EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTERS ONE AND FOUR
"She better mean something to every woman that is involved in, was in, or is thinking of going into sports broadcasting. There has to be a first. There has to be a first person...If I told you there's a Miss America your network is hiring, you'd roll your eyes. Well, guess what? They rolled their eyes back then. But Phyllis had so much courage. She overcame so much. I think she played such a pivotal role for young girls to be able to look at her and say, ‘Wow! She's up there with the big boys.' That was a huge thing to see...Kudos to CBS for hiring her. But she is really a true, true, pioneer in this business."
–Andrea Kramer, Multiple Emmy Award-winning TV Journalist
CHAPTER ONE
CHAMPIONSHIP DAY
A crowd of nearly 89,000 football fans packed the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Jan. 4, 1976, to see the Dallas Cowboys take on the L.A. Rams in the National Football Conference Championship Game. The winner would earn the right to compete in Super Bowl X against the Pittsburgh Steelers two weeks later in Miami.
The Cowboys earned a place in the championship game because just one week prior, the nation had witnessed a sports miracle–the Hail Mary Pass. On a cold Minnesota afternoon, with just 30 seconds remaining on the clock and the Cowboys trailing the Vikings 14 to 10, quarterback Roger Staubach launched a 50-yard desperation pass in the direction of receiver Drew Pearson. Miraculously, the football landed in Pearson's hands before he sidestepped a pair of Vikings defenders for the winning touchdown.
"After the game, a (Associated Press) writer said to me, ‘What were you thinking about when you threw the ball?' I said, ‘I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.' I was a Catholic kid from Cincinnati," explained Staubach.
Of course, sports fans, whether they'd realized the significance of it or not, had been witnessing something rather miraculous that entire 1975 National Football League season. CBS's top-rated The NFL Today pre-game show featured the first woman sportscaster to appear as a regular at the national level. Phyllis George, a 25-year-old fledgling journalist, occupied a uniquely high-profile seat beside long-time reporter Brent Musburger and former NFL player Irv Cross. Her slim qualifications for such an assignment were being named the 50th Miss America four years earlier and a current stint as the co-host of the New Candid Camera.
During the 14-week regular season, she'd walked a tightrope of scrutiny through blustery crosswinds. Her legion of detractors, including many who believed a woman had no place in football, waited for her to fall into the deep chasm of failed-and-forgotten broadcasting experiments. Some didn't wait. Upon her hiring, CBS received hate mail from scores of chauvinists, which undoubtedly increased the pressure on her shoulders. But Phyllis avoided major missteps while winning over fans with her genuine nature and her ability to get athletes to open up about themselves during interviews. As the regular season ended, the tenacious Phyllis George was still standing tall.
Only this was the playoffs, and her on-camera performance would now be examined under a microscope with a much stronger magnification. The NFL Today team wasn't situated in its normal environment–Studio 43 in New York City's CBS Broadcast Center. Instead, they were sitting in the brilliant California sunshine high above the Coliseum's playing field. The wide-shouldered Irv Cross sat screen-left. Cross was a trailblazer himself, being the first African-American to work full-time as a network sports analyst. Brent Musburger occupied the seat in the center of the screen, ready to quarterback the broadcast. Both men were clad in sport coats and ties. Phyllis George, her smiling face casually framed by a cascade of brunette hair, illuminated the right-hand side of the television screen in more than 20 million households across the country. She wore a knee-length red dress accented with a red and white scarf. The space over her heart boasted a blue and white footprint-shaped pin that touted the upcoming Super Bowl X. The pin read: FOLLOW ME TO MIAMI.
As the final strains of the show's opening theme music faded, Musburger stared straight into the camera and welcomed the audience.
"Good afternoon everybody and have we got a day for you in Los Angeles. Temperatures are in the mid-60s. Phyllis and Irv, what a match-up–the Los Angeles Rams and the Dallas Cowboys," said Musburger, his voice subtly gathering speed and intensity with each succeeding word.
On cue, Cross added in his baritone, "It'll be a great game. You're talking about the heat. There's going to be a lot of heat on that field today too..."
