In Conversation with Lesley Visser

Jessica Mendoza is one of those people who make you want to, as Vin Scully says, "pull up a chair." Throw out a topic, and she's there. Olympic softball? Mendoza won a Gold medal in 2004 in Athens, then watched while the sport was jerked in and out of the Games for more than a decade. Softball won't be included in Paris in 2024, but Mendoza will be tenacious about it being added to the Games in LA in 2028. From her roots as a 4-year-old dragging a bat around the backyard, Mendoza's been a captivating pioneer. A beneficiary of Title IX, she squeezed every opportunity out of the landmark legislation - a scholarship to Stanford (plus a Masters), the US National Team, network television (including calling Jake Arrieta's no-hitter on Sunday Night Baseball), and most recently, the Women's College World Series, aka the Oklahoma Invitational. All this, plus why, as a child of the Dodgers, Brett Butler was her idol. More, please!

As an attorney, Val Ackerman can usually see both sides. But not on this topic. With bona fides that include an early Title IX basketball scholarship to Virginia, a law degree from UCLA, being tapped by David Stern in 1996 to help design the WNBA, sitting with Pres. George Bush at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 as the first female President of USA Basketball, and thoughts born of her current position as the Commissioner of the Big East, Val Ackerman is certain of one thing. The men and women should play the Final Four in the same city at the same time. She tells us why, along with theories about NIL and how the Big East offers value beyond money. Val Ackerman is fearless - she grew up minutes from where Washington crossed the Delaware. And one of them is in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

There was a time that the USWNT won a World Cup and no one really knew about it. Iconic former midfielder Julie Foudy said she came home from the US win in China in 1991 and her professor at Stanford wanted to know why she’d missed class! Eight years later, the sport exploded when Foudy and Co. won the 1999 World Cup in Los Angeles. She tells Lesley the joy of now being part-owner of the glittering Angel City FC, about what Title IX meant to young athletes, and why the benchmark decree still needs to be protected. Never shy with her opinion, Foudy disagrees with Hope Solo’s charge of a “toxic culture” in the USWNT, and has some circumspect thoughts about the intersection of Title IX and transgender athletes.

Dominique Dawes once felt so controlled by her coach, Kelli Hill, that she said Hill terrified her into silence by threatening to send Dominique to "the Karolyi Ranch," the highly-regarded but fiercely intimidating program run by icons Martha and Bela Karolyi. It's a culture Dawes wants to change. As a 45-year-old mother of four, Dawes is speaking out about the "fear, shame and silence" of world-class gymnastics. Dawes, who competed in the Games in '92, '96 and 2000, said she may never "coach an Olympian" in her Dominique Dawes Gymnastics Academy, but she "wants to see joy and laughter back to our beautiful sport." She shares her thoughts on Simone Biles, Larry Nassar and getting her degree at the University of Maryland. As Helena said in Midsummer Night's Dream, "Though she be little, she is fierce."

She might be the greatest women’s basketball player of all time. Yes. If you’ve ever wondered how dominant Cheryl Miller was, consider this - she still holds six records at USC, the school that gave us giants like Cynthia Cooper and Lisa Leslie - and Miller left 36 years ago. Before a knee injury stopped her at only 22-years-old, she was the scoring/passing/rebounding/stealing/shot-blocking/joyous player that every coach or fan ever dreamed about. Her Hall of Fame brother Reggie was once asked, after a playoff game, who was the best defensive player he ever faced, and he answered, “besides my sister?” As old friends, Lesley and Cheryl talk about everything from coaching (she hated it) to the WNBA (she loves it) to the fate of Brittany Griner (some very strong words.)

Sports diplomacy is nothing new - back in 776 BC in ancient Greece, there was an "Olympic Truce" to ensure there'd be no battles or conflicts during the games. In the 2800 years since, we've seen all kinds of scenarios where sports and societies mix, often for a greater good. Sarah Talalay, a former sports business journalist in the United States, has been working as a Cultural Affairs Officer in US Embassies around the world. Her position often involves sports diplomacy, which she calls "one of the best ways to demonstrate soft power." Now in her fourth posting overseas, after Chennai, India; Vilnius, Lithuania; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and currently Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sarah has overseen such diverse programs as NBA and NFL watch parties in Vilnius with Lithuanian NBA Hall-of-Famer Sarunas Marciulionis, a baseball clinic with Barry Larkin, and bringing J.R. Reid to Malaysia. She talks candidly about everything young female athletes face in predominantly-Muslim Uzbekistan, about its increasingly progressive government, and the best food she's enjoyed in all her stops. The goal? - for all of us to be strangers no more.

