by Natasha Khairullah
Staff Writer
Meninak members received a special treat Monday at their weekly luncheon when Guest Speaker Nancy Hogshead-Makar passed one of her most prized possessions around to the group.
Hogshead-Makar, a Florida Coastal School of Law professor and former Olympic swimmer, passed her 1984 Olympic gold medal around for members to look at while discussing how her experiences as a school athlete impacted her perspective on life as well as shaped her career in law.
“One of the reasons I let people see that medal is because I want them to know how much it means to me that I got to do what i did. The medal itself is not as valuable to me as the experiences I had,” she said.
“From those experiences, I learned who I was and what was important to me and I learned how to make something that was important to me, obtainable.”
Growing up in Jacksonville and attending Episcopal High School, Hogshead-Makar recalled nine years of training that included waking up at 4:45 a.m. to swim before school, during physical education class and for two hours after school from the time she was in seventh grade right up till her high school graduation.
“I definitely didn’t become an Olympic Triple Gold Medalist overnight,” she said. “It took a lot of hard work.”
At the meeting Hogshead-Makar, who received a full athletic scholarship to Duke University, also touched upon Title IX and discussed how it affected her. Since retiring from swimming, not only has she been a high-profile advocate of gender equity in sports, but she is also one of the nation’s foremost exponents of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, particularly within the context of intercollegiate sports.
“I thought I got my scholarship to Duke because I was good and because I earned it. It wasn’t until I learned about Title IX that I realized the opportunities it provided me with,” she said. “ I don’t think I could have gone to the level I did (without it).”
At FCSL, she teaches torts and sports law and is also the director of a legal advocacy center for women in sports.
“I wish I could say that the road (to Title IX compliance) has been smooth but it hasn’t,” she said, pointing out that the sports experience to a child is important: most people remember their sports experience more than they remember their social studies or math experience.
“Thankfully, there are so many men out there with daughters and all these guys really get how important the sports experience either was for their daughter or will be.”