By Tom Orsborn, Staff writer | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2025-07-18 17:06:52
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
伊莱恩·诺尔 (Elaine Noll) 被认为是圣安东尼奥历史上第一位女性体育记者。她于1976年加入《圣安东尼奥新闻报》，后又在《圣安东尼奥快报-新闻报》工作，直至1985年因脑癌去世。
1975年，芝加哥一家报社一位知名员工发出的直言不讳的警告，并未能阻止20岁的伊莱恩·诺尔 (Elaine Noll)——一名新闻专业学生——追求她成为体育记者的梦想。
她的兄弟史蒂夫·诺尔 (Steve Noll) 回忆说：“他直截了当地告诉她，‘我们绝不会雇佣一名女体育记者。’”
然而，诺尔毫不气馁。她手持西北大学的学位，并曾在佐治亚州梅肯市的一家报社实习。1976年6月，她接受了《圣安东尼奥新闻报》体育版编辑大卫·圣玛丽 (David St. Mary) 的邀请，成为得克萨斯州一家主要日报社的首批女性体育记者之一。她也被认为是第一个打破圣安东尼奥性别壁垒的人。
“我认为她并非有意成为第一个吃螃蟹的人，也无意成为一名改革者，”她的兄弟史蒂夫·诺尔说，“她只是把这当成一份工作，并想把工作做好。”
无论她的动机如何，诺尔在《新闻报》以及后来的《圣安东尼奥快报-新闻报》（《快报》和《新闻报》于1984年合并）那段低调而坚定的开拓性职业生涯，为其他女性进入这个至今仍由男性主导的行业铺平了道路。
在《新闻报》录用诺尔近一年后，《圣安东尼奥光报》聘请了1977年三一大学的毕业生贝琪·格哈特·帕斯利 (Betsy Gerhardt Pasley)。
“我们胜任这份工作，我们掌握了技能，我们充满信心地投入工作，”格哈特·帕斯利在谈及她和诺尔如何在全男性的环境中开展工作时说道。
上周日是诺尔去世四十周年纪念日。1985年，她在与脑癌抗争四年后去世，年仅30岁。
诺尔的去世给《快报-新闻报》蒙上了一层阴影。在她近十年的职业生涯中，她因坚定不移地履行职责，同时克服了当时在新闻编辑室和运动队中常见的性别歧视态度和行为，而成为报社最受尊敬的员工之一。
《快报-新闻报》都市专栏作家罗迪·斯廷森 (Roddy Stinson) 在诺尔去世后撰写的一篇悼文中写道：“九年前伊莱恩加入《快报-新闻报》时，女性体育记者在全国范围内仍属罕见，而在‘老男孩俱乐部’式的美国西南部更是闻所未闻。”
“体育新闻业被认为对‘柔弱的性别’来说太过艰巨、太过苛刻、太过具有挑战性。职业风险包括全天候出差、通宵比赛以及（天哪！）全男性更衣室。
“伊莱恩从未退缩。她的热情在于体育，她的天赋在于写作。没有任何障碍能长期阻碍她将两者结合。”
诺尔在辛辛那提附近的北大学山小镇长大，她对新闻业的兴趣很小的时候就已萌芽，远早于她成为北大学山高中学生报纸编辑之时。
“她还是个小女孩的时候，就让我们给她生日买一台迷你印刷机，”她的母亲露丝·诺尔 (Ruth Noll) 在《快报-新闻报》刊登的她女儿的讣告中说道。
伊莱恩·诺尔 (Elaine Noll) 在20世纪70年代的一场圣安东尼奥道奇队比赛中计分。这支小联盟棒球队是她1976年被《圣安东尼奥新闻报》录用后最早负责的采访领域之一。《圣安东尼奥光报》的一位竞争对手回忆说，道奇队球员都很乐意和她交谈，因为她对这项运动非常了解。
“她总是玩那台印刷机。她会告诉所有人，总有一天她会为报社工作。这真的是她一直以来最想做的事情。她为自己是一名记者而感到非常自豪。”
诺尔从小就是辛辛那提红人队的球迷，为皮特·罗斯 (Pete Rose)、弗兰克·罗宾逊 (Frank Robinson) 和瓦达·平森 (Vada Pinson) 呐喊助威，因此能撰写体育报道也让她倍感兴奋。
“那时不像现在，球赛并不都是在电视上播放，所以我们会在父母的门廊上，用晶体管收音机听比赛，”73岁的退休律师史蒂夫·诺尔说，“她高中时没参加体育运动，但她一直关注辛辛那提的球队。”
诺尔对棒球的热爱，在她最初负责的采访领域之一——V.J.基夫球场报道小联盟圣安东尼奥道奇队时，就让其他记者显而易见。
“她对比赛的细微之处有非常扎实的理解，”杰里·布里格斯 (Jerry Briggs) 说，他曾供职于《光报》，后来又在《快报-新闻报》工作。“棒球是我的强项，但我对它的了解远不及她。她的棒球报道写得真好。”
那个时代的棒球运动员以粗鲁著称，但布里格斯回忆不起诺尔遇到过任何麻烦。
“他们都喜欢和她交谈，”他说。
但在其他采访领域情况则有所不同，尤其是在诺尔开始报道职业大联盟体育赛事之后。
从一开始，她就很好地融入了报社的体育部门，这个部门大约有40名工作人员，其中包括少数非裔和拉丁裔记者。
