Donna de Varona

Donna de Varona Pinto (née Donna Elizabeth de Varona; born April 26, 1947) is an American former swimmer, Olympic champion, activist, and television sportscaster.

Biography

Swimming career de Varona attended Santa Clara High School, whose swim team was coached for a period by George Haines. In 1960, de Varona qualified for the U.S. Olympic swimming team at age 13. She already held the world record in her signature event, the 400-meter individual medley, but the event would not be added to the Olympic schedule until the 1964 Olympics. At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, De Varona swam for the U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the women's 4×100 freestyle relay, but she did not receive a gold medal because she did not swim in the event final. Four years later at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, after she was well on her way to setting a career total of eighteen world best times and world records, she won the gold medal in the women's 400-meter individual medley. She defeated the second-place finisher by a margin of six seconds and set an Olympic record. She also earned a second gold medal as a member of the world-record-setting U.S. team in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. De Varona retired from swimming and began her career in the male-dominated world of sports broadcasting.

Professional life At the age of 17, she appeared on ABC's Wide World of Sports, becoming the youngest and one of the first women sportscasters for a national network.

A promoter of women in sport, in the mid-1970s, she joined Billie Jean King in establishing the Women's Sports Foundation. She served as the first president (1979–1984) and subsequently, became the chairman and honorary trustee for the foundation. Under de Varona's leadership, the Women's Sport Foundation initiated the Hall of Fame Dinner (now the Annual Salute to Women in Sports Awards Dinner), Travel and Training Grants, research projects, a toll-free telephone number and annual visits to Washington, D.C., to educate Congress about Title IX and the importance of providing sport and physical activity opportunities on an equitable basis to both men and women. Over the years, the foundation has raised more than $30 million to support its programs.

From 1997 to 1999, de Varona chaired the organizing committee for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. Recognized as the most successful women's sporting event in history, de Varona, a U.S. Olympic Hall of Famer, is a recipient of the Olympic Order, the highest honor presented by the International Olympic Committee. In 1999, Sports Illustrated for Women ranked her on its list of the "100 Greatest Athletes." She has also been awarded five honorary doctorates and in 2003, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Honors Committee awarded her the Theodore Roosevelt Award.

In 2000, de Varona sued ABC Sports for $50 million, saying she was fired because of her sex and age. She filed the lawsuit after working at ABC for over 30 years. The suit was dropped in 2002 when ABC Sports rehired de Varona as an ABC & ESPN liaison for domestic and international sports, plus on-air work for certain events. She said "Filing was the hardest thing I'd ever done. I'd been associated with ABC since I was 14, when I was swimming, and I grew from commentator to producer to adviser to Roone Arledge", the first president of ABC Sports.

In the fall of 2007, de Varona completed a documentary as a host, writer, and producer. This was done in observation of the 35th anniversary of Title IX, which was the legislation that outlawed discrimination in school programs, including sports. The CSTV documentary, which won a Cine Golden Eagle Award, focused on the impact of Title IX and how one recipient of a sports scholarship in America has been influential in changing attitudes and customs in the Middle East as well as within the International Olympic Committee. The program featured Morocco's minister of sports, Nawal El Moutawakel, who in 1984 became the first Muslim and African woman to win an Olympic gold medal, and in 2012 was elected vice president of the International Olympic Committee.

She was inducted to the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 1969. She also serves on the distinguished Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC), which recommends subjects who appear on U.S. postage stamps. She is a 1986 graduate of UCLA and the mother of two children: Joanna Pinto and John David Pinto.

De Varona serves on the executive board of Special Olympics International and is a member of the International Olympic Committee's Women and Sports Commission. She is also a board member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame and serves as an adviser to Jordan's Prince Feisal's Generations for Peace Foundation and Tony Blair's Beyond Sport Initiative. Most recently, de Varona was appointed to the United States Department of State's Empowerment of Girls and Women through Sports Council by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She is also President of DAMAR Productions, a marketing, consulting and events advisory company. She was also the chair of the Athlete Advisory Committee for the 2019 Aurora Games.

Activism In 2020, de Varona, along with 300+ women athletes and activists, signed a letter to the National Collegiate Athletic Association in support of an Idaho law that bans transgender women student athletes from competing in women's and girls' sports. Citing the importance of the letter to safeguard the integrity of women's sports, De Varona remarked, "I agree with the letter. Those that want to compete as transgender male to female athletes should be accommodated in a separate or more creative manner."

In 2021, de Varona joined the Women's Sports Policy Working Group, formed in opposition to President Joe Biden's Executive Order 13988 that mandates blanket inclusion for all transgender women athletes. To achieve this end, the Order's stated goal is "protecting the girls’ and women's competitive categories, while crafting accommodations for trans athletes into sport wherever possible."

Personal life In 1986, de Varona graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her younger sister is actress-director Joanna Kerns.