STORY BY: Erik Brady ’76 - PHOTOS BY: Jim McCoy
Lisa Bell Wilson ’91 makes history Journalism is the first rough draft of history, as the saying “She showed the signs of a leader,” Sullivan says, “at a time goes. The serendipitous thing about Lisa Bell Wilson ’91, is when anyone would have understood if she cracked.” that she doesn’t merely chronicle history. She makes it. The News’ sports section thrives under Wilson’s lead. This Wilson is executive sports editor of The Buffalo News and the year it earned Top 10 honors in its circulation class in four first African-American woman to run a sports department at a categories of the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) major metropolitan newspaper. contest, the “coveted Grand Slam,” in the parlance of USA Today Sports’ Gerry Ahern, APSE’s president at the time. “Lisa “That makes me proud,” she says, “but it also makes me shake has done an outstanding job,” he says. my head, because I know I am not the only one who is qualified.” Growing up, Wilson watched a lot of football on TV with her There was little time to celebrate her new job. Soon after older brothers, Billy and Donald. As a freshman at City Honors, Wilson was named in 2011, she learned that her husband, she wrote letters to the editor at The News in support of Allen Wilson, had suffered a recurrence of leukemia. This was maligned Buffalo Bills quarterback Joe Ferguson. It never a calamity at the office as well as crossed her mind that she’d be that at home, as Allen was one of her top editor someday. reporters, a pro’s pro. “She showed the signs She joined her high school track team “We all knew the outlook was very as a long jumper because she thought of a leader at a time grim,” News columnist Jerry Sullivan it would look good on college applisays. “She never showed any weakness when anyone would cations. “I was terrible,” Wilson says. or self-pity.” “I came in third twice – on days there have understood were only three jumpers.” Allen died five months later. Alissa, their daughter, whose name is an if she cracked.” She earned academic scholarships amalgam of her father’s and mother’s, to West Virginia University (WVU) was just four at the time. Wilson was and Canisius but the one at WVU also left with twin challenges: Care for their child on her own and included room and board. Her parents wanted her to go there; run a sports section that had been rocked to its core. she wanted to stay home for a boyfriend. “We didn’t last,” she “She knew how much we all loved Allen and didn’t want us to says, laughing. be upset,” Sullivan says. “Even at the wake, she had this big Wilson’s Canisius education surely did. She majored in smile, looked around and said, ‘I’m happy. I realize talking to communications while working 35 hours a week at Fotomat and all these people how lucky I was that he picked me to be his writing sports columns for Buffalo’s Challenger newspaper. wife.’” Wilson couldn’t find a job in her field after graduation and she Allen’s death was the section’s fourth in a few years, including worked for six months in the cash office at T.J. Maxx. That’s retirees. Wilson’s strength inspired the mostly male department when she received a call from Barry Berlin, PhD, one of her and held it together at a critical moment.