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PRESIDENT
Chris Roberts
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR -
VICE PRESIDENT
Rand Elkins
(805) 390-4733
TREASURER
Joe Cala
BOARD MEMBERS
Ray Rosenbaum
Pete Arbogast
Lynda Burns
Jeff Rose
Larry Stewart
Patrick O’Neal
Tom Hoffarth
Isaac Lowenkron
Stephanie Corrales
Kaitlin Miller
NEWSLETTER EDITOR
Larry Stewart
MEDIA DESIGN
Martin Leon
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE / Chris Roberts
Ann Meyers Drysdale Pitches In,
I’m proud to say I think the Southern California Sports Broadcasters, which has been around since 1958, keeps mak-
ing strides toward keeping up with the times.
Another example of that is the luncheon we have coming up May 10 at Lakeside Golf Club. The title of this luncheon is
“The Women Who Cover Sports.”
This special event, one of our more significant ones in re-cent years, was the brainchild of board member Patrick O’Neal, and our esteemed executive director/vice president, Rand
Elkins, has taken the ball and run with it.
And Rand has gotten a big assist from Ann Meyers Drysdale, who headed up a special committee to put this all together. Annie, a four-time All-American basket-ball player who went on to a successful career as the broadcaster and sports exec-
utive, will also be among the guest speakers.
Others include Shelley Smith, a former sports-writer who became an Emmy Award-winning televi-sion reporter for ESPN, and Lisa Bowman, a local pioneer for women in broadcasting. You can read more about Lisa in Larry Stewart’s Editor’s Corner
column elsewhere in this newsletter.
All women who have worked in sports media locally – or nationally – are encouraged to attend the luncheon, where they will be
introduced and asked to say a few words.
The featured speakers will share their stories of how they became successful
parts of a male-dominated industry and the challenges they faced, then and now.
There will be a Q&A at the end of the program.
I’d have had the opportunity to work with some of the best women in broad-casting. One is Kim Amadon. Doing sports reports and “Athletic Briefs” with
Continued on page 2
SCSB Website: www.scsbnews.com
Facebook: @scsbnews
Twitter: @scsbnews
Instagram: @scsbnews
Helps Put Together Special Event
Ann Meyers Drysdale
Shelley Smith
Page 2
her and Mark Wallengren during the 1980s and ‘90s at KOST 103 FM was amazing.
The late Tracey Miller and I shared a newsroom desk at KFI while doing morning sports on the legendary “Lohman and Barkley” show. She was a great news person and became a solid and opin-
ionated talk show host on KABC Radio.
Tracey died at age 51 in 2005 from complications due to brain cancer.
Liz Kiley was another talented woman who worked at both KFI and KOST before going into man-
agement. She became a very good program director.
What a pleasure it was to work with these women.
During my 23 years as the radio voice of UCLA football and basketball, I also had the privilege of getting to know Ann Meyers Drysdale well. She was the first woman inducted into the UCLA Athlet-
ics Hall of Fame and, in 1993, she was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
At Sonora High in La Habra, Annie lettered in seven sports and earned 13 MVP awards. Her bas-ketball teams had a record of 80-5. In 1974, she became the first high school student to play for the
U.S. national team.
In the 1976 Olympics at Montreal, where women competed in basketball for the first time, Annie was a starter on the silver-medal winning U.S. team coached by Billie Moore, who became Annie's
coach at UCLA prior to her senior year.
The 1977-78 Bruin team won UCLA's only women's national title. The Bruins beat BYU, 102-57, and Stephen F. Austin, 86-60, in the West Regionals at Long Beach. Against Stephen F. Austin, An-nie accomplished the impossible - the first quadruple double in college basketball history, male or
female: 20 points, 14 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals.
In the Final Four (played at Pauley Pavilion) that same year, UCLA beat Montclair State, 85-77, and then Maryland, 90-74, to win the title. NBC televised the title game, marking the first time a
women's college game was on national television.
EDITOR’S CORNER / Larry Stewart
Second Place Was a Good Start for Radio Pioneer Lisa Bowman
I feel a certain kinship to Lisa Bowman, one of the featured guests at “The Women Who Cover
Sports” SCSB luncheon May 10 at Lakeside.
For one thing, I played a role, albeit a minor one, in Lisa becoming the first woman to work in sports talk radio at a major L.A. station. For another, we both worked with the late Bud Furillo, a fiery
type who professed to love you one day and scream bloody murder at you the next.
