Donna de Varona

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Donna de Varona : biography

April 26, 1947 –

From 1997 to 1999, de Varona chaired the organizing committee for the Women’s World Cup Soccer tournament. 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 2003, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Honors Committee awarded her the Theodore Roosevelt Award. In 1999, Sports Illustrated for Women ranked her on its list of the "100 Greatest Athletes." She has also been awarded five honorary doctorates.

De Varona is a special advisor to Jordan’s Prince Feisal and is helping him launch his Generations for Peace through Sport initiative. In the fall of 2007 in observation of the 35th anniversary of title IX, the law that outlawed discrimination in school programs including sports, she completed a documentary as a host, writer and producer. The CSTV documentary, which won a Cine Golden Eagle Award, focused on the impact of Title nine 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 Sport, 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.

On October 4, 2004, de Varona was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. She also serves on the distinguished Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC), which recommends the subjects to 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 Ms. 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 President of DAMAR Productions, a marketing, consulting and events advisory company.

Personal life

De Varona graduated in 1986 from UCLA. Her younger sister is actress-director Joanna Kerns, who played Maggie Seaver on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains.