Top 55 Doris Burke Quotes

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.

We still have a long way to go. Because the reality is that I’m 52-years-old. And how many 55 to 60-year-old women do you see in sports broadcasting? How many? I see a lot of 60-year-old men broadcasting. The physical appearance and natural aging of all the men doing this job don’t matter.

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.

I feel like I’ve been playing, coaching and covering basketball my entire life.

One thing everyone knows about the NBA is that it’s very difficult for young players to win at a high level.

My whole push was I wanted to do all basketball.

I was, at times, painfully shy as a kid and all the way through college.

I started broadcasting in 1992, calling Providence College women’s basketball on radio. From there to an analyst on the NBA. Think of that journey and every step in between. It’s special.

People have asked me, ‘Do you consider yourself a trailblazer?’ Absolutely not. And the reason I say this is, I am aware of the women who came before me.

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.’

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

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

My career is a very happy accident. I never studied communications.

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.

Ultimately we all only have our reputation, and it is nothing more than a series of small decisions you make every single day.

I want girls to dream big and to think that there is nothing that is impossible.

I’m not having plastic surgery.

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

I was a very shy kid. The only place I had confidence was in between the lines of a basketball court.

The year I left coaching to get married, Providence College decided to put its women’s basketball games on radio, and because I had played and coached in the program, the athletic director asked if I’d like to give it a try.

The NBA is the single most progressive, inclusive, open-minded sports league in the country.

If the NBA teaches us anything, you have to have talent to win.

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

When I was 7, we moved to Manasquan, where I picked up the game of basketball.

The last time I played basketball it was eight weeks after I delivered my second child. You know that expression – the mind believes and the body would not follow? That was me on that particular day.

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.

LeBron James is going to be somebody that I look back on and think, yeah I got to not only watch one of the all-time great players in the history of the sport, but I also had the opportunity to interview him at some of the most critical moments of his career.

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

Miami is a remarkably resilient, opportunistic team.

The reason I’m fiendishly drawing end-of-game plays when I’m taking notes is what if I screwed up something down the stretch of a game?

When I started my career, I can say my interviewing skills were not my strong suit.

As an interviewer, I don’t think you can dance around the subject. Certainly the interview subject knows if you are dancing, and the viewer knows that you are dancing. If it’s a hard question, you just have to ask it.

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.

The players and the coaches have been my soft landing spot, and those men and their acceptance of me and the respect they’ve shown to me on the air, that has changed fans’ opinion of me.

I am mindful of the fact that I played women’s college basketball, that I coached women’s college basketball.

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

You can criticize ESPN for a lot of things, but one thing you have to give them credit for is their willingness to put women in nontraditional roles.

A lot of tough players come out of Jersey. Tough-minded kids. That’s what I was.

Listen, I want to be considered attractive. Am I going to undergo surgery to make myself younger? No.

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

Honestly, it’s been 25 to 28 years of just slow, methodical, taking step-by step progress. I’ve been very lucky.

From the time I was very little and I first picked up a ball, in the back of my head I thought I would coach the game.

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

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.’

I knew unequivocally I wanted children and that I wanted for at least a certain stretch of time to be a stay-at-home mom.

I feel like every repetition, every game, every practice that I’m allowed to watch, I’m picking up some small piece of information, a nuance about the game or a coach’s philosophy.

It is hard to put into words how grateful I am to continue my career with ESPN.

It’s about time that a woman my age or above, if she chooses to go into her 60s as an announcer, she should be allowed to do just that.

I obviously preferred the analyst role to the sideline role because your opportunity to impact the broadcast was drastically different.

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

If there’s anything I’m proud of in my career, it’s that I’ve been able to hang in there and keep progressing over the years.

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.’

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

I’ve earned every wrinkle on my face. I actually like my wrinkles. And guess what? There are a lot of 60-year-old men who have wrinkles, no hair, glasses, and nobody gives a damn.