A

Donna de Varona

1947-

American swimmer

When she qualified for the U.S. swim team for the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome, Donna de Varona was only 13 years old, the youngest member of the Games that year. Four years later she won two gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics. She remains a world record holder in numerous events, including the sport's most challenging one, the 400-meter individual

medley, and the 100-meter backstroke. The individual medley requires enormous strength, flexibility, and endurance; competitors must swim four 100-meter laps, one for each stroke, including backstroke, freestyle (crawl), butterfly, and breast. Always up for a challenge, it is no surprise that the individual medley was always de Varona's favorite event. De Varona went on to become ABC's first full-time female sportscaster. In a controversial legal dispute, de Varona sued ABC Sports, charging age and gender discrimination. That battle won, she continues her award-winning career as a broadcast sports journalist.

Team Member "0"

De Varona was raised in Southern California by a family she has characterized as tightly knit and supportive. Her father, David, was an insurance salesman and a former All-American football player and rower At the University of California who encouraged his four children in athletics. De Varona's sister, Joanna Kerns, (best known for her role as the mother on ABC's Growing Pains) studied gymnastics until she took up acting, as did sister Sandra. Brother David joined Little League until a knee jury sidelined him and he took up swimming.

Young Donna had been eager to play baseball with her brother and the neighborhood boys but was denied the chance due to her gender. "I spent all my money on bubble gum so I could bribe my way into the Little League," she said in an interview with Women's Sports & Fitness magazine. But all she got for her effort was a uniform with the number "0" on it and the privilege of retrieving the team's bats. She stored that memory, which motivated her to fight for equality later.

Swimming gave the spirited youth the outlet she needed. "I got in trouble until I started to swim," de Varona admitted to Women's Sports & Fitness. As an adolescent, she trained with some of the sport's top coaches, including George Haines, the legendary coach of seven U.S. Olympic teams between 1960 and 1984. She was soon committed athletically and academically, maintaining a B average while training up to six hours a day.

When de Varona returned to the Olympic team in 1964, the 17-year-old had broken 18 world swimming records and ten American records while capturing two gold medals at the Summer Games in Tokyo. In winning the 400-meter individual medley, de Varona set a world record of 5:18.7. She and teammates Sharon Stouder, Pokey Watson and Kathy Ellis won the gold in the 400-meter freestyle relay, another record-breaking achievement at 4:03.8. But even before the Olympics, the blonde de Varona had come to define swimming in America. She had appeared on the cover of newspapers and magazines such as Life, Time, Saturday Evening Post, and Sports Illustrated.

She enrolled in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and majored in political science. Like most colleges of the time, UCLA had no women's athletics department. Seeing that she couldn't compete for a college team, de Varona formally retired from swimming. This freed her to accept a job with ABC, which had previously consulted the young student about where they should focus their cameras. While under contract with ABC and while still at UCLA, de Varona volunteered in the government-funded program Operation Champ, which worked with inner-city children. De Varona testified before Congress advocating government's continued and increased funding of programs for kids. Suddenly, she realized she was learning so much outside of college that she left, two finals short of her degree.

Broadcasting Beckons

In 1964, the Associated Press and United Press International voted de Varona most outstanding female athlete in the world. At the 1965 men's Amateur Athletic Union national championships, she made her debut in swimming commentary for ABC's Wide World of Sports with Jim McKay. She was a trailblazer at age 17, the first female network television sportscaster.

She became host, special reporter, and analyst for many of the network's high-profile programs, including ABC Sports and ABC News. She covered the Summer Olympics for ABC from 1968 to 1976, and again in 1984 and 1996, and the Winter Olympics in 1984, 1988, and 1994. From 1978 to 1983, she worked for the NBC network on Sports-world and the sports segments of the Today Show. As part of the team of journalists telecasting the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics for Turner Network Television, de Varona, who presented feature stories on female athletes, was instrumental in the cable network's exceptional ratings.

The former Olympic champion received a prestigious Emmy Award, for her coverage of an athlete competing in the 1991 Special Olympics. Seven years later she received an Emmy nomination for Keepers of the Flame, an ABC Olympic television special, which she co-produced, wrote, and narrated.

De Varona in 1994 provided extensive coverage of the feud between American figure skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. (In January, Harding's boyfriend, Jeff Gillooly, clubbed Kerrigan in the knees in an attempt to eliminate her from the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Harding claimed to have no foreknowledge of the event.) De Varona appeared on ABC's World News Tonight, Good Morning America, Weekend News, ABC's Wide World of Sports, and various talk shows. She also followed the story to Norway, and covered the athletic events. Two years later, when the Summer Olympics were in Atlanta, de Varona anchored Good Morning America's Olympic coverage, while broadcasting the days' results on ABC Radio.

