, focused primarily on baseball at Sports Illustrated as she also handled some copy-editing duties for the magazine. But the struggles they had to overcome while rising up the ranks are an important part of the story, Visser said. She said their career highlights might look impressive, but it’s the battle and determination to survive the events between the good moments that are vital to pass along to the next generation.
“For anything, a good soldier knows history,” Visser said. “Melissa and I and some of the other trailblazers, we get to talk about the distance we’ve come and everybody should know that. What they’re doing now, some of them may be in pioneering positions and it’s good to hear from people (like us). Our resumes make it seem like it was all glory, but a lot of tough times, a lot of soul searching.”
In taking time to reflect on the changes for women since they began their careers, Ludtke and Visser both said they were pleased with the progress that has been made over the past 40 years, but some of the same problems are still evident.
Nowhere is that more noticeable than on social media where the environment for women in general has become toxic. Both Ludtke and Visser said they aren’t sure if they could have handled those types of comments when starting their careers, but a thick skin is important for anyone in the industry to grow – especially women. It was one of the messages Visser tried to drive home, telling a story about being embarrassed while covering Wimbledon and misunderstanding a player’s response on live television.
Those types of stories and the many others Ludtke and Visser shared are part of what Ludtke hopes will stick with the attendees in future years. She mentioned the commencement speech given by then-New York congresswoman Shirley Chisholm when Ludtke graduated from Wellesley and the impact it had on her. She said she hopes talks like Friday’s can help someone in the future and be a moment that can help shape their lives.
“You never know when you go and talk somewhere, what impact it’s going to have on any set of ears,” Ludtke said. “I know that there were many talks in my young days that I still know well. If there’s something you can say and something you can pass on that gives them a reference point down the line, I’m more than happy to show up and see if I can.”