YouSaid · the spoken record

Christine Brennan

lines on the record: 136
first: 2017-12-23
most recent: 2017-12-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, you know, it was interesting. It was LA, and of course, that was a boycott at Olympics. So you had the Russians, the Soviets at the time, not showing up in a lot of their allies, of course, not showing up. But it was beautiful. It was fantastic. And for me, just to be at an Olympics opening ceremonies, I remember calling my parents, and I'm here because they knew how much I just, I would, and again, this sounds funny to anyone younger than 40 or something, but 76 Olympics. I was working as a bank teller that summer in Toledo, and I would race home for to watch the coverage from 8 to 11, right? That's right.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“84 in LA. I was still at the Miami Herald. Okay. Came up to the post three years covering the NFL and doing all that. And then I went off. In fact, it was fun. I covered the Super Bowl and Wish Washington beat Denver. So I was the beat writer last game I covered. They won the Super Bowl. It came home. Week later, I'm headed to Calgary to cover the 88. For the Washington Post. For the Washington Post.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yes, and I think football certainly was one of my main early things. And then the Olympics always for me growing up was just the coolest, most magical thing. I don't remember the 68 games.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the fact that the post was sending a woman, my God, if there was an institution bigger, Than skins, it was the Washington Post.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“More could anyone ask for it And Gibbs was always a class act, always he would stay on the record always for those who know the journalism world. You know, he would pull me aside, he'd be angry about it. We'd talk it out and we'd move right on. Never held a grudge. One of the great people I've ever dealt with. And for three years covering that team, I never had a problem because from top down, Jack Ken Cook and Joe Gibbs, they made sure I didn't have a problem. Plus, let's not be naive, the Washington Post. The Washington Post had sent a herd of goats to come in and cover the team. They would have gotten credentials. Right. And I'm being a little facetious.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the NFL is late to the party. Joe Gibbs doesn't like this. So he writes the letter back saying, I don't believe a woman should be in my locker room. You know, the guys that are in there, they have wives, blah, blah. Okay. So I heard about this. I was up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania covering the training camp, and friends of mine are calling and leaving voicemails, whatever we did back then to reach each other in 1985. Pigeons. Yeah, very impressed. Right, exactly. Sending off smoke signals. And in telling me, oh, Joe Gibbs has just said this horrible thing. Well, the kicker on the Joe Gibbs reply was that he was told by Pete Rosell, the Commissioner of the NFL, it's equal access. Those are the rules. And Gibbs then said, so those are the rules. I don't like it personally, but we will follow the rules. Right.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And a very religious guy would read his Bible every day. And he sent a letter to the then commissioner of the National Football League, Pete Rosell, because Roselle had said, hey, you got to open up these. We can't have this. We can't have the Boston Globe reporter, Leslie Visser, and the New York Times people, because more and more women are getting the business. You can't have some reporters for these major newspapers standing outside while the other ones go in. It's got to be equal. That was 1985. And the NFL, by the way, was the last of the four major leagues, men's leagues, to mandate equal access for male as well as female reporters.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Coach of the time, one of the great coaches in anyone who does follow the NFL, he may well be the best coach ever because he won three Super Bowls, three different quarterbacks, not only one of whom is ever going to make the Hall of Fame.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You said George Solomon and Jay Tom Boswell, Ken Denlinger, Kornheiser, Wilbon, you know, Sally Jenkins, so many of us that are dear friends to this day. And so, yes, I think that was, so I remember all the TV stations doing stuff. And Joe Gibbs, who was a...”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a really all the TV stations were doing features on me. And I did every one. I was kind of surprised because I'd already had three and a half years in Miami. I'd already covered Super Bowls, but because I'm coming up to the big leagues, to the Washington Post. You know, this is like, wow, this is the...”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I got to the post in September of'84, and by January of 85 I was put on the beat. So I'd covered the NFL at large because I'd done a lot of coverage of the Miami Dolphins and college football in Miami. So I was prepared for this. But it was very funny because coming up here, you know, all of a sudden they're putting a woman on the beat. It was a big...”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I give full credit to the Herald for easing my path and for understanding the magnitude of it and frankly the Vikings for handling it quite well.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it worked out fine. I got the interviews. I got out of there. You know this so well. I'm on deadline. So I'm not going to sit back and go, okay, I'm going to analyze that. Heck no. I got to write. So I'm an intern for the herald. I've got to write for the Miami Herald deadline, get that in the newspaper. Then I sat back. And I remember thinking, all right, that wasn't so bad. Not at all. And again, great guys in our lives, a couple fabulous full-time sports writers at the Herald just said, hey, so you're good? I said, I'm really good. Yeah, no problem. Right.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there you go. Well, you carry an 8x11 notebook, and you know what? When you look down, you look down right for most people at work. And I'm being 511 and a half. They work perfectly. But you did have to have a bit of a sense of humor then. I mean, I had a choice. I either am going to be lined to a few lockers, which I did. One player came over and said, hey, he could see clearly, you know, I'm a woman and a man's world. He pointed out a guy or two to me because by that point there's no numbers. The numbers are off. Yeah, you don't even know Minnesota Vikings. I knew a few of them, but I didn't know the whole team. And it's preseason, so they got like 120 guys on the roster.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Obviously, we are in a very, very different time now. I heard the minute I walked in that Vikings locker room, there were some naked men. There were guys fully in uniform. There were guys who were already starting to change their clothes or already in their street clothes. I heard some cat call, whoops and hollers. I heard, I remember way in the distance, way in the back. There was somebody yelling out. We don't come in the women's bathroom. What are you doing here? But nothing was going to stop me. This is the career of my dreams. Are you kidding me? A couple guys I'll never see again are going to deter me like you. You've certainly run into some of this.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Moving back even to the summer of 80 when I was an intern in between my undergrad and master's year. And I met the Miami Herald and they want me to do a feature on a story on the Minnesota Vikings who are playing the Dolphins in a preseason game at the Old Orange Bowl. And so if you're going to report on the team, you have to interview the players. And that makes sense. And the Vikings had never had a woman in their locker room before. And I had never been in a men's locker room. So the Miami Herald Sports Editor Paul Anger pulls me aside and says, hey, we're going to send you in there. We're talking to the Vikings. We're making sure this is okay. And again, this is just paving the way for obviously my future and being able to handle this at age 22. And so I give a lot of credit to the Herald and all the leadership there. So they do all that. I call back to Toledo from Miami and get mom and dad on the phone. Dad, do you have any advice for me? And he said, honey, keep eye contact at all times. And so that's my story I'm sticking with it. What do I see the whites of their eyes?”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Well, it was. And again, so now I graduate undergrad 80, master's 81. So I come out and I start my career at the Miami Herald out of college in April of 81. Absolutely, it was still catches, catch can, very piecemeal about what teams, pro teams would allow a woman in the locker room, what teams would not.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At the Cholito Black deal. And so that was a great internship. So I got that. And then there was really, I felt like I was home. So there was never no looking back. Did you run?”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pulitzer Prize winners. So I keep wandering back, chatting with them. I start playing tennis with some of them. And then one of the top editors said, hey, you want to come and work in sports next summer. I said, I'd love to.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, I guess that's. Thank you. Thank you for letting me. Yes, I really like it. And so anyway, so undergrad masters, and I had internships. And for the first couple of internships I had, they were city desks, so writing opits and probably stuff like you did, you know, where you kind of cover the county fair and you do all this stuff in Toledo.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's a great question. So I go to Northwestern, early decision and master's. I figured best journalism school of the country go there. I'm very biased. I'm very involved there now, full disclosure. I'm on the board of trustees and I bleed purple.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I had turned out as I think back on this, of course, I spend a lot of time, it's all men. And so I never had any female role models to look up to it.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Journalism in high school. I was the co editor of the high school paper in the suburb of Toledo. And I actually, interestingly, and this is, I think, a powerful message about role models or lack thereof. What I've described, I'm keeping score by the way of games on the radio. My dad goes by. He thinks I'm doing my homework one day as I'm sitting on a couch and I'm keeping score of a baseball game, a minor league Toledo Mud Hens game off the radio, a 10-year-old girl. I dare say not only are no 10-year-old girls doing that in America. I dare say no boys are doing that. So here I am is in burst in sports is probably anyone and certainly any girl. And yet I never thought I would be a sports journalist.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm throwing my heart and soul into a team and it rewards me, Kara, with victory after victory. Are you kidding? Of course I'm going to be a sports journalist. This is so cool.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not kidding. On my mom's manual typewriter, and when my brother is four years younger, got old enough. I have a sister a year and a half younger and another younger sister, they joined me too to kind of type up these notes and do the pregame and get ready for this game. And then we'd all gather around and watch this like it's like, you know, like the Wizard of Oz on TV or so. It was that extraordinary. And then we had season tickets, University of Toledo football, then Michigan, which Ann Arnor is only 45 minutes from Toledo. And we saw those great Michigan, Ohio State battles, Woody Hayes, Bosch. The golden days of the Big Ten and Michigan, Ohio State. So here I am, an 11-year-old girl going to these games that turn out to be the games of the century. I mean, to this day, people still talk about those games. And so there was that playing, watching, you know, just cheering my heart out for the Toledo rockets from 69 to 71. There'd have to be one geek out there listening who would know this, but they never lost a game, 35 in a host.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally. So I couldn't wait to play everything, and I was good enough at it. Their games were not, of course, there's no ESPN at that time, but we'd have the Detroit Tigers game on TV once a week. And I would literally type up like pregame notes.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, because generation earlier, as boys, they had had those opportunities where women and girls had not. Same with sports. I mean, now we're seeing, if you go by a field and you see a soccer game with either boys or girls playing, it's very likely one of the coaches could be a mom, could be one of the moms because she played soccer.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is before Title IX. Richard Nixon signed Title 9 in June of 72. This is before then. Kara, I had my own personal Title IX. I had my dad.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Throw like a girl now, we're teaching millions of girls to throw the ball properly, which means that's now a compliment to like a girl. But back in those days, it was not. And yet I never threw like a girl. It sure is. And let's, by the way, can everyone just agree stop it. Don't do that anymore among many other things. There's a lot of things. A lot of things. Don't do that anymore. But so playing sports, and here's my dad.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I couldn't wait. My dad, who had played college football for a year at Drake, my mom and dad were from the south side of Chicago, six feet, like 210 pounds. So, you know, a good athlete in his day, well, I couldn't wait till he got home from work. He started his own business. And so, you know, kind of had his own schedule a little bit. And he could come home and play catch with me. So it may well be that in the late 60s and early 70s that one of the very few girls who's playing catch with her dad in the United States maybe in the world turns out to be me right because most dads were saying to their daughters no, no, go play Patell. And I had dolls and I played with girls and had plenty of fun with that too. But I really wanted to play sports. So my dad taught me how to throw the ball properly. You know, I'm cocking my arm right foot behind me and fling it properly. So the term, you know, throw like a girl. By the way, I hate that's like fingers on a chalkboard because.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is amazing. Yes, that sounds. I'm a unicorn. That's it. There you go. So I'm loving sports and playing and wanting to play sports. And the boys want to play sports with me. And they're shoeing every other girl away. But for me, they want to, you know, they want me to play. I'm picked first when we do this very, by the way, this is before there's any organized sports for boys or girls. So just playing in the yard, playing in a field, you know, we all gathered someone's backyard and just make up a game and are playing it. And I'm 5'6", 7, whatever years old.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You are. 5 and 11 and a half or so. Well, we need a point guard for every power forward. I don't even know what that means. Oh, come on. You know what that means.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of sports as an escape, for me growing up in the suburbs of Toledo, Ohio in the 60s and 70s, you know, this is a time the girls were not encouraged to love or play sports. And I'm the oldest of four kids, so I didn't have older brothers, but I just, I'm tall”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, this is the 80s. Yeah, mid 80s. Mike Wilbon, my college classmate. Yeah, exactly. It used to be the escape, and now a sports section really is much more a mirror of our society. Absolutely, 100%.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know. I mean, we were trying to figure out how many years. Maybe it should have been. Decades ago Yes, I do. Yeah, I will never forget you were a real, not a mentor, but you were like one of these iconic people because you covered the Redskins. And no women when one was doing, which was insane when you think about it. Well, this is the 80s. Yeah, mid-80s. Yeah. So let's go back a little bit in your background because, you know, you're one of the most prominent sports journalists and there's a lot of prominent. I mean, Tony was Tony Kornheiser was there. There was a whole gang of you there. Sally Jenkins, a whole bunch. Mike Wilbon, my college classmate. Yeah, exactly. So talk a little bit about your background, how you got to that job and what you've been doing since we get a sense of what you're doing. And then we're going to get into all kinds of topics around the Olympics, around sports, around sexual harassment, Russia, doping. Yes, everything. Type of line, everything. There's so much to talk about.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great to see you again. I mean, we were trying to figure out how many years. Maybe it should have been how many decades ago. But I see you all the time and you probably see me. Yes, I do. Aren't we lucky to kind of do exactly what we love and have that be our jobs even though I put that? Yeah.”
2017-12-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sports columnist Christine Brennan previews her 18th consecutive Olympics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT