Athletes

Mariah Burton Nelson is the author of three books: Embracing Victory: Life Lessons in Competition and Compassion, The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports, and Are We Winning Yet? How Women Are Changing Sports and Sports Are Changing Women. Her book on forgiveness will be published by Harper San Francisco in 2000.

Nelson majored in psychology at Stanford (‘78), where she was the captain and leading scorer of the basketball team, averaging 19 points per game. One rebounding record remains unbroken. She played for pro teams in France and the United States and later received a masters in public health. A former weekly columnist for the Washington Post and editor of the Women's Sports and Fitness magazine, she has written for The New York Times, USA Today, Ms., Glamour, Shape, Fitness, Cosmopolitan, and many other periodicals. She also wrote the first and only nationally syndicated women's sports column, for Knight-Rider/Tribune, distributed to 320 newspapers.

In her role as the nation's leading expert on gender, sports and competition, she has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Phil Donahue Show, Larry King Live, Dateline; CBS' Evening News; Crossfire, Geraldo Rivera; Primetime Live, and hundreds of other shows. She has won numerous awards for her writing and speaking, including the Amateur Athletic Foundation's Book Award, the Women's Sports Foundation's Magazine Journalism Award, and the National Association of Girls and Women in Sport's Guiding Woman in Sports Hall of Fame. Nelson offers several dozen lectures each year to professionals and students. Audiences range from the Young Presidents Organization to the National Women's Political Caucus, from Radcliffe to Rutgers.

Still an athlete, Nelson now plays golf and competes in masters swimming (her time for the mile is in the top five nationally for her age group) and coaches her mother, Sarah Burton Nelson, who holds three Arizona breaststroke records for women aged 70-74.