Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Doris Burke - Page 2

Please don't misunderstand, I actually enjoyed the hecticness and the opportunity to cover women's college basketball. But the reality is as a young broadcaster the vast majority of my games came in men's college basketball and my viewership as a fan came in men's college basketball because that was what was available to me.

What's fascinating to me is the NBA has become a 365-day-a-year sport with near 24/7 coverage. And it has become that because the appetite of the fan dictates that.

Most people enter my business thinking of being on-air or a director. I started because I wanted to start a family.

What makes great rivalries is when individual or team matchups occur, something's got to be on the line, and usually that's a championship.

I love the game of basketball, and it has shaped my life since I was seven years old. But as a broadcaster it took me a good 10 to 15 years to relax and allow myself to enjoy the job.

I've had a couple along the way, including an NBA official, who admitted to a little bit of skepticism when they first saw and heard me on the game.

I was scared to death to speak in public.

If you're anything less than who you are and you're not authentic, people pick up on it.

Had I considered over the course of time the moments where maybe I was the first woman to do this or that, it would have scared the absolute daylights out of me.

I had an opportunity to go overseas and play professionally, but in the final game of my senior season, I blew my knee out.

I certainly don't think we're past the point in history where a woman's physical appearance may play some part in job availability or job acquisition.

I feel like I lived my life in one of three places: at Indian Hill Park, at a Manasquan school or at the beach.

I definitely want to be a doting grandmother. I love babies. My colleagues will tell you if I'm in an arena and there's a baby in my vicinity I'm holding that baby.

For me to even think about attending a college or university would have been a real financial hardship. It would not have happened. That basketball scholarship changed my life.

There's a reason Craig Sager is beloved, and it's the beauty and the magic of what Craig Sager does.

When I started women's college basketball coverage, it was exploding. I happened into a men's college basketball game because of a mistake, someone not showing up. So I've sort of been the beneficiary of good timing.

I used to nitpick Maya Moore for not getting to the free-throw line more.

I had no background in communications but what I did have was an excellent education from Providence College and a love of basketball. That afforded me the chance to be good on my feet and stay afloat while I learned the media business.

It's always been helpful in my experience to just converse with the person in front of me.

There's not an athlete in the world who doesn't deal with the same issues you and I have: frustrations with our family, dealing with tragedy or loss, or happiness and a child's birth.

There's not a working woman out there, regardless of her profession, who doesn't struggle with that work-life balance.

I'm not having plastic surgery.

The one thing I would say is, I do think women are evaluated differently than men. How we look, what is our age? Do you see a ton of 55-year-old women in sports television? No. But there are men in their 60s and 70s across many networks who are still in sports television.

Dick Vitale always used to say to me, 'Remember, this is an entertainment medium.' People are not tuning in to a game to know how smart you are about basketball; they wanna enjoy it. And it took Dick years of saying that for me to settle in and say, 'It's also okay for me to have a little fun on the air.'

There's a saying in basketball: Game recognize game.

On TV, only a handful of people can move the meter so to speak - only a handful of personalities can move ratings. LeBron seems to single-handedly affect those ratings.

You're going to feel every bit of Stan Van Gundy's frustration if his team had a tough quarter.

Providence College was the perfect place for me. It changed my life.

The WNBA changed the equation for a young female broadcaster who wanted nothing more than to remain close to the game, and call basketball games.

You try to ask the best questions possible, but you don't necessarily control the outcome.

I'm thrilled that ESPN has been the leader in trying to find opportunities for women in visible and non-traditional roles.

Because of the standing in society, because women's basketball does not draw the interest that major professional sports leagues or men's college basketball draw, Geno Auriemma is never going to be recited by the sports fan at-large as the greatest coach in history.

I wasn't the first woman to try to make it in the world of sport, right? There were so many that came before me.

When I watch Ernie Johnson do the celebration at the conference championships, I marvel at how smooth he is. The guy is just the consummate pro.

I do like being right. Ask my ex-husband.

The NBA, and more importantly, the entire sport of basketball, has always been an inclusive environment.

For men's college coaches through to the NBA, I think basketball people are basketball people. When you start talking the game, gender has gone out the window, and they just talk basketball with you.

There will always be a certain segment of the population who turns on an NBA game or turns on a college game and hears my voice and objects to my presence. I've conceded that. I can't please everybody. I don't even try.'

The first time I did a men's game, it was strictly because of an emergency. I went down with no preparation, but I was a fan and knew the teams. And I knocked them dead, so the next year, I had a package of men's games.

I'm not naive to the fact that my gender has at times helped me. Employers are now thinking, 'Let's get perspectives that are different than the ones we have.'