A Woman's Place Is in the Locker Room

Star-Telegram's NFL sportswriter scores the big stories

By Sheila Bishop, Texan News Service

Growing up in Beaumont, sportswriter Charean Williams was known as the Dallas Cowboys expert.

"I knew from the beginning that this was what I wanted to do,” she recalled. As a kid Williams wore her Cowboys jerseys and Roger Staubach was her hero.

“You know how you have that metal swing set, and you have the pipes that you could pop off?” Williams asked. She did just that and liked how sounds reverberated in her makeshift microphone. “I would do play-by-play commentaries,” Williams said.

She’s still covering the Cowboys, only now she has a bit more sophisticated equipment, including a computer. As the NFL sportswriter and columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Williams breaks the mold. Being a female NFL writer in an occupation dominated by men has taken her all over the country and the world, onto the field and into the locker room.

“You’re in their territory when you step into the locker room,” Williams, who is 42, said during an interview in the Star-Telegram’s newsroom. “There are certain things that are said and done that is a part of it, and it is something that you have to be prepared to handle.”

None of that has deterred this 14-year-veteran from scoring the big stories. Williams has interviewed some of the most prestigious players in professional football, including Jerry Rice, Joe Montana and Jim Brown.

In addition to watching sports, Williams also played them while growing up in Beaumont. Although golf, soccer and softball were not available to her during her school years, Williams played volleyball, basketball and ran cross-country and track. She ran the 3,200-meter, 1,600-meter and the 1,600-meter relay.

After graduating from Texas A&M University in 1986, Williams went on to work at the Orange Leader newspaper for nine months. She covered local high school teams, as well as those at Lamar University and McNesese State. Next Williams went back to College Station and worked on the Bryan-College Station Eagle for six years, where she covered sports at A&M University and A&M Consolidated High School.

Her next stint was in Orlando, Fla., where she spent six years covering NASCAR and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She then finally settled in Fort Worth, where she has worked for eight years.

In her work Williams has traveled to all 50 states and has also to Mexico City, Italy and Athens for the 2004 Olympic Games. With the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaching, Williams expects to be working on Olympics-related stories from now until September.

Williams has had other rewarding moments besides covering the Olympics. She said her most memorable interview was with 1950s former quarterback Otto Graham of the Cleveland Browns.

"He was hilarious, he liked to tell a lot of stories,” Williams recalled. Graham was the first person to invent the face mask after breaking his jaw. “I never got to see him play but I saw highlights,” Williams said. "But I just know how great he was at the game, how he was ranked historically and what he did for the game.”

In 2007 Williams became the first female to become a voter for the Pro Sports Hall of Fame. "It was a great honor because you think in this day and age that there are no more firsts,” she said.

When Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year, he thanked Williams in his speech and congratulated her on becoming the first female to vote for the Hall of Fame. It was her biggest moment as a sportswriter.

“I was trying to stay cool in the press box, but it was a really neat experience,” she recalled.

When Williams isn’t working on a story at her home office or traveling, she relaxes with hobbies or with her husband.

And, of course, she's addicted to watching sports. “We have four TVs in the living room,” she said. Williams also likes to play tennis, golf, run and has been training to participate in a half-marathon in May.

Besides writing for the Star-Telegram, Williams writes for her local church paper called The Chimes. “It’s a different kind of writing,” she said. Stories for The Chimes are based on local events and the church’s volunteer work. Williams recently worked on a story about a volunteer program called Nothing but Nets that donates nets to families in Africa to reduce the risk of spreading malaria.

For now, she’s happy being an NFL writer and columnist and defying gender stereotypes.

"I don’t plan on doing this forever,” Williams said. "But for the foreseeable future I enjoy it and I cannot imagine doing anything else.”