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AFTER MORE THAN six years of silence, former Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson has told her side of the infamous New England Patriots sexual harassment incident that came to symbolize -and ensured an end of - the male sports world's resistance to women journalists reporting from the locker room.
In an account written exclusively for the Chicago Sun-Times and published Jan. 19, Olson recalls in painful detail the death threats, home invasion and vandalism that followed the revelation - not by Olson, but by the Boston Globe - of the Sept. 17,1990 incident.
The savage reaction eventually forced Olson to flee the country. She writes that she was offered a transfer to another Rupert Murdochowned paper - and she chose the one farthest away from Boston- in Sydney, Australia.
With the Patriots -- under new management -- playing in the Super Bowl Jan. 26, Chicago Sun-Times deputy sports editor Ron Rappaport asked her if she wanted to write an account of her ordeal.
"She had to think about it long and hard," said sports editor Bill Adee. "She has totally avoided anything like this.... I felt a little funny, a little bit like Oprah, asking for this piece. She wrote it really quickly, worked on it overnight, faxed it and went to bed. I think it was really cathartic for her".
The Lisa Olson saga began with the young reporter -- covering the Patriots season for the first time - asking defensive back Maurice Hurst to come to the media room for an interview.
"The player, however, insisted I come to him," wrote Olson, who in her article does not identify Hurst or any other player, "saying he was icing his knee or ankle...