The only person two-time Emmy award-winning, beloved actor Eric Stonestreet never got to meet was the late John Madden. They would have been great friends. In fact, Kansas City coach Andy Reid, a genuinely close friend of John's, told Stonestreet the same thing. They're the same kind of guys - all offensive linemen at heart, and Stonestreet's favorite to-the-bone team is the Kansas City Chiefs. He even bought season tickets (now able to afford a suite) above the same seats he sat in with his father as a child. Eric, who starred in "Modern Family" but is an old-fashioned fan, stayed with the Chiefs through all the lean years, then joyfully erupted when Kansas City beat the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, hugging Coach Reid on the field in Miami. They both look good in red.

Yes, she had a Italian mobster put a gun to her head. Yes, the buy-in for her underground high-stakes poker game, where regulars included Ben Afleck and Toby Maguire, was originally $10,000 and eventually grew to $250,000. Starting as a waitress at the games, Molly Bloom eventually became the banker and once saw a man lose $100 Million in a single night. Bloom originally aspired to reach the highest level of mogul skiing, the Olympics, not the lowest depths of an FBI raid, which came after she began taking a percentage of the pot and broke a federal law. Bloom's wild tale was made into a fascinating movie, "Molly's Game"

He said of course he's going to take recruits to the Willard Hotel. No, Kevin Willard, the new coach at the University of Maryland, has no connection to the 150-year old Washington landmark that sits across from the White House. But he does want recruits to know that playing near the nation's capital is a benefit beyond the court. After an impressive decade at Seton Hall, Willard has another challenge on his hands - Maryland fans have been waiting 20 years for the once-proud program that won the NCAA title in 2002, to bounce back and prove something in the Big Ten. Willard, who scouted for Rick Pitino with the Celtics and was an assistant for him at Louisville, can't wait to get started.

By all accounts, Buck Showalter made all the right moves this year, including inviting Mets icon Keith Hernandez to hang around the batting cage in spring training. What, you say, Hernandez wasn't allowed to mingle with the players? YES (or in this case, SNY,) it's true. As a result of Keith calling Mets games for the regional network, the previous owners didn't want to mix media and the Mendoza line. The new manager corrected that, and, as Keith recalls, even took him around on a golf cart to meet every single player at the training site in Port St. Lucie. The two men also have "Seinfeld" in common, although Hernandez was in twice as many episodes (two.) The World Series winner with both the Cardinals and the Mets still loves the games, but thinks they are way too long. Among other things, he suggests "fewer walks," and is genuinely annoyed when pitching changes are made by the winning team in an 8-0 game in the 8th inning. All that, plus where, exactly, did that mustache come from?

He was the everyday player’s Everyday Player. And on September 6, 1995, with President Clinton and now President Biden watching in Camden Yards, Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-games streak (1925-39), a streak that officially started for Ripken on May 30, 1982 and ended with a 22-minute standing ovation for the shortstop’s 2131st straight game. In between, he’d been the AL MVP twice, won a World Series, and become as famous in Baltimore as the “Star Spangled Banner.” Cal’s written dozens of books and been the subject of a dozen books. And in today’s baseball culture, which is trending toward “load management,” it’s unlikely anyone will ever touch Ripken’s total of 2632 consecutive games. The leader right now? Whit Merrifield, second baseman for the Kansas City Royals, with 443. Play ball!

Bruce Pearl’s first interview with Auburn was a calamity. He’d been out of coaching for three years, the result of an NCAA investigation that deemed him ultimately responsible for transgressions at Tennessee. He’d taken a job in business, working for a grocery distributor in Knoxville. When Auburn came calling in 2014, Bruce was filled with guilt and self-doubt, and told Auburn that he wasn’t sure he was the best candidate for the job. But when all were convinced, Pearl did what he’s always done – turned the program around with a mixture of marketing, recruiting and excellent coaching. A lifelong outsider, and proud of it, Pearl was only the fifth Jewish coach to lead a team to the Final Four. Now he wants to bring his team to Israel.

Bill Walton and Lesley still disagree. After watching him play in college and covering him in the NBA, Lesley got to work with him for about five years when Bill, Dick Enberg and her did March Madness together for CBS. One night, on their way to an NCAA Regional semifinal, Bill started talking about who sweated the most in the history of the NBA. Lesley said Patrick Ewing, he said Moses Malone. Lesley said Kevin Garnett and he said Ken Kesey. Who? Yes, the legendary author who took LSD with his fellow Merry Pranksters.

Bill Walton said the Celtics saved his life. He was a kid from La Mesa, California, who didn't have a TV at home, but would catch Celtics games wherever he could. It was his dream to play on the parquet floor, and when it finally happened in 1985, Walton thought he was so terrible "a disgrace to basketball" that he apologized to the team. Bird and McHale told him not to be so hard on himself, there were 81 games to go. The 1986 Championship team was the happiest time of his professional life. The cycle was complete - Walton was still the pot-smoking Grateful Dead-loving guru he'd been at UCLA, but now he won titles with both John Wooden and Red Auerbach. And stay tuned for why he rubbed dirt from Larry Bird's driveway on his chest.

