Virginia Gilder

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]

Ginny Gilder
Personal information
Birth nameVirginia Anne Gilder
Born (1958-06-04) June 4, 1958
New York, New York, U.S.
Alma materYale University (1979)
Occupationentrepreneur, investor
Other interestsco-owner of Seattle Storm
Websiteginnygilder.com
Medal record
Women's rowing
Representing the  United States
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place 1984 Los Angeles Coxed quad sculls

Early life

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]

Rowing career

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]

Author and private life

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]

References
  1. Brewer, Jerry (September 25, 2012). "Storm co-owner Gilder's resolve takes your breath away". Seattle Times.
  2. "Force 10 Hoops LLC". Seattle Storm / WNBA. Retrieved December 31, 2013.
  3. Borzilleri, Meri-Jo (March–April 2011). "Taking Seattle by Storm". Yale Alumni Magazine. Virginia Gilder '79
  4. "Virginia "Ginny" Gilder 1976". February 9, 2021. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  5. O'Connor, Karen (August 18, 2010). Gender and Women's Leadership: A Reference Handbook. SAGE. p. 855. ISBN 978-1-4129-6083-0.
  6. "Gilder: A force for change". Yale Daily News. April 17, 2015.
  7. "How a naked protest changed women's rowing forever". Sports.yahoo.com. August 13, 2016. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
  8. "YALE HEARD NAKED TRUTH IN PROTEST". Hartford Courant.
  9. Wulf, Steve (June 14, 2012). "ESPN The Magazine - The 1976 protest that helped define Title IX movement". Espn.com. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
  10. Caroccioli, Tom; Caroccioli, Jerry. Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. Highland Park, IL: New Chapter Press. pp. 243–253. ISBN 978-0942257403.
  11. Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Ginny Gilder". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020.
  12. Gilder, Ginny (April 14, 2015). Course Correction: A Story of Rowing and Resilience in the Wake of Title IX. Beacon Press. ISBN 9780807074770.
  13. Outsports: Honorees 21-30: Outsports Power 100, the most influential LGBTQ people in sports , 27 June, 2023
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