The 2003 recipient of the NCAA's Theodore Roosevelt Award used to grab the desk beside the door of her grammar school classroom so she could be first to the pitcher's mound after the bell rang.

The future Olympic swimming champion was 9 years old, and baseball was her sport.

Then came organized baseball. Organized for boys, that is.

So Donna de Varona got as close as she could, bribing her way into her brother David's Little League dugout with bubble gum and eventually becoming bat girl, per the coach's invitation. Just as most brothers that age would be, hers was less than thrilled. But she weathered the season and the coach invited her back for the next year. She politely declined.

"Being that close and not being able to play hurt too much," de Varona said.

De Varona will be honored as the 36th recipient of the coveted "Teddy" Award during the Honors Dinner on Sunday, January 12, at the NCAA Convention in Anaheim, California.

The Teddy is the highest honor the Association may confer on an individual. It is presented each year to a distinguished citizen of national reputation and outstanding accomplishment.

De Varona

will be honored, in part, for her service to women's sports. She has worked for change in that arena, even though most of the rewards have come too late for her to benefit directly. Her current task is serving on the Secretary of Education's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, which regularly grabs headlines as it explores all facets of Title IX, a law for which she lobbied in Congress before it was passed in 1972.

"My passion is to see as many opportunities as possible for as many people as possible, all the way from the grass-roots level to the colleges," she said. "I'm frustrated that there aren't more opportunities for women, and I'm frustrated for the athletes whose programs have been dropped and left them with no recourse. I'm also frustrated that Title IX has been used as an excuse for such cuts."

An athlete blossoms

Much as with her brush with baseball, de Varona's initial splash in swimming came via her brother (who eventually played football for the University of Oregon).

This time, he was rehabbing his knee by swimming with a local summer recreational swim team at a high-school pool in Walnut Creek, California, where some races were being held. Little sister entered one and finished first. From there, she spent a lot of time in a swimsuit, at least until college.

Northern California provided fertile waters for an aspiring swimmer. The local program was one of the nation's best. De Varona's success continued, even as the competition progressed statewide to national, then to international.

In 1960, at age 13, she was the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic team competing in Rome. Four years later at the Tokyo Olympics, she won two events and later was voted most outstanding female athlete by both major wire services.

After high school, she enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, which had no women's athletics program at the time, the same as virtually every other college. With her sports participation limited to driving recruits from the airport for then-football coach Tommy Prothro and coaching various community and university intramural swim teams, the political science major turned to television sports broadcasting, a field that was in its infancy. Soon, she was earning a modest living.

"ABC really initiated that relationship because they asked me to advise them as to what events to cover (while she was still competing) because I knew the sport," she said.

De Varona said that both she and ABC were interested in developing a professional relationship right after the 1964 Olympics but didn't because doing so would break amateurism rules, which also complicated the possible partnership on the other end.

"(ABC) knew that the moment I got paid, I wouldn't be able to compete any more, and they didn't want to be responsible for that," she said. "When I was a 17-year-old high-school senior, I finally called them and told them that I didn't have a future as an athlete anymore (because she couldn't compete for a college team)."

She debuted on Wide World of Sports, covering the 1965 men's AAU swimming championships with Jim McKay. Because of that appearance, de Varona is generally credited as being the first woman on network television in the sports broadcasting field. She's not so sure.

"To be completely accurate, I believe I was the first woman sportscaster at ABC under contract and possibly the first in the industry," she said. "I marvel that I have made it this far because it's such a competitive field."

College scholarship money came courtesy of Bill Beckenhauer, a private individual who also funded the educations of other well-known female athletes. Because of her earnings, de Varona later forfeited that scholarship to Claudia Kolb, who eventually succeeded the young announcer as an Olympic 400-meter individual medley champion.

Career path widens

Life started moving faster on land than it ever did in the pool. While still at UCLA, de Varona continued broadcasting and worked with inner-city youth in a government-sponsored nationwide program called Operation Champ. Then her boyfriend was drafted to fight in Vietnam. She followed his path there in 1969 as part of a USO tour. At home, she roomed with fellow Olympian and track star Wilma Rudolph. Both testified in Congress as advocates of government funding of youth programs.