Then Phyllis George, in an exuberant Texas twang especially utilized when discussing her Cowboys, spoke. "You know what's exciting? That Dallas/Los Angeles game at the beginning of the season. Of course, the score was 18 to 7, Dallas..."
The camera cut to a solo shot of George, her hands now in motion and about to punctuate each forthcoming adjective. "Also, in the Los Angeles Times headline it says, ‘Staubach looks mo-bile, ag-ile and versa-tile.'"
George smiled even wider at her nimble word play, as if she had the growing confidence to spar a verbal round or two with heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.
That confidence, however, was about to be shaken. She had absolutely no clue what her co-hosts and crew had secretly planned.
"Phyllis, I guess it's time for you to read the (intro) to our music piece today," said Musburger, straight-faced.
George turned away from her close-up shot and looked directly at Musburger.
"I beg your pardon. We have a lead into our music piece?" asked George, with some apparent trepidation.
"You don't have the lead into the music piece?" asked Musburger.
"No, I don't," replied George, quickly looking off-camera to her far left. "Where's the lead in?"
Then Irv Cross chimed in from across the set, "There's always a lead into a music piece. You know that."
"You guys," she responded, her shock visibly growing as she quickly embraced the arms of her chair for balance.
Musburger jabbed, "You didn't come prepared for the Title Game?"
Across the country, her couch-bound chauvinistic detractors were getting stoked at the potential meltdown in the offing.
Without ever losing her cool, though, the befuddled George asserted to the audience, "I can sing real well, folks." Then she turned back to Musburger and asked, "What are you talking about?"
That's when Musburger decided to drop the guise.
"As a matter of fact, Phyllis really doesn't know," he said, as George began laughing between gasps of breath. "We have a very special music piece today and it involves someone who you've been watching closely on CBS all season long. And we want you to sit back and take a look at our Phyllis."
George reached out to grab Musbuger's arm as the screen suddenly filled with a slowly changing collage of photos from childhood to present-day, while Frank Sinatra crooned "Wait Till You See Her."
Among the parade of images were George as a child in Denton, Texas, as a cheerleader, as Miss America, meeting U.S. Presidents Johnson and Nixon, laughing at the studio desk in New York between Musburger and Cross, and interviewing sports stars such as Joe Namath, O.J. Simpson, Roger Staubach, and coach George Allen–coaxing a smile from them all.
"Wait till you feel the warmth of her glance, pensive and sweet and wise. All of it lovely, all of it thrilling, I'll never be willing to free her. When you see her, you won't believe your eyes."
When the trio reappeared before the TV audience, George was trying to fight back tears, but couldn't.
"Go ahead, Phyllis," said Musburger, encouraging her honest emotions.
Burying her face in a Kleenex, she said, "Excuse me, folks..."
"I just want to say, Phyllis, you handled that music piece marvelously," Cross told her. "She had no idea it was coming. Believe me, she's really a great lady."
"Thanks. You're great guys," said George, throwing an arm around Musburger's shoulder. "I'm going to kill you after this show. But you're great guys..."
"We'll be back at halftime and after the game," said Musburger. "So sit back and enjoy a whale of a football game on CBS between Dallas and Los Angeles."
To the sound of the out-going theme music, the last image onscreen before the network cut away to a commercial was that of a delighted George and Musburger in close conference, undoubtedly discussing the surprise.
The massive audience (this was pre-ESPN and The NFL Today was the place for viewers to rev up for the game) had tuned in for a pre-game football show. They saw one in spades. There had been analyses, predictions, profiles, and history. But they also received something more, a quality that made The NFL Today stand out from the competition. Before them was a broadcasting family celebrating the end of an historic first year together. One that wanted to both cherish and protect its most scrutinized member. The musical montage celebrating her first season in the booth could not have worked if her peers hadn't the utmost respect for Phyllis George and the job she'd done under difficult circumstances.