Lisa became a part of KABC Radio’s “Sportstalk” program in 1983, joining Furillo and Tommy Hawkins. She got the job in a round-about way through a talent contest. The contest, which offered a prize of a one-year contract with KABC, was the brainchild of George Green, then the station’s
general manager. Continued on page 3
Continued from page 1
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Lisa, an accomplished actress, singer and dancer, heard about the contest while listening to KABC, then the Dodgers’ flagship radio station. She decided to
give it a shot.
The number of entries was whittled down to 10 finalists, who auditioned live in front of a panel of judges. As the TV-Radio sports columnist for the Times, I was one of the judges. To the best of my recollection, other judges included
broadcaster Stu Nahan and sportswriters John Hall and Allan Malamud.
A brash New Yorker named Merrie Rich was the narrow winner over Lisa, but she lasted barely a month. The story goes that she told Green she couldn’t wait to get back to New York once her contract was up. Green supposedly told her
something like, “You don’t need to wait, you can go back to New York right now.”
Lisa, the runner-up, moved into her spot.
A native of Walnut Creek in the Bay Area, Lisa attended Occidental and UCLA to study drama. While still in school, jobs in entertainment started falling her way. It came easy for her. She was a multi-
talented natural.
But sports broadcasting was something new for her – and women in general back in the 1980s. She
became a pioneer. And it wasn’t easy.
“There was no training period, no mentoring,” Lisa recalls. “My first day on the job, (producer) Mal Al-
berts handed me a list of commercials to read, and that was it.”
Lisa had another issue to deal with as well. She had to juggle her schedule since she was also the
mother of a 6-month old son, Stephen.
Through it all, things worked out.
Lisa loved working with Tommy Hawkins and she is too nice of a person to openly criticize Furillo, who died in 2006 at the age of 80. But having worked under Furillo for 3½ years when he was the sports editor of the Herald Examiner, I know she had some rough times. In fairness, Furillo was a brilliant newspaperman who did much to help my career – but you didn’t want to be around him when he was
having a bad day.
Lisa put in her year at KABC, then returned a few years later to work on the “Dodgertalk” pregame
show with Al Downing, appropriately nicknamed Gentleman Al Downing.
“You won’t find two nicer gentlemen than Tommy Hawkins and Al Downing,” Lisa says.
Lisa later did Ram reports for KMPC and was a regular contributor to Gabe Kaplan’s “Sports Nuts”
show on KLAC. In 1989, she served as president of the Southern California Sports Broadcasters.
Lisa lives in Sierra Madre with her husband of 38 years, Chuck Bowman, a former KTLA weatherman and news reporter who went on to a successful career as a television director and producer, working on
a number of prime-time series.
Their son Stephen, now 34, followed his father’s footsteps into television production, as did Rob Bow-
man, Chuck’s 56-year-old son from a previous marriage.
Continued from page 2
Lisa Bowman
Page 4
Martin Leon
1329 East Bennett Avenue
Glendora, CA 91741
PAST PRESIDENTS Tom Harmon 1958-60
Gil Stratton 1961-62
Bill Welsh 1963-64
Fred Hessler 1965-66
Chuck Benedict 1967-68
Allin Slate 1969-70
Stu Nahan 1971-72
Tom Kelly 1973-74
Mike Walden 1975-77
Ed Arnold 1978-79
Joe Buttitta 1980
Steve Bailey 1981-82
Chuck Benedict 1983-84
Steve Roah 1985-86
Steve Bailey 1987-88
Lisa Bowman 1989
Stu Nahan 1990-91
Mike Walden 1992-93
Bill Welsh 1994-96
Stu Nahan 1997-07
Bob Miller 2008-12
Joe Cala 2013-15
Chris Roberts 2016-
Next SCSB Luncheon - Wednesday, May 10th at Lakeside Golf Club at 11:30 a.m.
The Women Who Cover Sports Special Guest Speakers
SCSB Members (with dues with current dues paid) $40 each or pay at the door $45 each Non Members $50 each or pay at the door $55 each Join the SCSB now and save!! Remember no denim at Lakeside Contact SCSB - Rand Elkins - [email protected] - (805) 390-4733
Checks can be mailed to: SCSB
44103 Village 44 Camarillo, CA 93012
Ann Meyers Drysdale
Four-time UCLA All-
American and current
broadcaster
Shelley Smith
ESPN Reporter
Lisa Bowman
Former KABC
“Sportstalk” host
