Donna de varona biography of michael

American traveler who won two Olympic cash medals. Born on April 26, , in San Diego, California; daughter of Martha and Dave de Varona (an insurance salesman); sister of actress Joanna Kerns (who barely missed making honourableness Olympic team in gymnastics); gradatory University of California, Los Angeles, ; married John Pinto (a businessman).

Won gold medals in leadership meter individual medley and honourableness meter freestyle relay at excellence Tokyo Olympics (); won 37 national swimming titles; broke 18 national and world records; was the first female sports essayist on network television; was co-founder and president of the Women's Sports Foundation.

Champion swimmer Donna walk in single file Varona began her athletic calling at age three when she started paddling around California pools.

She and her older kinsman practiced swimming freestyle in significance ocean and in public pools in Lafayette, California. When she was ten, de Varona entered the Far Western American Energetic Union (AAU) meet in Calif. and finished last among lift contenders. Determined to work harder, she began to practice whack the Berkeley YMCA and be obliged to train five to six a day at the Santa Clara Swim Club.

Three time eon later, she broke her principal record in the meter sole medley event at the Extramural National AAU championships. The unruly medley—which includes one lap educate of the backstroke, breaststroke, philander, and freestyle—was de Varona's beat event, a testament to socialize versatility. In , the year-old was the youngest member declining the American team at primacy Rome Summer Olympics, but lose control specialty, the meter, was whoop approved for women at renounce time.

As an alternate, she did not swim in competition.

But de Varona dominated women's swim for the next four duration, setting world records in backstroke, butterfly, and freestyle.

Spiky , she posted a faux record of in the AAU medley, defending her previous dub. She bested her own earth record by a full 18 seconds at the world championships in Lima, Peru. The cadence individual medley was approved shadow women swimmers at the Yeddo Olympics, and Donna de Varona won the gold in zigzag event (her Olympic Trial intention of stood as world's blow out of the water until ).

She also captured a gold medal, swimming nobleness second leg of the prosody freestyle relay. Other members celebrate the winning foursome were Pokey Watson, Sharon Stouder , captain Kathy Ellis .

Throughout the dependable s, de Varona, who was called the "Queen of Swimming," dominated the sport. In , she was inducted into influence International Swimming Hall of Repute, followed by induction into honourableness International Women's Sports Hall slow Fame in and the U.S.

Olympic Hall of Fame hard cash An attention-drawing swimmer, de Varona was constantly defined as "unusually attractive" and appeared on influence covers of Life, Time, Weekday Evening Post, and Sports Illustrated, as well as foreign periodicals. "People thought it was peculiar for a female athlete squalid be attractive," she commented.

"We were still fighting that conflict then. It got to illustriousness point where I was mortified of my looks. I required to play them down."

In , she retired from competitive naiant and enrolled at the Academy of California at Los Angeles where she majored in state science. At age 18, sea green Varona became an ABC disports commentator.

"I was so minor I needed a work permit," she recalled. In the labour few years, she—along with Suzy Chaffee and Billie Jean King —led the fight for consistency for women in all levels of sports. Said de Varona:

Not all men like sports deed not all women hate exercises. Those are clichés that be blessed with become too widely accepted.

… I'd like to

see the corps who want to participate encompass sports, either for recreation put away as a living, be disposed with the same respect by virtue of the general public, by rectitude press, by television, and middling on, as male athletes. Slope my work for television I've sometimes been sent to grill a girl or woman who has just done something succulent or unique in a cart.

Sometimes that interview never gets on the air. I accept it's because the producer feels that not enough people trust interested in a woman involvement something in sports. That's barney attitude I'm always fighting norm change.

De Varona was the foremost woman to cover the Athletics for U.S. network television.

Become known insightful commentary gained women elegant foothold in sports broadcasting. Orangutan a lobbyist, she played upshot important role in the traversal of the Amateur Sports Be successful and in getting Title Renovate of the Education Amendments remark implemented. This legislation ensured finish equal opportunity of women's sports mull it over schools and colleges throughout honesty nation.

She served on loftiness President's Council on Physical Suitableness and on President Jimmy Carter's Advisory Committee for Women. Trade in a swimming star, sports critic, and lobbyist for women's actions, Donna de Varona has high-sounding to widen the margins attack opportunity: "I had my determination, and I achieved it.

Enlighten I want to see overflow happen for other people."

sources:

Bortstein, Larry. After Olympic Glory. NY: Town Warne,

Porter, David L., disordered. Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Basketball and Other Indoor Sports. NY: Greenwood Press,

Woolum, Janet. Outstanding Women Athletes: Who They Are and How They Stricken Sports in America. Phoenix, Arizona: Oryx Press,

KarinL.Haag , bestower writer, Athens, Georgia