As with most families, challenges loomed on the horizon and would grow in numbers. Dynamics and personnel would change. There would be disagreements, hurt feelings, and even a high-profile fist-fight over issues such as camera time. But through it all, the core of Phyllis, Brent, and Irv remained a family. And, detractors aside, America thoroughly embraced that kinship, especially the courageous, open-hearted, and resilient Phyllis George.
< Sidebar >
Beautifully Orchestrated
In the CBS TV truck, parked outside of the Colesium, sat a phalynx of busy individuals. Among the behind-the-scenes broadcast crew were executive Bob Wussler, who was responsible for hiring Phyllis George, and The NFL Today producer Mike Pearl. As the on-air gag to baffle Phyliss with the missing music lead-in unfolded according to plan, those in the truck began an impromptu celebration.
"‘That's what we wanted. We're getting it. It's working.' That's what we were saying to each other in the truck," recalled Pearl. "We'd hoped to convey to the audience that we were a family. That the guys wanted to celebrate Phyllis, show their appreciation for all she'd contributed that year. I think it came off beautifully."
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"My unanticipated success as a sportscaster is a perfect example of the importance of saying ‘yes' to yourself, even when you are uncertain."
–Phyllis George
CHAPTER FOUR
There She Is...
"Here I am a small-town girl coming from Denton, Texas... and I go up to Atlantic City. I didn't even know the boardwalk was made out of boards. I was terribly sheltered."
–Phyllis George
The world was introduced to Phyllis Ann George on September 12th, 1970. The 21-year-old Texas native was one of 50 contestants competing in the Miss America Pageant. The pageant, originally conceived by local businessmen who wanted to lengthen the summer tourist season, was being held at the historic Atlantic City Convention Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The site of the pageant since 1940, the famed building had hosted the Democratic National Convention in August of 1964 when Texan Lyndon B. Johnson received his party's nomination for the upcoming presidential election, nine months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. On the very next weekend, John, Paul, George, and Ringo took the same stage as the Beatles, packing the Convention Hall on their first U.S. tour.
The year 1970 was filled with societal upheavals and changes in American culture. Ongoing demonstrations against the Vietnam War, which had spread with the invasion of Cambodia, continued. The radical terrorist group the Weathermen built bombs. United States Postal workers went on strike in seven states. Then four Kent State University students were killed on their campus by National Guardsmen while peacefully protesting the war. President Richard Nixon signed a measure lowering the voting age to 18. The first Earth Day was celebrated in the U.S. And Paul McCartney announced that the Beatles were breaking up.
The Miss America Pageant and its contestants, including Phyllis George, weren't insulated from those seismic societal shockwaves. Eighteen days before the 1970 pageant, The Women's Strike for Equality took place as protesters marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City, a half-century after the passage of the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote. An estimated 50,000 protestors locked arms and blocked traffic along major Manhattan thoroughfares.
Public perception toward beauty pageants had started to shift. The Miss America Pageant's prime-time Saturday evening broadcast on NBC didn't address the fact that the Women's Liberation Front was demonstrating outside of Convention Hall. The slogan those protestors chanted was simply, "No more Miss America!" Perhaps their presence was what led the show's announcer to conclude his opening on-air remarks about the pageant with the statement, "All proving what was, and what still is, beautiful."
Phyllis George wasn't oblivious to those bra-burning feminists or their point of view. She'd felt marginalized herself when a male executive of the Texas State Pageant said about her, "(Phyllis will) never win. She's just a bouncy-assed piano player." But Phyllis didn't see the Miss America Pageant as exploitative. To the small-town Texan, it was an oyster that had the potential to present her with a pearl.
"Even though I'd won the swimsuit competition, I despised that part of it. Most of the other contestants did as well," recalled George, who in being named Miss Texas had already secured her college tuition for the upcoming semester. "But in spite of those reservations, I saw the pageant as an opportunity, a way to earn scholarship money and a springboard to new possibilities."
Though she didn't know it at the time, Phyllis George had someone besides family and friends pulling for her in Atlantic City–the reigning Miss America, Pamela Eldridge.
