Beth Mowins is back in the booth this fall handling play-by-play on ESPN2 mid-day games. That makes her the only woman calling nationally televised college football games. She had company until a year ago when Pam Ward, who was the first woman to break through in 2000, was pulled off her Saturday afternoon football duty by ESPN. Ward’s work was closely scrutinized, and unfairly criticized, it seems, by men who have a hard time accepting a woman in the booth on football telecasts.
Women, of course, are often assigned the on-field reporter duties, grabbing coaches for halftime and postgame duties as they leave the field and providing sideline injury reports. Both Mowins and Ward, however, have successfully demonstrated an even deeper knowledge of the game while working in the booth.
Ward continues to do play-by-play for ESPN, just not on college football. She works doing women’s sports.
Mowins, too, is very active in doing telecasts of women’s basketball, softball, and soccer. A former athlete herself, she captained the women’s varsity basketball team at Lafayette College before getting her masters degree in broadcast journalism in her hometown at Syracuse University, which is famous for producing sportscasters.
