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Women's Sports Foundation
The Women's Sports Foundation (WSF) is a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit charity focused on female involvement in sports. Founded in 1974 by tennis player Billie Jean King and initially supported by Olympic athletes Donna de Varona and Suzy Chaffee, its stated mission statement is "To advance the lives of girls and women through sports and physical activity." History The Women's Sports Foundation was legally set up in 1974 by Billie Jean King, her business manager Jim Jorgensen, and her then-husband Larry King (tennis), Larry King. The Foundation was originally supported by Olympic swimmer Donna de Varona and Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee. In 1972 and in 1973 King was awarded the Bob Hope Cavalcade of Sports for the "Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year". In 1974, she donated her winnings of $5,000 to incorporate the Women's Sports Foundation. Simultaneously, she started a new magazine titled ''womenSports''. The WSF began its multi-sport emphasis at the 1975 ABC TV show Women's S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943), also known as BJK, is an American former World number 1 ranked female tennis players, world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. She was a member of the victorious United States Billie Jean King Cup team, United States team in seven Billie Jean King Cup, Federation Cups and nine Wightman Cups. King is an advocate of gender equality and has long been a pioneer for equality and social justice. In 1973, at the age of 29, she famously won the "Battle of the Sexes (tennis), Battle of the Sexes" tennis match against the 55-year-old Bobby Riggs. King was also the founder of the Women's Tennis Association and the Women's Sports Foundation. She was instrumental in persuading cigarette brand Virginia Slims to sponsor women's tennis in the 1970s and went on to serve on the board of their parent company Philip Morris USA, Philip Morris i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nancy Hogshead-Makar
Nancy Lynn Hogshead-Makar ( Hogshead, born April 17, 1962) is an American swimmer who represented the United States at the 1984 Summer Olympics, where she won three gold medals and one silver medal. She is currently the CEO of Champion Women, an organization leading targeted efforts to advocate for equality and accountability in sports. Her areas of focus include establishing nationwide equal play, such as traditional Title IX compliance in athletic departments, protecting athletes from sexual harassment, abuse and assault, as well as combatting employment, pregnancy, and LGBT discrimination. In 2012, she began working on legislative changes to ensure that club and Olympic sports athletes were protected from sexual abuse. In 2018, the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017, which she co-wrote, was enacted. Swimming Hogshead's family is from Iowa. She was born in Iowa City, Iowa, but her family moved to Florida shortly afterwards. When ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elana Meyers Taylor
Elana Meyers Taylor (born Elana Alessandra Meyers; October 10, 1984) is an American Olympic bobsledder and World Champion who has competed since 2007. Born in Oceanside, California, Meyers Taylor was raised in Douglasville, Georgia and is a graduate of George Washington University, where she was a member of the softball team. Career Meyers Taylor won the silver in the bobsled two-woman event with Shauna Rohbock at the 2009 FIBT World Championships in Lake Placid, New York. She was named to the U.S. team for the 2010 Winter Olympics on January 16, 2010. On February 24, 2010, Meyers Taylor and Erin Pac won the bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Their first run has a time of 53.28. Their second run has a time of 53.05. Their third run has a time of 53.29. Their fourth run has a time of 53.78 for a total of 3:33.40, a difference of +1.12 from first place. In 2010, Elana Meyers Taylor received a grant from the Women's Sports Foundation (WSF) Travel and Training F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grete Eliassen
Grete Eliassen (born September 21, 1986) is an American-Norwegian freestyle skier. She won a bronze medal in ''Slopestyle'' at the 2011 Winter X Games XV in Aspen, Colorado, behind Kaya Turski and Keri Herman. She has won six medals at the Winter X Games in slopestyle and halfpipe events including back to back gold medals in 2005 and 2006. Eliassen has been serving as the 16th president of the Women's Sports Foundation, effective January 2017. Early life Eliassen was born in Lutsen, Minnesota to a Norwegian father and an American mother. She started skiing at the young age of two. She grew up near some of the finest mountains in North America. She moved to Norway for a year when she was five. When she returned to the United States, she started playing several different sports: hockey, soccer, basketball, tennis, water-skiing, baseball, cross country skiing, and alpine skiing. When she was 13, Eliassen moved to Lillehammer, Norway. She decided to continue her skiing career the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angela Hucles
Angela Khalia Hucles Mangano (; born July 5, 1978) is an American sports executive and former professional soccer player who is currently the president of women's soccer for the Houston Dash of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). She was previously the vice president of player development and operations for Angel City FC, of which she is also a minority owner. As a player, Hucles Mangano played as a midfielder and was a member of the United States national team. Early life Hucles' parents are academics Janis Sanchez-Hucles and Michael Hucles. Angela graduated from Norfolk Academy where she was a ''Parade'' and NSCAA All-American selection in 1995. She was twice named an All-State and All-Region selection in 1994 and 1995. She graduated in 1996 as Norfolk Academy's all-time leading scorer with 204 goals and 106 assists. University of Virginia Hucles played college soccer at the University of Virginia, where she was a four-year all- ACC player and tallied 59 goals, includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angela Ruggiero
Angela Marie Ruggiero (born January 3, 1980) is an American former ice hockey Defenceman (ice hockey), defenseman, gold medalist, and four-time Olympian. She was a member of the International Olympic Committee from 2010 to 2018 and served as a member of the Executive Board of the IOC after being elected the Chairperson of the IOC Athletes' Commission, the body that represents all Olympic athletes worldwide, a post which she held from 2016 to 2018. In her hockey career, Ruggiero was named as the best player in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA and in the world by The Hockey News and named the US Olympic Committee’s Player of the Year. She was a member of the United States women's national ice hockey team, United States Women's National Ice Hockey Team, medaling in four successive Winter Olympic Games, including one gold medal in 1998 Winter Olympics, 1998, two silvers in 2002 Winter Olympics, 2002 and 2010 Winter Olympics, 2010, and one bronze in 2006 Winter Ol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laila Ali
