ORLANDO, Florida -- Trying to gain the attention of a roomful of college students might intimidate some, but not Diana Nyad, the keynote speaker at the 2000 NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference.

That's probably because Nyad, an accomplished athlete and respected sports journalist, has overcome more fearsome challenges in her lifetime, like swimming 102 miles from the island of Bimini to the Florida coast to break the distance swim world record by almost 40 miles.

With a speech that was both humorous and poignant, triumphant and eye-popping, Nyad commanded the attention of the Fiesta Ballroom Monday morning to start the week with a bang and, hopefully, words to live by.

"It's often said that people from sports believe in a black-and-white philosophy: When the going gets tough, the tough get going," Nyad said.

She is living proof.

As one of the top swimmers in the country at age 14, Nyad said, "I used to go to bed with a vision of me bowing my head to receive the Olympic gold medal."

But emotionally absent parents and a violent sexual assault by her then-beloved swim coach cut short that dream in ways Nyad said she could understand only years later.

During the drive to a swim meet with that same coach, moments after the assault, Nyad said, "I remember staring out the window thinking my life would never be the same."

For the first time in her swimming career, she lost. "I tried to get back in the groove, but as you can imagine, something was a little different."

At the qualifying meet for the 1972 Mexico City Olympics, Nyad made it to the finals in just one event. She said she remembers "zoning out" just before the finals until one of her teammates grabbed her and shook her back to reality.

"A 16-year-old girl said something to me that day that I will never forget and that I live my life by every day. She shook me and said 'Why don't you just look at the sliver of your pinkie finger? That's what I want you to think of.' "

"I swam that race such that I couldn't have swam it a fingernail better," Nyad said. Her performance earned her sixth place, but those words, she said, gave her something infinitely more valuable.

"For 10 years after that, every single morning, through proms, birthday parties, dates, I lived every single day such that I couldn't live it any better," Nyad said.

With Olympic dreams behind her, Nyad said she found miles of ocean ahead of her when she tried her hand at marathon swimming. She endured a grueling training regimen to help her reach her goal of swimming 102.5 miles from Cuba to Florida.

Her first and only attempt at accomplishing that goal fell short. Nyad said after 41 hours and the loss of 29 pounds in body weight, foul weather and poor navigation forced her to forfeit the attempt. Deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Cuba prevented her from making a second attempt months later.

Fortunately for Nyad, determination and resiliency gave new life to her goal. One year later, Nyad swam the same 102 miles, but from the Caribbean island of Bimini to the Florida shore. It still stands as the longest swim in history for both men and women.

In the years after her feat, Nyad has been a mainstay in sportscasting. She was an announcer for ABC's Wide World of Sports from 1980-88 and a correspondent for a national television newsmagazine called "Crusaders" in 1989-92. She authors books, writes and produces all her own stories, and currently is the senior correspondent for Fox Sports News and the investigative television newsmagazine "Goin' Deep."

"If you read the newspapers today," Nyad said, "you get the impression that the young people in our country are depressed, obese and suicidal. It can be so overwhelming. All of you here are proof that's not true."

She issued a challenge. "You are the young people who must go out and prove how similar our differences are, but you have to reach your own potential first and then help those around you reach theirs," she said.

Most importantly, Nyad said, "You have to live your life in the way you think you will be the most satisfied, the happiest, the highest. I am living my life in a way that makes me so proud that I don't want to waste one day. When it comes time to leave this earth, when I look in the mirror, I want to be able to say I did it all, everything, and I couldn't have done any of it even a fingernail better."

-- Keri Potts