It might seem a stretch to think that actor Jason Clarke, the son of a sheep-shearer in the Australian outback, could play the iconic legend Jerry West, but Clarke got a round of applause from an acclaimed writer central to the project. Jeff Pearlman, author of "Showtime," on which the HBO series "Winning Time" is based, told Lesley that "Jason Clarke is the best-cast role" in the production. Clarke worked up to 16 hours a day to capture the complicated champion - everything from his Appalachian accent to dribbling left-handed. And all without the cooperation of West himself. Clarke reached out with deep respect, but West preferred his privacy. West once told Lesley that "Hollywood eats people" and that "most great athletes are loners." NOTE: This interview was recorded before the airing of "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" on HBO.

At 72-years old, Jim Larranaga is a kid coach in the ACC. Jim Boeheim is 77, Mike Krzyzewski is 75, even Leonard Hamilton is 73. But there's an excellent chance that Larranaga and his Miami Hurricanes will join some of the others in the joy of March Madness. Larranaga was, of course, the darling of the dance in 2006 when he led 11th-seeded George Mason to the Final Four. Before the semi-final - a loss to eventual champion Florida - Lesley told Jim that most people had only thought of George Mason as the "Father of the Bill of Rights." But that run by the Patriots is why we love college basketball. At Miami, Larranaga has a team full of perimeter players, what CBS' Jon Rothstein calls "more guards than Shawshank," and a defense that steals much more than it can eat. Led by a coach of Cuban descent who grew up in Bronx and played at Providence in the days of Ernie D, the Hurricanes are in very good hands.

Twenty years ago, when Maryland beat Indiana for the National Championship, it was one of the happiest scenes in the history of college basketball. Maryland fans had been through a lot, including sanctions after the departure of Bob Wade, which meant no TV, no national presence. For decades, Maryland was considered the poor cousin to ACC heavyweights Duke and North Carolina, occasionally NC State or Wake Forest. Gary Williams played at Maryland, and shares a great story about facing Billy Cunningham and Carolina. Lesley got to cover Gary at all three of his major stops - at Boston College when BC won the Big East in 1983, at Ohio State in the Big Ten, and at Maryland, where he returned to Cole Field House and the ACC. He called Maryland's win over Duke at home in 2002, "the greatest victory ever at Cole Field House" - and this from a guy who saw, in person, one of the most important games in history, when Texas Western, with five black starters, beat Kentucky in College Park for the Championship in 1966. It's Gary's passion for all things Terrapin that's made him so popular, and why the 2002 team will be celebrated all year.

If you followed the epic battles between the Lakers and the Celtics in the 1980's, didn't you always wonder if Robert Parish (the "Chief") ever talked to Laker fan Jack Nicholson about the "Chief" in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? They did! Parish said Nicholson once came up to him in the layup line before a game and they had a chat. Unselfish and underappreciated, Parish considered retirement from the dysfunctional Golden State Warriors before Red Auerbach engineered the blockbuster trade for him in 1980, which also included drafting Kevin McHale. Robert loved the Celtic style - rebounding, blocking shots, passing, and constantly running to get in shape. Parish said he enjoyed looking across the court in Game 5 of the Finals in 1984 and seeing Kareem Abdul Jabbar, in the 100-degree heat in Boston Garden, with no air-conditioning, sucking on an oxygen mask. All his memories are polished gems.

About six years ago, Lesley wrote a column for CBS saying that it was time to put Amy Trask in the Hall of Fame. As we head into Super Bowl LVI, she feels even more strongly. Amy would never talk about this, but there are things people should know about the first female CEO in NFL history. Raiders commander Al Davis wasn't warm and fuzzy with many people, but he treasured and trusted Amy Trask. One critical area she handled was the financial survival of the team. It was Amy's sole responsibility to secure credit facilities (each for hundreds of millions of dollars) so the team could survive. She also settled all of the Raiders litigation - those who knew Al can imagine how exhausted she must have been! They taped this conversation before the Holidays, and she addressed all kinds of topics - but this idea should not be up for debate.

She was born in Philadelphia, lived in New Jersey and Sugar Land, Texas. At the age of 14, Tara Lipinski won the World Figure Skating Championships, beating her fierce rival, Michelle Kwan. The next year, in 1998, she beat Kwan again to win the Olympic Gold, the youngest ever in skating history. Once known for her triple-jumps, Tara now walks the Red Carpet, working everything from the Academy Awards to the Kentucky Derby. Starting this week, she and her fellow champion and fashionista, Johnny Weir, will bring their fun and expertise to NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games.