"I had seen Phyllis compete before when she was runner-up at the Miss Texas Pageant (1969). She had made quite an impression on me...She just had so much personality and charisma. I asked her right after the pageant if she was coming back to compete the next year. But I didn't get much of an answer. She just sort of shrugged and appeared very disappointed. I know the feeling because I'd been runner-up before in my state (Michigan) pageant," said Eldridge. "Later on, whenever I'd see someone from the Texas State pageant, I'd ask if Phyllis was entering again. So, in Atlantic City, I was thrilled to see her there and I was really, really rooting for her to win."
As the televised talent portion of the pageant arrived, Phyllis, wearing a red gown with silver sequins, sat behind a Steinway piano. Entertainer Bert Parks, who served as the master of ceremonies for the Miss America Pageant from 1955-1979, stepped to the microphone. Just two years earlier, women's libbers had hung Parks in effigy outside of Convention Hall.
"Burt Bacharach and Hal David have written some of the best of today's music," said Parks. "And here to play one of their contemporary compositions is Phyllis George, Miss Texas."
Phyllis' fingers sailed among the ivories as she struck the opening notes to Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, an Oscar-winning song written for the soundtrack of the 1969 film Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The crowd quickly appeared mesmerized and in total sync with George, who blended the popular song with several dramatic and classical runs along the keyboard.
Her brother, Robbie, 13 at the time, was so nervous that Phyllis would make a mistake he actually had to get out of his seat and leave the auditorium. On stage, however, his sister was completely zoned-in.
Phyllis was doing more than playing piano for the Convention Hall crowd. She was communicating to the audience with her hands. They'd left the keyboard several times, waved in mid-air, and then returned to the ivories for another run. In a sense, she became a musical trapeze artist, inspiring the audience with a combination of confidence and danger. After her final crescendo, the crowd waited for the air to stop resonating before exploding into applause.
Among those applauding was Hal David, the song's co-writer and one of that year's Miss America Pageant judges.
Other contestants that night would take part in the talent competition by singing, playing the violin, and even performing gymnastics on the uneven parallel bars. But none of them seemed to make the same connection with the audience as Phyllis did at the piano.
More than 90 minutes into that evening's competition, Bert Parks stood ready to announce the judges' five finalists for the crown.
"The five finalists are...Miss Maine...Miss Mississippi...Miss Pennsylvania...Miss South Carolina...and Phyllis George, Miss Texas," said Parks.
George's mouth opened wide in excited surprise as she made her way to the last remaining unoccupied chair in the row of five at the front of the stage.
Not making the final cut that night in Atlantic City was Miss Iowa Cheryl Browne, the first African-American to participate in the Miss America Pageant. Miss South Dakota, Mary Harum, also fell by the wayside. However, she would find the national spotlight a decade later as co-host of CBS' Entertainment Tonight, after changing her name to Mary Hart.
"Miss America 1971 will travel extensively. She will meet thousands of people throughout the world," announced Parks, as the camera suddenly focused in on Phyllis, who couldn't fight back her exuberance or control her ever-widening smile. "She will be interviewed many times on a wide variety of subjects. And her responses must be pertinent and quick. We will now interview each contestant briefly based on the facts which the girls themselves gave us on their biographical sheets. This will allow our judges a final opportunity to know these beautiful ladies better."
The first contestant to share a microphone with Bert Parks was Miss Maine. She'd studied music at a conservatory and, as an opera singer, she understood several languages. Appearing ultra-stiff and proper beside Parks, she pronounced the word "rather" as "rah-ther" with a societal air about her, before speaking briefly in German.
Next up was Miss Mississippi. A section of the crowd roared wildly for her. She told Parks that she'd been raised in an orphanage until the age of 13, and that approximately 75 people from the orphanage had traveled to Atlantic City as her support. Parks, who referred to her as "honey" during the interview, praised her rooting section.
Miss Pennsylvania, the tallest finalist at five-foot-nine-and-a-half, informed Parks that she collected petrified sharks' teeth. Claudia Turner, Miss South Carolina, said that her great, great grandfather had officiated over the hanging of Tom Dooley (really Tom Dula), a confederate soldier (convicted of murder) who inspired a well-known folk song.
Then Bert Parks said, "Miss Texas, please step up."
If there was any hesitation in Phyllis from her misstep a year earlier in answering that daunting "dynamic Denton" question, it didn't show.
Wearing a peach gown, the five-foot-eight George leaned into the microphone. Abandoning her speech teacher Opal Hall's lessons, Phyllis listened instead to her instincts, and in a Texas drawl said, "Hi."
Parks parroted her accent and immediately prompted Phyllis for more.
"I'm from the Dallas/Fort Worth area and I live in Denton, Texas, which is the top of the Golden Triangle," said George. "I have a peekapoo, which is part Pekinese and part poodle."
"Would you mind repeating that?" asked Parks
"Would you like me to spell it?" answered Phyllis.
There was an instant rapport between them, with Parks naturally falling into the comedic role of her straight man.
"My dog loves to listen to me play the piano," said George. "He scratches to get in but (whenever) I start singing songs...my dog starts singing at the top of his lungs and I wonder if it's my voice or the song."
Hungry for more, Parks asked Phyllis about her good luck charm.
"One of my sorority sisters gave me a live hermit crab as good luck at the Miss Texas Pageant, because my zodiac sign is cancer," said George. "It doesn't seem too unusual here in Atlantic City to have a live hermit crab...I brought it on the plane and nobody sat by me...it makes you wonder."
The crowd solidly applauded.
A few moments later, with Phyllis back in her seat, Parks got serious again.
"Now ladies and gentlemen, this is the decision we've been waiting for," said Parks, who then walked to the judges' section and returned with the results on a small piece of paper in his hand. "The fourth runner-up for the title of Miss America...Miss Pennsylvania...The third runner-up is Miss Mississippi...The second runner-up...Miss Maine."
Phyllis was sitting directly beside her only remaining competitor, Claudia Turner, Miss South Carolina. The pair were holding hands and taking deep breaths together. And George was thinking to herself–Even if I don't come in first place, it's not a failure because I learned something important these last few months. I've learned to keep strong on the inside no matter what people say or what happens around me.
"Now for the most important announcement, the names of the first runner-up and Miss America for 1971," said Parks. "Ladies and gentlemen, the judges' decision; the first runner-up is Miss South Carolina."
An electric current raced through Phyllis George, who rose off her seat for an instant.
"When Bert called my name, my hands flew to my face in shock. I cried. I gasped. I trembled. I did all those things the winners before me had done that I had promised myself I wouldn't do," recalled Phyllis.
Eldridge, the previous year's Miss America, gave Phyllis her robes, scepter, and placed a golden crown atop her head. It was the first time a crown of that color had been used, celebrating the 50th Pageant's golden anniversary.
"Thank you," said Phyllis in a trembling voice, as the microphone was thrust in front of her.
"Now we ask you to walk down the runway and meet your subjects. Miss America, ladies and gentlemen," said Parks, an instant before he began to sing.
There she is, Miss America...
Less than a quarter of the way into her walk, the crown fell from Phyllis George's head. She picked it up off the runway and continued on with it secured in her arms. It seemed only fitting. George didn't need a crown to prove she was somebody. She would accomplish that by the grace of her loving personality and the determination of her will.
If the women protesting for their equal rights outside Convention Hall knew what Phyllis George would soon achieve as a trailblazing broadcaster–if they understood the doors she would open for other women–they might have put aside their chants and signs for a moment and cheered her as well.
< Sidebar >
Bobby Pin Fail
"I had trouble getting the crown on her head. Phyllis is taller than me and she was wearing a small hair piece, as I had the year before. So I had trouble getting the combs (on the crown) in," recalled Pamela Eldridge. "I was telling her, ‘Hold still.' But she was shaking her head saying, ‘I can't believe it. I can't believe it.' When the crown fell on her walk, I had guilt over it, just terrible guilt. I felt that it was my fault. But to Phyllis' credit, she made the best of it. She picked it up and kept on going. I hadn't even realized that it was a special gold crown for the 50th Anniversary until sometime later."
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