I never met her and I didn’t even know her personally, but I always liked Phyllis George.
Maybe it was because she was the first female sports personality I remember from “ the NFL Today” on CBS.
Or maybe because she was our First Lady of Kentucky for awhile while she was married to Kentucky Govenor John Y. Brown. That in itself made her one of us.
Or maybe because she considered herself a Dallas Cowboy fan because she grew up in Denton, Texas.
One thing was for sure, George was a pretty easy person to like. She was pretty, had a great personality and always gave you the impression that she was a little like the girl next door or your gal friend in high school who could always find a way to make you laugh when you weren’t feeling well or giving you the impression she was far from perfect herself.
Afterall, wasn’t she the 50th Miss America (1971) who dropped her crown during her victorious walk down the runway? She became the first past winner to become the organization’s board of directors. George was always like that.
Perhaps she best exemplified that when she was hired to be fourth wheel on “The NFL Today” along with Brent Musburger, Irv Cross and Jimmy The Greek. It wasn’t even revealed to her that the network may have went out on a limb hiring her because women in the sports booth was a new thing and although a few had tried it, none had seemed to make much of an impact. One of George’s first interview’s was with Joe Namath and she later detailed that it had several problems to begin with. Namath was late for the 15 minute piece and while they were recording the interview, there was a guy running a lawn mover outside so when the director went out to stop it, Namath told George he had to leave after the interview ran 5 minutes. George admitted she was in a panic. Her producer told her “If you got 5 minutes from Joe, then that’s probably better than 20 from anyone else.”
That was the beginning.
She had many other memorable pieces like her interview with Roger Staubach where she remarked about his calm lifestyle and Staubach shot back “You interviewed Joe Namath and asked him the same questions about how he was a bachelor and I was square and boring. I like sex as much as anyone else, but just with one woman. It’s still fun.” A year later, George interviewed Staubach along with rookie Tony Dorsett and he admitted that his wife was expecting another child soon and it may have happened that night a year ago after that interview.
George was an innovator. She did several interviews asking players like Conrad Dobler, an offensive lineman who had a nasty reputation on the field if he had any ideas and he suggested one where he was doing the interview in jail behind bars. Later, Dobler appeared during the end of the interview as a man awaiting sentence by a judge. Guess who played the judge?
George also did an interview with Washington Redskin coach George Allen which had them jogging together for a lap and at the last second, someone said “Beat him Phyllis” and she eventually took Allen by a couple of lengths. Allen, the ultimate competitor was not happy.
Some believe that she doesn’t get the credit she deserves for opening the boardcasting door for future females to take their lead.
Afterwards, she married KFC owner politician John Y Brown and when he was elected as the Governor of Kentucky, she became our First Lady. Imagine that. She had two children during that marriage. She also founded the Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation and enticed department stores like Bloomingdales to carry Kentucky crafts.
Long after Brown left after serving as Governor, she co-anchored the “CBS Morning News” and founded Chicken By George which sold to Hormel Foods.
After she divorced Brown after 1998, she went on to establish a beauty line marketed by HSN and she wrote “Never Say Never.”
George discovered when she was 30 that she suffered from a rare blood disorder that would trouble her much later in life.
She wouldn’t go down without a fight, but the woman that attended North Texas State and was once trained as a classical pianist died on May 16th at the age of 70.
One thing she always said was that “I am from Denton Texas, and I will never let you or anybody else forget that. I am a small town girl from a small town and a small town family. If I hadn’t come from Denton, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now with this great job and my great husband and my beautiful children.”” Life is what you make of it. If you snooze, you lose: If you snore you lose more.”
So the next time you see those young women in front of a camera talking sports, doing play-by-play or just being a color analyst on Saturday’s, Sunday’s or Monday night’s, think about Phyllis George for a moment.
Because without her to help pave the way, they might still be there, but she was proof that it could happen a whole lot quicker.
She once said that being “Miss America” helped springboard everything that would happen to her later on in life.
At least she isn’t remembered for dropping her crown.
