Margaret Koy Kistler, believed to be the first female sportswriter in Texas, marched into the schoolroom in Big Spring, Texas, in 1967 for her first assignment for the Abilene Reporter-News.

The kings of West Texas high school football, including future Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes, greeted her with silence and stares.

"Most of you know this man today as the charming, witty, affable gentleman," Kistler recounted to an audience Saturday at the 20th annual convention of the Association of Women in Sports Media at the Hilton Anatole. "Well, that day, Spike Dykes was a marine on steroids. ... His body language indicated he was not pleased."

But Kistler didn't wilt.

"Coach, do you plan to change the design of your team's uniforms?" she asked Dykes, then the coach at Big Spring.

Dykes sputtered so much at the unexpected query that the male coaches and reporters in the room burst into laughter. With the ice broken, and Kistler's nerve proved, the news conference on the upcoming season shifted to X's and O's.

Kistler, now 62 and still a skilled storyteller, helped knock down doors for today's female sportswriters. High-profile writers such as USA Today's Christine Brennan and Julie Ward, pioneers in their own right, shook Kistler's hand and congratulated and thanked her Saturday.

Kistler is part of the famed Koy family of Bellville, Texas, about an hour west of Houston. Her late father, Ernie Koy, starred in football and baseball at the University of Texas and went on to play in the major leagues, first for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Brothers Ernie Jr. and Ted starred at Bellville High, won national titles at UT and played pro football in New York.

Margaret grew up playing football and baseball with her brothers. But as she got older, she found her true fit with the athletic family.

At 13, she started covering local sports for The Bellville Times, a weekly paper. Area schoolboards required special meetings to grant her permission to the usually men's-only press boxes. She invaded the previously forbidden, cigar smoke-filled structures that teetered atop small-town football stadiums, and she did her job.

After attending UT, Kistler worked in Abilene for a year. Publications such as Cosmopolitan and Sports Illustrated took note of Kistler's gumption. Kistler went on to work in several different capacities that featured her two loves – writing and politics.

AMY CONN-GUTIERREZ / Special to DMN

Margaret Koy Kistler speaks during the Association for Women in Sports Media Convention in Dallas.

She married Clay Kistler, whose work took their family, including son Danny, now 27, far from football-rooted Texas to Saudi Arabia and South Africa for much of the 1980s.

When they finally returned to the U.S., Kistler picked up the nation's sports sections and marveled at the slew of female bylines that had become commonplace.

The Kistlers moved to Bellville, where Margaret and Clay run a real estate appraisal business. Kistler still occasionally writes for The Bellville Times.

Kistler ran into Dykeses recently. They shared a hearty laugh about her first West Texas assignment.

"I'm proud of what has happened to the profession," Kistler said. "I'm proud of the young women who are seizing the moment. If there's one message, it's that I really believe strongly in performance. People like having you at the table if you pull your own weight."

Who: Believed to be the first female sportswriter in Texas. She got her start in high school at the weekly The Bellville Times and joined the Abilene Reporter-News in 1967.

Notable: Kistler's career also included roles at the capital bureau of The Dallas Morning News and as chief of the Killeen bureau of the Temple Daily Telegram and as media aide to the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. ... Kistler serves as an alderwoman with the Bellville City Council. ... Her son, Danny, 27, played lineman at Harvard and recently fulfilled his active service obligation with the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Marines after two tours in Iraq.