“伊莱恩是一个安静的人，有冷幽默感，”《快报-新闻报》前体育记者大卫·弗洛雷斯 (David Flores) 说。“她非常低调但能力很强。她懂体育，是团队的一员。虽然都是男性，但没有人抵触一位女性加入这个部门。她有一种沉静的尊严。我们都支持她。”
诺尔身高约5英尺（约1.52米），很快就有了个昵称：“大E”（Big E）。
“我们没有把伊莱恩当作一位女性体育记者对待，”《快报-新闻报》前体育编辑巴里·罗宾逊 (Barry Robinson) 说，“她就是团队的一员。”
而且，尽管她性格内敛，却是一位非常优秀的成员。
“她按照自己的方式做事，但即使她是一个激进分子，善于表达，也没什么不妥，”弗洛雷斯说，“但她只是通过出色地完成工作来做到这一切。”
在诺尔去世后发表的一篇文章中，《快报-新闻报》体育专栏作家凯文·奥基夫 (Kevin O’Keeffe) 写道：“伊莱恩从不抱怨许多女性体育记者所遭受的往往不那么公平的待遇。她不抱怨，因为她从未将自己视为一名女性体育记者。‘大E’仅仅是一名体育记者，碰巧是女性而已。”
在报道本地新闻几年后，诺尔获得晋升，开始撰写有关马刺队和达拉斯牛仔队的报道。保罗·希尔 (Paul Hill) 在圣玛丽加入《波士顿先驱报》后接替其成为《新闻报》的编辑，他通过给她一个每周专栏进一步提升了她的知名度。
“她是一位优秀而扎实的作家，几乎不需要编辑，也从不畏惧进入更衣室，”希尔说，“她不善交际，但她是一名扎实的记者，一名能提出好问题的优秀报道员。”
诺尔的晋升带来了新的挑战。报社图书管理员、诺尔在圣安东尼奥最好的朋友朱迪·齐普 (Judy Zipp) 说，诺尔告诉她，有些运动员在洗完澡出来时，在她试图采访他们时会故意放下毛巾。
“伊莱恩个子很矮，只到他们的腰部，”齐普说，“他们会试图让她难堪。这太糟糕了。”
前马刺队媒体关系总监韦恩·维特 (Wayne Witt) 回忆不起在赫米斯费尔球馆发生过任何与诺尔有关的事件。他说球队不反对她进入更衣室。
“她为人非常和蔼可亲，”维特说，“我们从未考虑过她是女性。她只是一个正在履行职责的记者。”
伊莱恩·诺尔 (Elaine Noll) 作为得克萨斯州首批女性体育记者之一，打破了性别壁垒。图中显示她在赫米斯费尔球馆一场比赛后采访马刺队前锋科比·迪特里克 (Coby Dietrick)。诺尔于1976年加入《圣安东尼奥新闻报》和《圣安东尼奥快报-新闻报》，直至1985年因脑癌去世。
前马刺队前锋科比·迪特里克同意这一说法。
“她在做她的工作，我们在做我们的工作，”他说。
但报道牛仔队时情况则不同。起初，她在德州体育场更衣室工作并没有问题。但最终，队里有人反对她的出现。
“这让我想起我曾看过的一部喜剧，突然有人喊‘家里有老鼠！’，然后所有人开始往椅子上跳，”罗宾逊说，“这就像是‘这里有个女人！’，然后所有人都发狂了。”
罗宾逊立即与牛仔队高管进行了会谈，包括著名的总经理特克斯·施拉姆 (Tex Schramm) 和媒体关系总监道格·托德 (Doug Todd)，讨论了诺尔的问题。诺尔坚持要求获得与男同事相同的采访权。
罗宾逊告诉牛仔队，他的立场很简单：诺尔和男性记者应该享有平等的地位。
“接下来的事就看你的了，”罗宾逊告诉托德，“但如果我们要进入更衣室，而且那是采访的唯一途径，那么她也必须进入更衣室。”
最终，在牛仔队承诺在赛后将教练和球员带到“采访室”后，双方达成了妥协。牛仔队最终允许女性记者进入更衣室，同时也保留了采访室。
“总的来说，伊莱恩受到了职业运动员相当好的对待，但总有一些例外，”罗宾逊说。
20世纪70年代中期，得克萨斯州又涌现出几位女性体育记者，包括梅兰妮·豪泽 (Melanie Hauser)，她于1975年开始在《奥斯汀美国州人报》工作，后来在《休斯顿邮报》工作，之后成为一名自由撰稿人和作家。
“你每天都得去证明自己，因为总有人在看着，想知道你是否适合那份工作，”豪泽说。
和诺尔一样，豪泽有时在更衣室里也面临困难。
“我至今仍记得走进牛仔队更衣室时，有人尖叫道：‘更衣室里有个女人！’”豪泽说，“他们喊了大概五次。我转过身说：‘我想他们知道了。’”
由于面临共同的挑战，女性体育记者之间有着密切的联系。
“我们会聚在一起，互相问‘你过得怎么样？’”豪泽说，“就是互相照应，确保我们没有遇到太多麻烦。”
诺尔通过走访高中新闻项目，让女生们知道她们可以追随她的脚步，为行业中增加更多女性尽了自己的一份力。尽管在激烈的报业竞争中，她们在竞争对手的报社工作，她还是在基夫球场与格哈特·帕斯利成为了朋友。
“我走进新闻发布室，试图弄清楚之后如何才能获得我需要的引语，”格哈特·帕斯利说，“我手里拿着计分册走进去，我旁边就是这位金发女士。我记得她甚至抢先说道：‘顺便说一句，如果你愿意，我可以带你进更衣室，把你介绍给大家。’”
“回想起来，我才意识到她为竞争对手所做的，是多么勇敢而富有同情心的事情。”
诺尔在报社获得了大量支持，她还是报社保龄球队的一员，在圣佩德罗球道参加比赛。正是在那里，出现了她1981年在家庭大峡谷度假期间首次被诊断出的脑癌复发的迹象。
