Back in 2003, after a couple of years covering Allen Iverson and the 76ers for the Philadelphia Inquirer, I switched to the Eagles beat. I was pregnant, and covering an 82-game NBA season, with late nights and early-morning flights, would have been too much of a grind.

It was August. The Eagles had broken training camp at Lehigh University and were back at their practice facility in South Philadelphia. I didn't know many of the players well yet, and many didn't know me.

My strategy for approaching the locker room access period was to stand near the equipment manager's window by the entrance to the locker room and wait until I saw a player I wanted to speak with. That generally kept me away from the players' lockers and out of the line of traffic to the door to the shower.

One of my first days in there, a rookie offensive lineman walked in with a few teammates, saw me and said: "Bet you like seeing all of these swinging d---s in here, don't you?"

Today's female sports reporters, like ESPN's Kelly Naqi, don't face the same obstacles their predecessors did. Michael Albans/NY Daily News/Getty Images

The guys laughed. I didn't. I had a choice: Say something, or say nothing.

The lockers to the right nearest me belonged to the defensive backs, including Brian Dawkins, Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor, all established players. The lockers to the left nearest me belonged to the quarterbacks, including Donovan McNabb and A.J. Feeley.

In a raised voice, I said to the lineman: "If I wanted to see swinging d---s, I'd still be covering the Sixers."

Boom.

I wasn't trying to be crude. I was trying to stand my ground. The comment prompted laughter that was louder and no longer directed at me. Players were laughing at the lineman. Vincent stood up, walked over and told the rookie that he got what he deserved, that I was welcome in the locker room and that I was to be treated with respect and dignity. And that, mercifully, was that.

On Tuesday night, I thought of Vincent and that moment while watching ESPN's Nine for IX documentary "Let Them Wear Towels," which chronicled the plight of my female predecessors in the 1970s and '80s. I've benefited immensely from the hard roads traveled by women such as Melissa Ludtke, Jane Gross, Robin Herman, Claire Smith, Michele Himmelberg and Lesley Visser, who all had to fight for the locker room access that women like me basically take for granted today.