Excerpt: 'Never Say Never' by Phyllis George

— -- Phyllis George's résumé is an extraordinary study in contrasts. As a woman who has reinvented her career so many times — from Miss America in 1971 to broadcast pioneer to entrepreneur — George has a good deal of wisdom to impart.

In a new book entitled Never Say Never: Ten Lessons to Turn You Can't Into Yes I Can, George shares her tips for moving from challenge to challenge, and turning trials into triumphs.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter One:

"SAY YES TO YOURSELF"

You'll never do it! I'll never do it! Has anyone ever told you that you couldn't do something? Have you ever told yourself you would never do something? If so, you're not alone. Throughout this book you're going to read stories about times some of my friends and I confronted the word "never" and how we overcame it, sometimes with difficulty, to become well known in our various fields.

In this chapter alone, you'll hear from "the Greatest"-Muhammad Ali, CNN talk show king Larry King, and America's favorite gossip columnist, Liz Smith. Plus, you'll learn how my interviews with star athletes Roger Staubach and Dave Cowens helped me create a different style of sports casting. And you'll see how entering a local beauty pageant after saying I'd never do it again gave my life a whole new direction. Ali, Larry, Liz, Roger, Dave, and I have taken different roads to our various successes, but what we share is our strong belief, earned through experience, that learning to never say never begins with saying yes to yourself.

What's the problem with "never"? It keeps you from trying. It ensures that you will fail. End of story. "Never" slams doors in your face and pushes away potential opportunities. To be one small voice crying yes in a wilderness of no's is incredibly hard. But I am here to tell you this: To take that first step toward everything you want, everything you can be in life, you must find and nurture in yourself the strength to say yes to yourself, even when others say no.

Banish the words "I can't" from your vocabulary. Remember: If can't equals won't, can equals will.

My unanticipated success as a sportscaster is a perfect example of the importance of saying yes to yourself, even when you are uncertain. It was in 1974, when television sports was dominated by men, that CBS Sports offered me a job. The network executives had seen me co-hosting Candid Camera with Allen Funt and the Miss America pageant with Bert Parks and liked what they saw. I was building momentum with TV audiences. They could see I had potential and thought they'd take a chance with me. My agent arranged a meeting with Bob Wussler, then vice president of CBS Sports, to explore broadcasting possibilities. Bob explained that he really wanted this to work and that we would have to approach this in a serious way. When CBS offered me a thirteen-week option, they still hadn't determined what role I would play.

Sportscasting? I thought. "Thanks for the offer," I could have said, "but I can't do that. I don't know how." Though I'd always been a sports fan, I was not an athlete or an expert; in fact, I had no professional experience in the sports world. Plus, there were no role models for me to emulate. The only female sportscasters at that time were either at local television stations or in temporary slots at the national level. Even my friends were skeptical about whether I could pull it off. A male friend said to me, "Sportscasting is a man's job. It'll never work." Thanks for the encouragement, I thought. Somehow, in the middle of all these uncertainties, I decided to accept the offer. Partly because I needed a job-always an excellent motivator!-and partly because something inside told me I could do it. I had little evidence to support this instinct, but I knew it was at least worth a try.

My first major assignment was an interview with superstar basketball center Dave Cowens of the Boston Celtics. The challenge? To get Cowens-a towering man with a shock of red hair and a reserved nature-to talk to me. The problem? Cowens disliked interviews and had reluctantly agreed to the CBS request because the team management insisted it was good PR. The second problem? He had no idea they were going to send a woman to do the job.

When I arrived at the Celtics' practice with the producer and camera crew in tow, Cowens and his teammates took one look at me and rolled their eyes. I could feel them thinking, "Oh, God. They sent a girl?" I tried to ignore them. "Hey, Dave, how are you?" I cheerily called out to him from courtside. No answer. I tried a second time. Silence. Obviously, Dave was a man of few words. But it just so happened I was a woman of many, many words.

As soon as practice was over, Cowens made a beeline for his jeep. I followed, and my producer urged me to hop in. I did. My career was on the line, and I had no intention of going back to New York without talking with him. I'm not going away, I thought to myself. I am getting this interview! So off we went to his log cabin on the outskirts of Boston. The crew trailed behind in the equipment van.

As he drove, Dave stared straight ahead and didn't pay much attention to me. How was I going to get this man to talk? I remembered that my dad had always told me: "Phyllis, you could make a wooden man talk!" Now was the time to test his theory.

For the next forty-five minutes I made comments on anything and everything I could think of: "Wow, it's cold outside! I love your jeep! So what's your cabin like? Where do you go around here on your time off?" I'm the kind of person who gets nervous when I hear silence in a conversation, so I kept talking and talking even though he answered only in monosyllables. This was, of course, before I learned the "art of the pause" in an interview: Sometimes silence leaves space for the most revealing answers.

My experiment in wearing Dave down must have worked, however, because when we reached his cabin, we went into the kitchen. He took a can of beer from the refrigerator and offered me one, which I declined. We settled into rocking chairs on the front porch, he opened his beer, and then he started opening up to me. As I slowly drew him out, we began to have more of a conversation than an interview. He took a few sips of beer. He rocked back and forth in his old chair. And he talked and talked. As the camera rolled, I instinctively tossed aside my formal questions and talked to him like a regular human being, not like a superstar. Mostly I asked him what I was interested to know as a curious fan, questions like "What would you do if it were all over tomorrow"? Are there some days you just don't want to suit up? What if you had an injury? Where would you go, what would you do? Do you ever want to settle down and get married?

These were questions that felt natural to me, but I knew no male interviewer had asked an athlete things like this, at least not on camera. It was unheard of to talk about feelings rather than game strategy and statistics, but I knew we could always add that with voice-over later. Getting him to open up like this could come only in a personal conversation. It was not standard procedure, but it felt right.

When we edited the tape to prepare our segment, I knew this was not the Dave Cowens I had seen at practice. Nor was it the Dave Cowens I'd read about. This was the private Dave Cowens underneath the basketball star image. What would people think?

The answer came when the interview aired at halftime of the following week's NBA game and the CBS switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree. "We've never seen Cowens like that!" fans raved. "And who was that woman asking him those personal questions?" I was astounded by the overwhelmingly positive response.

The producers realized something new and distinctive was happening. I had gotten a sports star to remove his armor, and the fans ate it up. By doing that I had discovered my special talent: disarming a stubborn interview subject and convincing him to reveal himself to a television audience. My producers and I knew that no one else was covering sports from the human interest angle. I went for the heart, and the athletes gave heart back. By saying yes, I can, and then doing it I opened up a new opportunity for sports broadcasting and myself.

The interviews were so successful, in fact, that CBS signed me to a three-year deal. And soon they assigned me to cohost their new show, The NFL Today, a pre-game football program on Sunday afternoons. On that show I talked football with my cohosts and also worked on human interest stories about the superstar players. The NFL Today team consisted of veteran sportscaster Brent Musberger; Irv Cross, a former player for the Philadelphia Eagles (whom you'll read more about in Chapter 8); and me. We had such good chemistry that we were dubbed "the Mod Squad of CBS Sports." Brent, Irv, and I enjoyed it so much that our enthusiasm came across as genuine and spontaneous. Each of us had a role. Brent was the traffic cop. He called on us and tied it all together. Irv talked about stats and strategies, and I interviewed the players. Bob Wussler deserves all the credit for putting our team together.

Bob was a mentor and friend. His support and encouragement helped me be myself and were key to my success. Over the ten happy years I was at CBS Sports, my interviews were known for my willingness to ask athletes what others wouldn't. Often I used my gut instinct to ask the questions and get the answers I thought the audience wanted to hear. Sometimes the interviewees said things that surprised even them.