Melissa Ludtke

Melissa Ludtke (born 1951) is an American journalist.

Ludtke was born in Iowa City, Iowa, but grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was the oldest of five children, her father worked at the University of Massachusetts where he taught finance, and her mother earned a Ph.D. in anthropology. Ludtke attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA and graduated in 1973. Ludtke always had a passion for sports, and upon graduation, Ludke began working for ABC sports and Sports Illustrated. In 1978 Ludtke married sportswriter, Eric Linclon. By 1982 Ludtke and Linclon were divorced and Ludtke went on to become a single mother of a baby girl she adopted from China.^[1]

Career

Like most women working in the field of sports and sports broadcasting, Ludtke had a difficult time being taken seriously in her career. In the late 1970s advancement was made after a Sports Illustrated publisher, Time Incorporated, filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball (MLB) after Ludtke was prohibited by MLB’s Commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, from interviewing players in the locker room during the 1977 World Series. In 1978 a United States Federal Judge ruled that male and female reporters should have equal access to the locker room. That ruling was imperative to the future of women sportscasters because it provided recognition of women as serious sports broadcasters and mandated that women should not be discriminated against. ^[2]

References

1. ^ http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00045
2. ^ Grubba, Max V., and Theresa Billiotb. "Women Sportscasters: Navigating a Masculine Domain." Journal of Gender Studies 19.1 (2010). Milner Library Communication and Mass Media Complete Database. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.

Sources

Grubba, Max V., and Theresa Billiotb. "Women Sportscasters: Navigating a Masculine Domain." Journal of Gender Studies 19.1 (2010). Milner Library Communication and Mass Media Complete Database. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.

"Ludtke, Melissa. Papers, 1977-1997: A Finding Aid." OASIS Online Archival Search Information System; Office for Information Systems; Harvard University Library. Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00045>.

Persondata
Name	Ludtke, Melissa
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Date of birth	1951
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