Nancy Hogshead

Hogshead capped eight years as a world-class swimmer at the 1984 Olympics, where she won three gold medals and one silver medal. She is a two-time Olympian, qualifying for the 1980 Olympics as well. She was undefeated through high school and college dual meets. Major awards include the Nathan Mallison Award, given to Florida’s outstanding athlete, and the prestigious Kiphuth Award, given to America’s best all-around swimmer nationally. Sports Illustrated ranked her as Florida’s 13th greatest athlete of the 20th Century, and Florida’s 3rd greatest woman athlete. Hogshead has been inducted into eleven sports Halls of Fame, including the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

She and Champion Women have been leading a 14-year effort to protect athletes from sexual abuse in club and Olympic sports, that is, sports not associated with schools. She galvanized the athlete, sport, child protection, and civil rights communities in support of two new federal laws:

• Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and SafeSport Authorization Act, 2018
• Empowering Olympians, Paralympians and Amateur Athletes Act of 2020

Hogshead recently served on a Congressional Commission on the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, appointed by Senator Maria Cantwell. The Commission examined the Olympic Movement and recommended changes to Congress. Those proposals are now being debated in the legislature.

As an internationally recognized legal expert on sports issues, Hogshead has testified in Congress numerous times and written numerous scholarly and lay articles. Her book, co-authored with Andrew Zimbalist, Equal Play, Title IX and Social Change, has received acclaim. The book tracks the history of the law and how it wove between Congress, the administrative agencies, the courts, and public opinion. She was the lead author of Pregnant and Parenting Student-Athletes: Resources and Model Policies, published by the NCAA. She serves as an expert witness in Title IX athletics, sexual abuse, violence, and harassment cases and writes amicus briefs representing athletic organizations in precedent-setting litigation. Hogshead has a passion for teaching; she was a tenured Professor of Law, before founding Champion Women. She has taught Sports Law, Administration, and Human Rights courses for 20 years, most recently in the Rutgers’ Global Sports Business Graduate Program.

As a founding member of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, Hogshead and Champion Women are at the forefront of affirming the legal permissibility of formal sex segregation in sports and driving change in this area.

Leadership roles include serving on the NCAA Task Force on Gender Equity, the boards of Equality League, the Association of Title IX Administrators, the Aspen Institute’s Sport and Society, and the One Love Foundation, the editorial board of the Journal of Intercollegiate Sport, and the Executive Committee of the World Olympians Association. She was the Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Committee on the Rights of Women for nine years.

Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal listed Hogshead as a “Power Player.” Sports Illustrated Magazine listed her as “one of the most influential people in the history of Title IX,” and on their list of “the most powerful, most influential and most outstanding women in sports right now—the game-changers who are speaking out, setting the bar and making a difference.”

Hogshead has received significant awards recognizing her advocacy for girls and women in athletics from the International Olympic Committee, the National Organization for Women, the Drake Group, Women Leaders in College Sports, WeCOACH, and SHAPE America. She received the Play the Game Award, and the Kate Stoneman Award for her service to women in the legal profession. She has been inducted into the Academic All-America Hall of Fame, the International Scholar-Athlete, the National Consortium for Academics and Sports, and the National Association for Sports and Physical Education Halls of Fame, and she has received an honorary doctorate from Springfield College.

International Olympic Committee, “Women in Sport” Award

Interview with an Olympian - Nancy Hogshead-Makar

Women In Business, Lifetime Achievement Honoree - Nancy Hogshead-Makar

WJCT, PBS , 2 minutes with Nancy Hogshead