Nancy Hogshead Makar

Swimming

Hogshead was born in Iowa City, Iowa but her family afterwards moved to Florida. Hogshead was a champion swimmer while at Episcopal High School of Jacksonville in Jacksonville and Gainesville High School. She won three national butterfly championships: 100 yards and 200 metres in 1977 and the 200-yard event in 1978. The next year while still in high school, Nancy left home to train for the 1980 Olympics with the University of Florida swim team. She qualified for the team, but the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow kept her home.

Duke University offered Hogshead its first swimming scholarship. There, she was again undefeated in dual meets and set a school record in eight different events; one of which stood until 2011. She only swam for one year at Duke, but she was a four-time ACC champion and two-time All-American for 1981.

Hogshead was red-shirted by Duke University after the fall of 1981 after she was raped by a stranger while running between campuses, and suffered from PTSD for several months. In the fall of 1982, her coach offered her a scholarship and a position on the team if she merely showed up at the competitions. Entering competitive swimming awakened competitive juices. She left Duke in the spring semester of 1983 to train full-time for the 1984 Olympics. This time she switched from butterfly to freestyle. She won the 1984 National indoor 200-yard event and qualified for the 1984 US swimming team.

Olympics

At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she swam the finals in the women's 100m freestyle. Hogshead and teammate Carrie Steinseifer had identical times and both were awarded gold medals in the first tie in Olympic swimming. Hogshead also won golds in the 4 × 100 m freestyle and the 4 × 100 m medley teams, and a silver in the 200m individual medley. During one race, wherein she missed a bronze medal by 7/100th of a second, she suffered a bronchial spasm that led to a diagnosis of asthma. After the initial disbelief, she accepted her condition and learned to monitor and control it.

Asthma

She retired from competitive swimming, and with her Olympic fame, began to lecture around the world about asthma management. GlaxoSmithKline sponsored her as she spoke to over 100 groups each year across the US and internationally. Hogshead earned the title of National Spokesperson for the American Lung Association. Hogshead authored the 1990 book, Asthma and Exercise, the first comprehensive book on the topic of asthma and sports. The book tells inspirational stories of athletes who learned to manage their condition.

Career choice

While in college, Hogshead was an intern at the Women's Sports Foundation. The organization had a strong influence on her career direction and she has worked with the group for thirty years. She served on the board of trustees from 1987 to 1993 and as its President from 1993 to 1994. She is currently the Senior Director of Advocacy for the Women's Sports Foundation. Hogshead realized that a person must understand the law in order to be an effective advocate for equity in collegiate sports using Title IX. She applied to and was accepted at Georgetown Law. In 1991 Hogshead was an underwear model in a well-publicized Jockey for Her advertisement.

Legal career

After graduating from Georgetown University Law Center in 1997, she returned to Jacksonville in private practice at Holland & Knight, LLP. She represented student-athletes and universities in Title IX matters with the goal of achieving legal compliance without litigation. Hogshead has been a high-profile advocate of gender equity in sports and a specialist on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Hogshead married Scott Makar, a fellow lawyer at Holland & Knight, on October 10, 1999, and hyphenated his surname to her maiden name. Her husband served as Florida Solicitor General (FSG) upon his appointment by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum in February 2007. He is currently a state appellate judge, serving as a member of the Florida First District Court of Appeal. The couple has a son, Aaron, and twin daughters, Helen-Clare and Millicent.

From 2001 – 2013, Hogshead-Makar was a tenured professor on the faculty at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, where she taught torts and sports law courses, including "Gender Equity in Athletics." From 2004 – 2012 she was the Co-Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Committee on the Rights of Women. From 2009 – 2013 she was a board member on The Forum for the Scholarly Study of Intercollegiate Athletics in Higher Education, and served on the editorial board of the Journal of Intercollegiate Sport. Since 2011, she has served as a board member on the Aspen Institute, "Sport and Society". Since 2011, she has been an advisory board member of the Association of Title IX Administrators "ATIXA" 2011 – present From 2007 – 2010, she served on The Florida Governor's Council on Physical Fitness. The council provided Governor Crist with a state plan of action to promote physical fitness and nutrition, particularly among children. She has been an evaluator for missed drug tests by the United States Anti-Doping Agency ("USADA") since 2003. She was a founding member of FCSL's Sports Law Center, offering students a certificate in Sports Law program, from 2004 – 2013.

Hogshead-Makar has testified in Congress numerous times and has served on two Presidential committees on gender in sports. In 2007, she co-edited the book Equal Play; Title IX and Social Change with economist Andrew Zimbalist. She has written numerous scholarly and lay articles. She is widely quoted and interviewed on topics related to gender equity, including participation, treatment, scholarships, sexual harassment and assault and pregnancy discrimination.

Awards and honors