“她掉了一个球，当我看向她时，她的眼睛交叉了，我就想，‘哦，不。’”齐普说。
在诺尔于大峡谷之旅期间在亚利桑那州弗拉格斯塔夫接受手术，并在辛辛那提接受放疗和化疗后病情得到缓解，这次复发令人震惊。
“她坚决要恢复她在《快报-新闻报》的工作，”史蒂夫·诺尔说，“她当时光头了，但她戴了假发，并在1982年初回到了《快报-新闻报》。”
1985年，诺尔前往旧金山接受了近两个月的治疗，之后在那里的一家医院去世。《快报-新闻报》的同事们把她的一张照片挂在体育部门的墙上，这张照片挂了好几年。
“这令人心碎，”弗洛雷斯说。
多年来，关于20世纪70年代的先驱女性体育记者，已经制作了许多纪录片和报道，其中包括《体育画报》记者梅丽莎·路德克 (Melissa Ludtke)。她赢得了一场法律诉讼，结果是洋基体育场被迫向女性开放更衣室，因为在此之前，1977年世界大赛期间禁止她入内被裁定侵犯了她根据美国宪法第十四修正案享有的平等保护和正当程序权利。
但这些历史中从未提及诺尔。
“我认为她从未获得她应得的关注，”罗宾逊说，“很大程度上是因为她身处得克萨斯州圣安东尼奥这个沉寂的小城市，报道的是那支来自美国篮球协会（ABA）的‘乡下’篮球队。很多人都不把圣安东尼奥当回事。”
在芝加哥的家中，史蒂夫·诺尔珍藏着他妹妹写的几乎所有专栏文章。
“她把这些寄给了我的父母，他们都保存了下来，”他说。
他认为这些收藏是她坚持不懈的证明。
“她当然不会轻易接受拒绝，”他说。
在给诺尔的悼词中，斯廷森这样写道：“她从不粗鲁、从不咄咄逼人、从不自负，只有坚持不懈。偶尔会有一些障碍——愤怒的球员、固执的管理层、大男子主义的同事——但最终，她总是能赢得胜利。而且，无论她是否知道（我怀疑她知道），这些胜利的影响都远超更衣室的围墙。”
Barry Robinson, former San Antonio Express-News sports editor, battled with the Dallas Cowboys after they kicked Elaine Noll out of their locker room. Robinson insisted that Noll receive the same access as male reporters.
Elaine Noll interviews San Antonio Spurs forward Coby Dietrick. After cutting her teeth as a sportswriter covering local beats, Noll was promoted to covering the Spurs and the Dallas Cowboys.
点击查看原文：How Elaine Noll blazed a trail for women sportswriters
How Elaine Noll blazed a trail for women sportswriters
Elaine Noll is believed to be the first woman sportswriter in San Antonio history. She worked at the San Antonio News and later the San Antonio Express-News from 1976 until she died in 1985 from brain cancer.
A blunt warning in 1975 from a prominent staffer at a Chicago newspaper didn’t stop 20-year-old journalism major Elaine Noll from pursuing her dream of becoming a sportswriter.
“He flat out told her, ‘We will never hire a female sportswriter,’ " her brother, Steve Noll, said.
Undeterred and armed with a degree from Northwestern following an internship at a newspaper in Macon, Ga., Noll accepted an offer from San Antonio News sports editor David St. Mary in June 1976 to become one of the first female sportswriters at a major Texas daily. She is also believed to be the first to break San Antonio’s gender barrier.
