Lesley Visser - Achievements - Honors

Honors

Visser was honored by the American Women in Radio and Television in June 2006 as the first woman sportscaster recipient of a Gracie Allen Award which celebrates programming created for women, by women and about women, as well as individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the industry. In 2007, she became the first woman sportscaster to host the Gracie Awards. Visser also, in 2007, received the Emily Couric Leadership Award—previously given to Sandra Day O'Connor, Caroline Kennedy and Donna Brazile—and in 2007, she was honored at the 22nd Annual Sports Legend Dinner, along with Magic Johnson, Gary Player and John Elway to benefit the Buoniconti fund to cure paralysis. In 2005 she won the Pop Warner female achievement award and was inducted into the New England Sports Museum Hall of Fame, along with Boston Celtics legend Bob Cousy and the 1980 United States Olympic Hockey team.

Visser has been honored with the Compass Award for "changing the paradigm of her business" and was one of the 100 luminaries commemorating the 75th anniversary of the CBS Television Network in 2003. She was named "WISE Woman of the Year" in 2002 and voted the "Outstanding Women's Sportswriter in America" in 1983 and won the "Women's Sports Foundation Award for Journalism" in 1992. In 1999 she won the first AWSM Pioneer Award. Visser earned her bachelor's degree in English from Boston College and received an honorary doctorate of Journalism from her alma mater in May 2007.

Visser became the first woman sportscaster to carry the Olympic Torch when she was honored in 2004 by the International Olympic Committee as a "pioneer and standard-bearer." Visser worked her 31st Final Four/NCAA Men's Basketball Championship this April 2009, having worked the tournament for the Boston Globe, ESPN and CBS Sports. This past season marked her 34th year covering the NFL and for covering the NFL.

In 2005, Visser was elected to the Museum of Television and Radio. Sean McManus, President of CBS News and CBS Sports, summed up her contributions this way: "Lesley Visser's career has broken many barriers and defined previously unimagined roles for women in professional sports and sports broadcasting."

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