It had been a long time since a woman did play-by-play on a regular-season NFL game before Beth Mowins handled the role on Sunday’s Jaguars-Vikings contest that went to overtime.
In fact, the first woman to handle the play-by-play actually happened in 1987, some 33 years earlier.
Gayle Sierens did play-by-play for an NFL regular season football game when she called the Dec. 27 game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Kansas City Chiefs for NBC.
Sierens was going to have more opportunities but a contract dispute with WFLA prevented her from continuing in that role beyond her lone game. Having received good reviews, then-NBC Sports executive producer Mike Weisman offered Sierens six more games for the following season. But Sierens’ local NBC station did not want her to call more games and miss work. So Sierens never called another NFL game
Mowins was inspired by Sierens.
You can see Sierens on “NFL Live” in 1988 below and hear a clip of her play-by-play during the interview with Len Berman. It starts at 8:45.
Sierens’career started when she joined the Tampa NBC affiliate in 1977 as a weekend sports anchor and reporter after working with WFSU in Tallahassee while she was attending Florida State University. Sierens became the first female sportscaster in the Bay Area.