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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birth name | Virginia Anne Gilder | ||||||||||||||
| Born | June 4, 1958 New York, New York, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Yale University (1979) | ||||||||||||||
| Occupation(s) | entrepreneur, investor | ||||||||||||||
| Other interests | co-owner of Seattle Storm | ||||||||||||||
| Website | ginnygilder | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Virginia Anne Gilder (born June 4, 1958), also known as Ginny Gilder, is a former American rower and Olympic silver medalist. Gilder is a co-owner of the Seattle Storm, a professional women's basketball team in the WNBA. [1] [2]
Gilder is the daughter of Richard Gilder and was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. [1] [3] She attended the Chapin School.followed by Dana Hall School where she graduated one year early. [1] [4]
In 1976, Gilder attended Yale University, graduating with a degree in history in 1979. [3] [1]
While at Yale, Gilder was on the women's crew team. However, there was no locker room available for the women's crew team, so they had to wait on the bus after practice while the men showered before they could return to campus. [5]
In 1976, she was part of a protest in which nineteen members of the Yale women's crew wrote "TITLE IX" on their bodies and went into athletic director Joni Barnett's office naked, and then rower Chris Ernst read a statement about the way they were being treated. [6] [7] [8] This protest was noted by newspapers around the world, including The New York Times . [8] [7] By 1977, a women's locker room was added to Yale's boathouse. [9]
Gilder was first selected for the U.S. Olympic team in 1980, the year that the United States boycotted the Olympic Games in Moscow, Russia. [1] She was one of 461 athletes to receive a Congressional Gold Medal many years later. [10] She was a member of the American women's quadruple sculls team that won the silver medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. [11]
She is the author of Course Correction: A Story of Rowing and Resilience in the Wake of Title IX which was released April 14, 2015 by Beacon Press. [12] The paperback and audiobook were released April 12, 2016.
Since 2012 she is married with Lynn Slaughter. [13]
Women's basketball is the team sport of basketball played by women. It was first played in 1892, one year after men's basketball, at Smith College in Massachusetts. It spread across the United States, in large parts via women's college competitions, and has since spread globally. As of 2020, basketball is one of the most popular and fastest growing sports in the world.
Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States. The first intercollegiate race was a contest between Yale and Harvard in 1852. In the 2018–19 school year, there were 2,340 male and 7,294 female collegiate rowers in Divisions I, II and III, according to the NCAA. The sport has grown since the first NCAA statistics were compiled for the 1981–82 school year, which reflected 2,053 male and 1,187 female collegiate rowers in the three divisions. Some concern has been raised that some recent female numbers are inflated by non-competing novices.
The Yale Bulldogs are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two NCAA national championships in women's fencing, four in men's swimming and diving, 21 in men's golf, one in men's hockey, one in men's lacrosse, and 16 in sailing.
Robert Douglas Espeseth Jr. an American former competitive rower and Olympic medal winner. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Richard Gilder Jr., was an American philanthropist and co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He also headed the brokerage firm Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co., whose specialty is trading leveraged stocks and shortselling. Gilder joined forces with George Soros in revitalizing Central Park, which galvanized the creation of the Central Park Conservancy, of which he was a trustee.
Michael Louis Vespoli is a former American rower and rowing coach. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Vespoli USA, Inc., a boat manufacturer in New Haven, Connecticut, that makes shells for rowing teams and individual rowers. Vespoli was born in New Haven, Connecticut.
Nudity is sometimes used as a tactic during a protest to attract media and public attention to a cause, and sometimes promotion of public nudity is itself the objective of a nude protest. The practice was first documented in the 1650s with Quakers "naked as a sign" practice. Later the tactic was used by svobodniki in Canada in 1903, and photographs of their nude protests have been published. The tactic has been used by other groups later in the century, especially after the 1960s. Like public nudity in general, the cultural and legal acceptance of nudity as a tactic in protest also varies around the world. Some opponents of any public nudity claim that it is indecent, especially when it can be viewed by children; while others argue that it is a legitimate form of expression covered by the right to free speech.
Anita Lucette DeFrantz is an American Olympic rower, member of the International Olympic Committee, and twice vice-president of International Rowing Federation (FISA).
Joan Louise Lind was an American rower.
Anne Marden is a rower from the United States. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
Carie Brand Graves was an American rower and collegiate rowing coach. Competing in the women's eights, she won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics and a bronze in 1976. She was also in the crew that in 1975 won the first national championship won by a University of Wisconsin varsity women’s team.
Anne Elizabeth Taubes Warner or Anne Warner Taubes is an American lawyer and a rower who competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics for the United States.
John Richard Terwilliger is an American former competitive rower and Olympic silver medalist.
Kelly Anne Rickon is an American former competitive rower and Olympic silver medalist.
Kristine Lee Norelius is an American former competitive rower and Olympic gold medalist.
Kathryn Elliott "Kathy" Keeler is an American former competitive rower and Olympic gold medalist. She was a member of the American women's eights team that won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, "the only women's crew in U.S. history to win an Olympic gold medal" until 2008.
Jeanne Ann Flanagan is an American former competitive rower and Olympic gold medalist.
The United States National Women’s Rowing Team is a select group of elite female athletes who represent the United States in international rowing competitions. The team first competed at the Olympics in 1976 and has had a multitude of successes. The implementation of Title IX during the 1970s had a large and positive impact on women’s collegiate rowing, and allowed for a growth in interest and talent in order for the creation of the national team. The team is selected through a competitive, in-depth process that is facilitated by USRowing each year. Tom Terhaar served as the national women’s head coach from 2001 until fall of 2021, and was a large part of the team's success in the past decade. The team’s eight (8+) won the gold medal at every summer Olympics between 2004 and 2016, finishing fourth at the 2021 Olympics. The US women's crew won every World Rowing Championships from 2005 through 2016. The eight (8+) also presently holds the world record at 5:54.160.
Christine Ernst is an American former rower. She was in 1986 World Rowing Championships and won gold in the women's lightweight doubles event. She led protest a 1976 at Yale University about the inadequate facilities provided to the women's crew—the first such challenge under Title IX.
Mary I. O’Connor was a 1980 U.S. Olympic team rower and an orthopedic surgeon, researcher, and professor with the Mayo Clinic and Yale School of Medicine. She was also a member of the 1976 Yale women's rowing team that protested inequalities, starting the Title IX movement to fight sexual discrimination in college athletics.
Virginia Gilder '79
