Breaking glass ceiling in Bay Area sports
Alexandra Irving is joining a select group of women who made Bay Area sports history. Among them:
Susan Fornoff: The former Chronicle staff writer was the second woman to serve as official scorer for an MLB game, doing so for both the Giants and the A’s. The first woman, as reported by the Denver Post, was Eliza Green Williams, who did so in Chicago in the 1880s but had to sign her game reports “E.G. Williams” to avoid revealing her sex.
Renel Brooks-Moon: The Giants’ longtime public address announcer at Oracle Park, she was honored by the Hall of Fame before Game 3 of the 2002 World Series for being the first woman to handle PA duties for a championship round of a major sport in the United States.
Sherry Davis: The first woman to serve as a stadium announcer in MLB history, she handled the duties for the Giants at Candlestick Park from 1993-99.
Amy Trask: The first — and still only — woman to be the CEO of an NFL team, Trask held that title with the Raiders from 1997 to 2013.
Kate Scott: In recognition of Women’s History Month, Scott was the play-by-play announcer for the Warriors’ March 29, 2021, game against the Bulls, the first woman to call a game on the team’s flagship station. She was joined on the all-female broadcast team by Mary Murphy and Kerith Burke.
Corinne Mullane: In 1993, Mullane — then 67 years old — became the Giants’ first “Ball Dudette,” sitting on the field on the first-base side to retrieve balls that were hit out of play but didn’t reach the stands. She worked her last game in 2007, and her accomplishment has been memorialized in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Amelia Schimmel: Last year, the Oakland native was the first woman to be the public address announcer for A’s games at the Coliseum. She had filled in at the end of 2020 when Dick Callahan stepped aside for health reasons. Callahan, who handled the duties for 15 seasons, died in January 2021.
Denise Long: An Iowa high school superstar, Long became the first woman drafted by an NBA team when the Warriors selected her in the 13th round in 1969. The selection was rejected by then-NBA Commissioner Walter Kennedy on the grounds that league rules prohibited drafting anyone before their college class graduated. Alyssa Nakken: She became the first woman to hold a fulltime coaching job in majorleague history when the Giants hired her in 2020. Entering her third season with the team, Nakken was named Baseball America’s Trailblazer of the Year after her first season in San Francisco.
Katie Sowers: The second woman to be a full-time coach in the NFL — and the league’s first openly LGBT coach — was with the 49ers from 2017-20. An offensive assistant who worked with San Francisco’s wide receivers, she joined the Chiefs last season when her contract with the 49ers expired.