“I don’t think she went about it intentionally wanting to be a first or a crusader,” her brother said. “It was a job and she wanted to do her job well.”
Regardless of her motivation, Noll’s quiet-but-determined trailblazing career at the News and later the San Antonio Express-News - the Express and News merged in 1984 - helped pave the way for other women to enter what remains a male-dominated profession.
Nearly a year after the News welcomed Noll, the San Antonio Light hired 1977 Trinity University graduate Betsy Gerhardt Pasley.
“We were up to the job, we had the skills and we went in with confidence,” Gerhardt Pasley said of how she and Noll approached doing their work in all-male environments.
Sunday marked the 40th anniversary of Noll’s death. She was 30 when she died in 1985 after a four-year battle with brain cancer.
Noll’s death cast a pall over the Express-News. During her nearly decade-long run, she became one of its most respected employees for how she steadfastly did her job while overcoming sexist attitudes and behaviors often commonplace in newsrooms and among sports teams at the time.
“When Elaine came to the Express-News nine years ago, women sportswriters were still a rarity in the nation and almost unheard of in the good-ol’-boy Southwest,” Express-News Metro columnist Roddy Stinson wrote in a tribute to Noll after her death.
"Sports journalism was considered too tough, too mean, too demanding for the gentle sex. Occupational hazards included all-day travel, all-night games and (gasp) all-male locker rooms.
“Elaine never blinked. Her passion was sports. Her talent was writing. And no barrier to combining the two stood in her way long.”
Growing up in the small town of North College Hill near Cincinnati, Noll’s interest in journalism began at a young age, long before she became editor of North College Hill High’s student newspaper.
“When she was just a little girl, she made us buy one of those miniature printing presses for her birthday,” her mother, Ruth Noll, said in her daughter’s Express-News obituary.
