Nancy Hogshead-Makar

Nancy Hogshead-Makar is an Olympic champion, a civil rights lawyer, and CEO of Champion Women, a non-profit providing legal advocacy for girls and women in sports. Focus areas include equal play, such as traditional Title IX compliance in athletic departments, sexual harassment, abuse and assault, as well as employment, pregnancy and LGBT discrimination within sport. Hogshead-Makar led the eight-year effort to protect athletes from sexual abuse in club and Olympic sports, that is, sports not associated with schools. Most recently, she galvanized the sport, child protection, and civil rights communities in support of a new federal law, the SafeSport Act, signed into law in February 2018. As an internationally recognized legal expert on sports issues, Hogshead-Makar has testified in Congress numerous times on the topic of gender equity in athletics, written numerous scholarly and lay articles, served as an expert witness in Title IX cases and has written amicus briefs representing athletic organizations in precedent-setting litigation, and is a frequent guest on national news programs on the topic, including CNN, ESPN, NPR, Fox News, MSNBC and 60 Minutes. Her book, co-authored with Andrew Zimbalist, Equal Play, Title IX and Social Change, has received acclaim since its release by Temple University Press. She was the lead author of Pregnant and Parenting Student-Athletes; Resources and Model Policies, published by the NCAA, and her book chapter, The Ethics of Title IX and Gender Equity for Coaches, appears in The Ethics of Coaching Sports; Moral, Social and Legal Issues, edited by Robert L. Simon. Hogshead-Makar has received significant awards recognizing her commitment to girls and women in athletics, from the International Olympic Committee, the National Organization for Women, the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators, the Alliance of Women Coaches, SHAPE America, and the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Award. She has been inducted into the Academic All-America Hall of Fame, the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame, the National Consortium for Academics and Sports Hall of Fame, the National Association for Sports and Physical Education Hall of Fame, and she has received an honorary doctorate from Springfield College. Hogshead-Makar capped eight years as a world class swimmer at the 1984 Olympics, where she won three gold medals and one silver medal. Through high school and college dual meets she was undefeated. Other major awards include the Nathan Mallison Award, given to Florida’s outstanding athlete, and the prestigious Kiphuth Award, given to America’s best all-around swimmer nationally. Hogshead-Makar has been inducted into eleven halls of fame, including the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She and her husband Scott Makar, a judge on Florida’s First District Court of Appeal, have a son and twin daughters. They are continuously restoring their 1920s Mediterranean home.