Since 1998, de Varona has been a weekly commentator for Sporting News Radio, a 24-hour sports radio network. De Varona covered her 12th Olympic Games in 2000 when she signed on with NBC for the Games in Sydney, Australia. At those Games, the International Olympic Committee presented de Varona with its highest award, the Olympic Order.

Asterisk After Her Name

De Varona has been active in a variety of organizations and committees. She has been an adviser to President Ford's Commission on Olympic Sports and President Carter's Women's Advisory Commission, and served five terms on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. From its inception in 1969, to 1988, de Varona has sat on the board of the Special Olympics. She was also consultant on Title IX legislation, which became law in 1972 and prohibits sex discrimination in sports. She finally earned her degree in 1986 upon completion of two assignments: one on the history of amateur sports legislation and the other on the impact on women's sports of Title IX.

Shortly after the adoption of Title IX, de Varona and tennis champion Billie Jean King founded the Women's Sports Foundation in 1974, de Varona serving as its first president. "The effort I had put forth in my swimming career gave me the stamina to become an activist for Olympic athletes and women, raising money and awareness," de Varona told USA Swimming online. "The world is political and you have to fight. Once you've been able to reach goals, like winning Olympic gold medals, no one can take that effort away. That accomplishment opens doors. It's like having an asterisk after your name." De Varona has received dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including the National Collegiate Athletic Association's highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Award.

A $50 Million Lawsuit

In April 1998, ABC did not renew de Varona's contract. Their reason for firing her was, allegedly, her "failing to appeal to a male demographic of ages eighteen to thirty-nine." Charging age and gender discrimination under federal law, de Varona shot back with a $50 million lawsuit. In her complaint, de Varona asserted that male veteran colleagues, such as Frank Gifford, then 69, received preferential assignments. "It took a lot of soul-searching," de Varona told People. "It would have been much easier to walk away, but I felt I had to do it."

The suit was settled out of court in 2002, and de Varona rejoined ABC Sports as a commentator and reporter.

Fights for Women's Sports

De Varona left ABC once before, in 1976, after facing what she termed "discriminatory barriers" as a female sportscaster. The NBC network soon swept her up. ABC Sports enticed her back in 1983, when de Varona assumed a management position and went on to cover such events as the Harding-Kerrigan scandal, the New York City Marathon, the Indianapolis 500 auto race, and several Olympic Games.

De Varona has never backed down from supporting justice for women in amateur and professional athletics. "I will always be an activist," she told Women's Sports and Fitness. "That is a lifetime commitment."

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: c/o Women's Sports Foundation, Eisenhower Park, East Meadow, NY 11554. Fax: 1-800-227-3988. Email: wosportpr@aol.com. Online: www.womenssportsfoundation.org.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY DE VARONA:

(With Barry Tarshis) Donna de Varona's Hydro-Aerobics, New York: Fawcett, 1986.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Johnson, Anne Janette. Great Women in Sports, Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1996.

Pemberton, Cynthia Lee A. More Than a Game: One Woman's Fight for Gender Equity in Sport. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002.

Periodicals

"Donna de Varona Receives NCAA's Highest Honor; 2003 Theodore Roosevelt Award." PR Newswire (December 5, 2002).

Grossman, Andrew. "De Varona Plans to Return to ABC as Lawsuit Is Settled." Hollywood Reporter (October 1, 2002): 4.

"Making Waves: Olympian Donna de Varona Charges ABC Fired Her because of Her Age." People (May 15, 2000): 89.

Schneider, Michael. "De Varona Accuses ABC of Bias." Variety (April 17, 2000): 47.

Other

"Donna de Varona Receives NCAA's Highest Honor: 2003 Theodore Roosevelt Award." NCAA. www.ncaa.org/ (December 30, 2002).

"Donna de Varona Rejoins ABC Sports." ABC Sports. espn.go.com/(December 30, 2002).

Geocities.com. www.geocities.com/ (January 10, 2003).

Hickok Sports.com. www.hickoksports.com/ (December 30, 2002).

Hiss & Pop. www.hissandpop.com/ (January 10, 2003).

HOBY Organization. www.hoby.org/ (January 13, 2003).

Hollywood.com. www.hollywood.com/ (January 10, 2003).

Internet Movie Database. www.imdb.com/ (January 10, 2003).

Olympic Aid. www.olympicaid.org/ (January 10, 2003).

Rogers, Roger. "The Players Who Are the NSA." Women's Soccer World, www.womensoccer.com/ (January 11, 2003).

Schwimmverein Limmat. www.svl.ch/ (January 11, 2003).

Sporting News Radio. radio.sportingnews.com/(December 30, 2002).

Swingin Chicks. www.swinginchicks.com/ (December 30, 2002).

USA Swimming. www.usa-swimming.org/ (December 30, 2002).

Women's Sports Foundation. www.womenssportsfoundation.org/ (January 13, 2003).

Yahoo! Movies, movies.yahoo.com/(January 10, 2003).

Sketch by Jane Summer