With dad’s help, shattering sportswriting stereotypes

SHE was born in 1958 to a staunch Republican father, a man who loved sports and loved her -- and made sure the two melded.

In this simple image lies a complex, funny, affectionate snapshot from USA Today columnist Christine Brennan about growing up a sports nut in the ‘50s and ‘60s -- and being female. And then making sports her life’s work.

Back then, sports was a world where women were not welcome. In some corners, it still is.

Back then, a girl was supposed to be ecstatic over a play set of china teacups, not a Mickey Mantle baseball card, as was the case with me. It was a time when a girl who could throw a hard slider only intimidated boys -- unless she was on their team.

In her memoir, “Best Seat in the House,” Brennan uses reminiscences about her father and her childhood to tie together otherwise disjointed chapters of her life in sports.

Brennan, who balances her weekly newspaper column with appearances on ESPN, National Public Radio and other radio and TV programs, has written loudly and clearly about such issues as Augusta National welcoming the greatest golfers for the Masters but not welcoming women through its snooty doors.

Remember Andy Rooney’s “60 Minutes” tirade in 2002 on female sideline reporters having no business commenting on football? It was Brennan who was on the airwaves debunking that quaint notion.

In this book, she reflects on her dad and his unwavering support as she talks about herself and her work:

* How she covered the University of Florida football team and later the Miami Dolphins for the Miami Herald and the barriers she faced being the only woman on the beat at a time when locker rooms were closed to women.

* How she covered the Redskins for the Washington Post and stood her ground with the likes of owner Jack Kent Cooke and coach Joe Gibbs.

* How she covered 12 Olympics, Summer and Winter, and how that was her greatest goal all along. Maybe. What is clear is that the Olympics brought Brennan even greater fame, mostly thanks to figure skater Tonya Harding and the 1994 attack by Harding’s ex-husband on skater Nancy Kerrigan.

Brennan recalls the first time she went into a men’s locker room -- Aug. 23, 1980. It was to interview the Vikings after a preseason game with the Dolphins, and she was the first woman ever to be in the Vikings’ locker room. Her problem was not the naked bodies. It was that there were no names above the lockers and players had taken off their jerseys so there were no numbers to go by.

“We don’t go in the women’s bathroom!” someone yelled. “Here for some cheap thrills?” screamed another. Her savior was Tom Hannon, the safety from Michigan State. “Who do you need?” he asked. A funny aside: She learned that night that with her 6-foot height and by perfectly positioning an 8-by-11-inch notebook (instead of the smaller reporter’s notebooks), she could interview a naked guy face to face and never have to see anything but the notebook as she wrote down his quotes.

Brennan held no trademark on these beats, but she has capitalized on her reporting abilities (she’s written three figure-skating books). Despite the obstacles thrown in her path by athletes and coaches, she knows how to work a story and get people to talk to her. It probably didn’t hurt that she is pretty (something I’m sure she would deny).

A graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., Brennan acknowledges she wasn’t the first female sports reporter and credits those who came before her, including one I work with, Helene Elliott, whose beats include the Olympics and the National Hockey League, for which she was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

However, be prepared. “Best Seat in the House” reads like Brennan’s columns, which gives the book a choppy feel at times.

Brennan does a good job, however, weaving things through the book that are close to her heart because they were close to her dad’s heart. Her hometown of Toledo, Ohio; the University of Toledo Rockets; the Toledo Mud Hens (the Triple A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers); and the University of Michigan.

Yet I can’t help wanting to know more about her dad, less about late nights in the press box and less about the fact that she’s still single.

What she does give the reader leads one to think Jim Brennan was perfect. Of course, maybe he was -- at least in sports and in her life.

Debbie Goffa is an assistant sports editor for The Times.