(Gayle Gardner on set of SportsCenter. Image Curtsey of WDW.)
Gayle Gardner began her career in sportscasting in 1983 with ESPN and paved the way for women in many areas including play-by-play commentary.
Gardner was hired by ESPN in 1983 and became the host of SportsCenter for 3 years and stayed at ESPN until 1987, when she left to join NBC Sports. Her work with NBC Sports continued until 1993. During her years with NBC Sports, Gardner covered events such as the 1988 and 1992 Summer Olympics. She was also part of the NFL Live team and occasionally hosted Sports Update. One of her biggest achievements was becoming the first female to do play-by-play commentating for baseball when the Colorado Rockies played the Cincinnati Reds in 1993.
-NBC's New Years Day college football bowl game coverage
-NFL Live
-Major League Baseball: An Inside Look
-1988 Summer Olympics
-1992 Summer Olypmics
-The French Open
-Wimbledon
- Play-by-play Colorado Rockies vs. Cincinnati Reds 1993
- First women to appear weekly on major sports network television
"In the end, I think you really only get as far as you're allowed to get."
"If someone says you're a reporter and doesn't want you to anchor, then you wonder why you worked so hard at it."
"What's happened is there's a realization that we can be worked into the operation in a serious sort of way that is not just tokenism, that we can contribute, that we know what we're doing, that we're professionals, that we have a sports background." -Gardner on women sportscasters
"No major executive of NBC ever had anything but the highest level of respect and admiration for Gayle's talents." -Dick Ebersol, President of NBC Sports and senior vice president of NBC News
(Page researched and written by Meaghan O'Donoghue.)
