College Sports Information Directors of America

A letter to CoSIDA Academic All-America Committee Chair Dick Lipe

Dear Dick,

I can’t thank you enough for the honor of being inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame. It was a beautifully produced event, and I thoroughly relished being a part of the festivities. It was a privilege to meet the other inductees, and I enjoyed our dinner together. The organization’s recognition of the marriage between athletics and academics –their mutually supportive roles -- represents the best of collegiate athletics, and makes a good case for keeping athletics housed within academics. Please let me know if I can help the organization in its future endeavors.

Warm regards,

Nancy Hogshead-Makar
Professor of Law
Florida Coastal School of Law (Jacksonville, Florida)

NANCY HOGSHEAD-MAKAR
One of the greatest swimmers in Olympic history, Nancy Hogshead-Makar has enjoyed great success both in the athletic and academic communities throughout her career.

Hogshead-Makar, who is this year’s honorary Hall of Fame inductee, showed her brilliance in the pool in just one season of competition at Duke, where she captured four individual ACC championships and earned two All-America accolades. Hogshead-Makar set school records in all nine events that she swam for the Blue Devils, one of which still stands today, and she earned her degree in Political Science from Duke in 1986.

Hogshead-Makar’s swimming success did not end in Durham and was thrust onto an international stage in Los Angeles during the 1984 Summer Olympics, where she captured gold medals in the 100 freestyle, 400 freestyle relay and 400 medley relay and a silver medal in the 200 intermediate. She also served as a swimming analyst for several major networks at the 1986 Goodwill Games and the 1990 Olympic Games.

One of the country’s foremost experts as an attorney for gender equity within athletics, Hogshead-Makar serves currently as a Professor of Law at the Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, Fla. after working for four years in the firm of Holland & Knight. She served as President of the Women’s Sports Foundation from 1992 through 1994 and served as an advisor to President Clinton on the National Service Act. Hogshead-Makar, who became the first female inductee into Duke’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1994, has served on the boards of numerous companies and organizations and earned her law degree from Georgetown University in 1997.

The honorary category allows CoSIDA to recognize outstanding student-athletes who didn't have the opportunity to earn Academic All-America honors because the program didn't exist in their sport at the time they were competing. Past honorary inductees have included Governor Raymond Shafer of Pennsylvania, Supreme Court Justice Byron White, Coach John Wooden and Rolf Benirschke of the San Diego Chargers.