Elaine Noll keeps score at a San Antonio Dodgers game in the 1970s. The minor league baseball team was one of her first beats after the San Antonio News hired her in 1976. One of her competitors at the San Antonio Light recalled how Dodgers players enjoyed talking to her because of her knowledge of the sport.
“She would play with the printing press all the time. She’d tell everyone that one day she was going to work for a newspaper. It really is all she ever wanted to do. She was very proud to be a journalist.”
Growing up as a Cincinnati Reds fan rooting for Pete Rose, Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson, Noll was also thrilled to be writing about sports.
“The ball games weren’t all on TV like now, so we’d sit on our parents’ front porch and listen to them on a transistor radio,” said Steve Noll, a 73-year-old retired attorney. “She didn’t play sports in high school, but she always followed Cincinnati teams.”
Noll’s love of baseball was apparent to other reporters covering the minor league San Antonio Dodgers at V.J. Keefe Field, one of her first beats.
“She had a really solid grasp of the game’s nuances,” said Jerry Briggs, who worked at the Light and later the Express-News. “Baseball was my sport, but I really didn’t know half as much about it as she did. Her baseball writing was really good.”
Ball players from that era had a reputation for being crude, but Briggs couldn’t recall Noll experiencing any trouble.
“They all enjoyed talking to her,” he said.
It was different on other beats, especially after Noll started covering major league sports.
From the start, she fit in well at the paper on a combined sports staff of about 40 that included a handful of Black and Hispanic reporters.
“Elaine was a quiet person who had a dry sense of humor,” former Express-News sportswriter David Flores said. “She was very understated but very capable. She knew her sports and was part of the team. It was all guys, but nobody resisted a woman coming into the department. She had a quiet dignity about her. We supported her.”
Noll, who stood about 5 foot, soon picked up a nickname: Big E.
“We didn’t treat Elaine as a woman sportswriter,” former Express-News sports editor Barry Robinson said. “She was just part of the staff.”
And, despite her reserved nature, a darn good member.
“She did it her way, but there wouldn’t have been anything wrong if she would have been a firebrand, been vocal,” Flores said. “But she did it by just doing a hell of a job.”
In a piece published after Noll’s death, Express-News sports columnist Kevin O’Keeffe wrote, “Elaine never grumbled about the often less-than-fair treatment accorded many female sportswriters. She didn’t complain because she never thought of herself as a female sportswriter. ‘Big E’ was simply a sportswriter, who happened to be female.”
After covering local beats for several years, Noll received a promotion to write about the Spurs and the Dallas Cowboys. Paul Hill, who had succeeded St. Mary as editor of the News after St. Mary joined the Boston Herald, boosted her profile even more by giving her a weekly column.
“She was a good, solid writer who required very little editing and was not intimidated by having to go into the locker rooms,” Hill said. “She wasn’t real outgoing, but she was a solid journalist, a solid reporter who asked good questions.”
Noll’s promotion came with new challenges. Judy Zipp, the paper’s librarian and Noll’s best friend in San Antonio, said Noll told her some athletes coming out of the showers would drop their towels as she attempted to interview them.
“Elaine was so short, she would come up to their waists,” Zipp said. “They would try to embarrass her. It was awful.”
Former Spurs media relations director Wayne Witt couldn’t recall any incidents involving Noll at HemisFair Arena. He said the team had no objection to her being in the locker room.
“She was very pleasant to be around,” Witt said. “We never gave it any thought she was female. She was just a reporter doing her job.”
Elaine Noll broke gender barriers as one of the first female sportswriters in Texas. Shown here interviewing Spurs forward Coby Dietrick after a game at HemisFair Arena, Noll worked at the San Antonio News and the San Antonio Express-News from 1976 until her death in 1985 from brain cancer.
Former Spurs forward Coby Dietrick agreed.
“She was doing her job and we were doing ours,” he said.
But it was different covering the Cowboys. At first, she had no problem working the locker room at Texas Stadium. But eventually somebody on the team objected to her presence.
“It reminded me of a comedy I once saw where all of a sudden somebody says, ‘There’s a mouse in the house,’ and everybody starts jumping up on chairs,” Robinson said. “It was like, ‘There’s a woman in here,’ and everybody went berserk.”
Robinson immediately had talks with Cowboys executives, including famed general manager Tex Schramm and media relations director Doug Todd, about Noll, who was adamant about wanting the same access as her male counterparts.
Robinson told the Cowboys his position was simple: Noll and the men should be on equal footing.
“You take it from there,” Robinson told Todd. “But if we’re going to go into the locker room, and that’s the only way to interview people, she has to go into the locker room.”
A compromise was eventually reached after the Cowboys promised to bring coaches and players to an “interview room” after games. The Cowboys eventually allowed female reporters into the locker room while also keeping the interview room.
“By and large, Elaine was treated pretty good by the pro athletes, but there were always some exceptions,” Robinson said.
Several other female sportswriters emerged in Texas in the mid-1970s, including Melanie Hauser, who started at the Austin American-Statesman in 1975 and later worked at the Houston Post before becoming a free-lance writer and author.
“Every day you had to go prove yourself because somebody was looking to see if you were the right person to fit that job,” Hauser said.
Like Noll, Hauser sometimes faced difficulties inside locker rooms.
"I still remember walking into the Cowboys locker room and somebody was screaming, ‘There’s a woman in the locker room,’ " Hauser said. "They said it about five times. I turned around and said, ‘I think they know.’ "
Because of their shared challenges, women sportswriters had a close bond.
"We’d get together and go, ‘How you doing?’ " Hauser said. “Just checking on each other to make sure we weren’t having too many problems.”
Noll did her part to add more women in the profession by visiting high school journalism programs to let girls know they could follow in her footsteps. She also befriended Gerhardt Pasley at Keefe Field even though they worked at rival papers during a fierce newspaper war.
“Here I am going to the press box trying to figure out how I am going to get the quotes I need afterward,” Gerhardt Pasley said. "I walk in with my scorebook in hand and next to me is this blond woman. I think she even preemptively said, ‘By the way, if you want, I can take you into the locker room and introduce you around.’
“Looking back, I realize what a courageous and compassionate thing it was to do for your competitor.”
Noll received plenty of support at the paper, where she belonged to a bowling team that competed at San Pedro Lanes. It was there signs emerged that the brain cancer she had originally been diagnosed with during a family vacation to the Grand Canyon in 1981 had returned.
"She dropped a ball, and when I looked at her, her eyes were crossed, and I was like, ‘Oh, no,’ " Zipp said.
The relapse was a shock after Noll had been in remission following an operation in Flagstaff, Ariz., during the Grand Canyon trip and radiation and chemotherapy in Cincinnati.
“She was adamant about wanting to resume her career at the Express-News,” Steve Noll said. “She was bald, but she got a wig and was back at the Express-News by early 1982.”
In 1985, Noll went to San Francisco for nearly two months of treatment before she died at a hospital there. Her colleagues at the Express-News hung a photo of her on a wall in the sports department that remained up for years.
“It was heartbreaking,” Flores said.
Documentaries and stories have been produced through the years about pioneering women sportswriters of the 1970s, including Melissa Ludtke, the Sports Illustrated reporter who won a legal battle resulting in Yankee Stadium being forced to open its locker room to women after it was determined banning her during the 1977 World Series violated her 14th Amendment rights to equal protection and due process.
Those histories never mentioned Noll.
“I don’t think she’s ever received the attention she deserved,” Robinson said. “A lot of it was because she was in sleepy, little San Antonio, Texas, covering that Podunk basketball team that came from the ABA. A lot of people didn’t take San Antonio seriously.”
At his home in Chicago, Steve Noll has almost every column his sister wrote.
“She sent them to my parents, and they saved them,” he said.
He views the collection as a testament to her persistence.
“She certainly didn’t take no for an answer,” he said.
In his tribute to Noll, Stinson put it this way: “She was never rude, never abrasive, never cocky. Just persistent. There were occasional roadblocks – angry players, stubborn management, chauvinistic colleagues – but in the end, she always won. And whether she knew it or not (I suspect she did), the victories rippled farther than the locker room walls.”
By Tom Orsborn, Staff writer, via San Antonio Express-News