First Colts reporting journalist dies
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INDIANAPOLIS — The Indianapolis News sports desk was short-staffed the day after the Colts left Baltimore to come to this city in those Mayflower vans in the middle of the night 40 years ago. Assistant sports editor Lyle Mannweiler turned to Debi Reed and told her, “This is your story.”
The paper published five issues in 1984, and with each issue, Reed had a new story for a city ready to devour any information about its new NFL team.
“At one point, one of the big bosses came into our office to make sure I didn’t want any help,” said Mannweiler. “I shooed him out and assured him that Debi had my full trust. She earned her stripes that day.”
Reed, one of the first women in the country to cover an NFL team and one of the first female sportswriters in Indianapolis, died Thursday after a brief illness. She was 71.
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Reed (formerly Despot) was born on August 29, 1952, and graduated from Center Grove High School in 1970. She attended Ball State University, where she returned years later as a professor of journalism.
But first, a news department called for her. Reed discovered a job opening for a sports reporter at the News.
“Back then, you had to have thick skin to walk into a room of 11 or 12 people,” said Mannweiler, who later became deputy editor at IndyStar. But Reed came right in with an aura of confidence mixed with humility, “and we interviewed her and hired her.”
“She had guts”
During her time at the paper, Reed wrote about everything from the LPGA Tour to gymnastics to boys’ and girls’ high school sports. She covered the Indy 500 and basketball and wrote a major article about what happens to former NFL players who run into financial trouble after leaving the league.
Bill Benner was her “competition” at the time as a sportswriter and part-time columnist for IndyStar. Even though he worked for rival newspapers, he just couldn’t dislike Reed, he said.
“She had guts, and that was what she needed at the time,” said Benner. “And she was a good writer, that was the case, but she also had a strong personality that enabled her to break down many a dressing room door.”
Reed came at a time when women were just entering sports journalism across the country. Lesley Visser was the first woman to cover an NFL team as a sportswriter, covering the New England Patriots for the Boston Globe starting in the 1970s.
“But Debi was, if not the first, then certainly one of the first to make a name for herself in sports journalism in Indianapolis,” Benner said.
Reed wasn’t the first woman to try to work on the newspaper’s sports desk, but that first woman “didn’t work out,” Mannweiler said. It was a difficult job for a woman. Most people at the time still believed that women couldn’t possibly know as much about sports as a man.
“She wasn’t afraid to walk into the Colts’ locker room,” Mannweiler said. “But let’s be honest, I’m sure there are many today who would change their minds.”
Before the Colts came to town, Reed was often involved in high school girls sports and even had a column called “Women in Sports” where she wrote about local female athletes who were doing great things.
“Sure, she helped establish gender roles, but she wasn’t hired just for girls’ sports,” Mannweiler said. “I had no problem using her for anything, certainly more than some of the young men.”
And so in 1984, along with dozens of other men covering the Colts’ move to Indy across the country, Reed’s name appeared across the front page, bringing the story to the city’s readers.
“I was just doing my job”
Reed was at Weir Cook International Airport on March 29, 1984, when Colts coach Frank Kush stepped off team owner Robert Irsay’s private jet.
“After six weeks of rumors, no comment, high hopes and fading hopes, the Baltimore Colts are coming to Indianapolis,” Reed wrote. “Kush, smiling and brandishing a tennis racket, was the first to confirm the Colts’ move.”
“I thought I was on my way to Arizona,” Kush told Reed with a grin about the team’s other possible destination. She then asked him if the Colts would move to Indianapolis. “I guess that’s why we’re here,” he said.
Reed then learned from the team’s attorney, Michael Chernoff, that the Colts had arrived the night before in 15 Mayflower Transit vans and had set up camp in a vacant elementary school that would serve as a temporary headquarters. From there, she began following the team.
Bob Walters, the Colts’ public relations director at the time, was present for Reed’s first appearance in the NFL locker room and manned the door to allow media access for postgame interviews.
“I hesitated when Debi presented her ID, even though I had assigned it to her,” Walters said. “But I first looked at Colts head coach Frank Kush, who happened to be standing nearby in the hallway. He nodded at me and said, ‘Let her in.’
“Debi took a deep, determined breath and went inside. She was just doing her job. Brave and professional.”
The fact that she is a woman never deterred her, says Mannweiler. “You could give her any task and she accepted it without fear, no matter what it was.”
In her later years, Reed remained modest about her role as a pioneer for women in sports journalism and declined the IndyStar’s request to write an article about her.
“I’m honestly not sure it would be that interesting. I haven’t heard any stories about being discriminated against by anyone, even the NFL, if you can believe that,” Reed said at the time. “I think it’s become so commonplace now that people wouldn’t be as interested in my old and admittedly not very exciting story. If I had to overcome a lot of hurdles, maybe I’d think differently.”
Reed then told a story that demonstrated the rarity of her career.
“The one thing that kept happening to me was that I would answer the phone while watching sports and some guy, almost always a bettor in a bar, would ask if I could speak to a sportswriter,” she said. “They never believed I was one. Sometimes they would even hang up and call back.”
“You can write my story when I’m gone,” she said at the time. “I was just doing my job.”
Reed’s parents, John and Shirley Ann Despot, predeceased her. She is survived by her husband, Don Reed, daughter Zoe Dorsey, stepdaughter Lori Walker, grandchildren Chelsea Walker, Reed Dorsey and Ryder Dorsey, great-grandson Colton Rajabi, sister Joann Loftus (Dale), brothers John (Treesa) Despot and Tom (Becky) Despot, and numerous nieces and nephews.
Viewings will be held on August 22nd from 4 to 8 p.m. at Bell Mortuary in Fountaintown, and the funeral will be held on August 23rd at 11 a.m. at Bell Mortuary. Burial will follow at New Palestine Cemetery.
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. You can reach her via email: [email protected]