Laila Amaria Ali (born December 30, 1977) is an American television personality and retired professional boxer who competed from 1999 to 2007. During her career, from which she retired undefeated, she held the World Boxing Council, WBC, Women's International Boxing Association, WIBA, IWBF and IBA female super middleweight titles, and the IWBF light heavyweight title. Ali is widely regarded by many within the sport as one of the greatest female professional boxers of all time. She is the daughter of boxer Muhammad Ali. Early life Laila Amaria Ali was born December 30, 1977, in Miami Beach, Florida, the daughter of boxer Muhammad Ali and his third wife, Veronica Porché Ali, Veronica Porché. Her parents divorced when she was nine years old. She was raised as a Muslim, but later left Islam despite her father's initial disapproval. Ali was a manicurist at age 16. Her turbulent childhood of arrests and abuse led to her to living in a group home for girls. She graduated from Californi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jessica Mendoza
Jessica Ofelia Mendoza (born November 11, 1980) is an American sportscaster and former softball player. Currently, she serves as an analyst for ESPN's coverage of Major League Baseball and Los Angeles Dodgers coverage on Spectrum SportsNet LA. As a softball outfielder, Mendoza was a collegiate four-time First Team All-American and two-time Olympic medalist. Mendoza played from 1999 to 2002 at Stanford and was a member of the United States women's national softball team from 2004 to 2010. She won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. She played professionally in National Pro Fastpitch and was named 2011 Player of the Year and currently ranks in the top 10 for career batting average and slugging percentage. Mendoza was a color commentator on ESPN's ''Sunday Night Baseball'' from 2016 to 2019. She remains an ESPN baseball analyst. Mendoza was named by fans and experts to the Greatest College Softball Team as an outfielder, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aimee Mullins
Aimee Mullins (born 1976) is an American athlete, actress, and public speaker. She was born with a medical condition that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs beneath the knee. She is the first amputee to compete against nondisabled athletes in National Collegiate Athletic Association events, and competed in the Paralympic Games in 1996 Summer Paralympics, 1996 in Atlanta. In 1999, she began modeling, and, in 2002, she began an acting career. She has periodically spoken at conferences, including TED Talks. Early life and education Mullins was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S. to an Irish father Bernard Mullins from Crusheen, County Clare, Ireland and mother Bernadette Mullins. She was born with fibular hemimelia (missing fibula bones). As a result, both her legs were amputated below the knee when she was one year old. Her parents were told she would likely use a wheelchair for the rest of her life and never walk, but by the age of two she had learned to walk with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dominique Dawes
Dominique Margaux Dawes (born November 20, 1976) is a retired American artistic gymnast. Known in the gymnastics community as 'Awesome Dawesome', she was a 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team, the 1994 U.S. all-around senior National Champion, a three-time Olympian, a World Championship silver and bronze medalist, and a member of the gold-medal-winning " Magnificent Seven" team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She is also the Olympic bronze medalist on floor exercise from the Atlanta games. She is also one of only four female American gymnasts, along with Muriel Grossfeld, Linda Metheny-Mulvihill, and Simone Biles, to compete in three Olympics and was part of their medal-winning teams: Barcelona 1992 (bronze), Atlanta 1996 (gold), and Sydney 2000 (bronze). Dawes is the first female gymnast to be a part of three Olympic-medal-winning teams since Ludmilla Tourischeva won gold in Mexico City (1968), Munich (1972), and Montreal (1976). Since Dawes, Svetlana ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dawn Riley
Dawn Riley (born July 21, 1964) is an American sailor, and a pioneer in the sport of sailboat racing. She is in the National Sailing Hall of Fame and the international America's Cup Hall of Fame and the State of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. The only person to do this. She sailed in four America's Cups and two Whitbread Round the World races. She was the watch captain on ''Maiden'', the first all-women's entry in the Whitbread race, and was the team captain of the first all-women's team in the America's Cup. She later established the America True Foundation to encourage youth participation in sailing. Since 2010 she has run Oakcliff Sailing dedicated to ''Building American Leaders Through Sailing'' Early life Born in 1964, Dawn Riley grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Her parents were Chuck and Prudence Riley, and she was the eldest of three children. She began racing sailboats at age 13, and became Commodore of the Sea Scout program at the North Star Sail Club on Lake St. Clair. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julie Foudy
Julie Maurine Foudy ( ; born January 23, 1971) is an American retired soccer midfielder, two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist. She played for the United States women's national soccer team from 1988 to 2004. Foudy finished her international career with 274 caps and served as the team's captain from 2000 to 2004 as well as the co-captain from 1991 to 2000. In 1997, she was the first American and first woman to receive the FIFA Fair Play Award. From 2000 to 2002, Foudy served as president of the Women's Sports Foundation. In 2006, she co-founded the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy, an organization focused on developing leadership skills in teenage girls. In 2007, she was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame with her teammate, Mia Hamm. She is currently an analyst, reporter and the primary color commentator for women's soccer telecasts on ESPN. Foudy is the author of ''Choose to Matter: Being Courageously and Fabulously YOU' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