"There were so many things going on that I found I was learning more off campus than I was on it," she said.

So she left school during her senior year before taking two finals. She made up one but never got to the other.

The television career peaked at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, an event for which she also worked as a special consultant to chairman Peter Ueberroth. While most of the U.S. may remember her role as co-host with Jim Lampley, her behind-the-scenes duty doubled her satisfaction.

"The city didn't want the Olympics at first," she said, "and I worked with Peter to win over the hearts and minds of the people there. Looking at it from a participation perspective, that was probably the most exciting part of my career."

De Varona endured an uncomfortable moment when she was chosen as keynote speaker for the 1985 Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women convention, which led her to mend loose ends back in Westwood. Judith Holland, the organization's president and then women's director of athletics at UCLA, proudly introduced de Varona as a UCLA graduate.

"I had to stand up in front of everyone and say that was not right; I had never graduated," de Varona said. "Judith said, 'We can't have this, you've got to come back.' "

De Varona finally earned her degree in 1986, after completing two lengthy assignments. The first traced the history of amateur sports legislation in the U.S. For background, de Varona drew upon her experience as an appointee to President Ford's Commission on Olympic Sports, as well as her subsequent role as a special consultant to the Senate to document the legislative history of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978. That law, which mandated restructuring of U.S. Olympic and amateur sports organizations, was passed during President Carter's administration. The second project documented the history of familiar friend Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and its impact on women's sports.

De Varona made unwanted headlines in April 1998 when she was fired by ABC, allegedly for "failing to appeal to a male demographic of ages 18 to 39." She countered with a $50 million lawsuit alleging age discrimination, a case that was later settled out of court. She ended up back at ABC, where she still works.

The former Olympian's work as chair of the 1999 Women's World Cup Organizing Committee, which culminated in what has been called the most successful women's sporting event ever, put her in the public eye under much happier circumstances. Her marquee moment came after U.S. team member Brandi Chastain's tiebreaking penalty kick, when she walked on the field of the sold-out Rose Bowl, knowing that the game had attracted an unprecedented in-house and worldwide television audience, which, de Varona said, provided as much satisfaction as any gold medal.

Her thoughts at the time also drifted to her most ardent supporter, her father David, who had competed on the same field 61 years earlier in the stadium's annual New Year's Day event as the California Golden Bears completed an undefeated football season.

More coverage for women

Despite the success of the World Cup and increased coverage elsewhere, de Varona said that the media continues to shortchange women's sports.

"I thought as cable permeated the airwaves that women's sports would get a better piece of the action," she said. "I'm pleased at what has happened with the Women's Final Four with the ESPN contract and the sellouts, but at the same time I'm frustrated that we don't read, hear and see more about women's sports."

These days, de Varona splits her time between family, television work and, of course, helping to try to solve the Title IX conundrum. She organizes her travel around her family of husband John Pinto, a lawyer and businessman who played tennis at Georgetown University, and their two children, John David, who is 14, and Joanna, who is a year younger. Her daughter shares the name of de Varona's sister, Joanna Kerns, a writer, director and actress who played mom on the television show "Growing Pains." Both children are active athletes. Her network duties encompass both on- and off-screen responsibilities, though she spends most time off working as a liaison with domestic and international sports organizations for ABC, ESPN and Disney.

"I try to get people together who don't know each other and help them work together," she said. "That's my primary focus right now. I also write and host commentary for Sporting News Radio."

On New Year's Day, she will resume on-air work back on familiar grounds, co-hosting ABC's coverage of the Rose Bowl parade.

That liaison role with the networks fits nicely with the commission work. She said she was pleasantly surprised that the latter, along with her other public political stands, didn't keep her from winning the NCAA's most prestigious award.

"I guess (my selection) confirms that if you keep an open mind and are fair, you will be rewarded," she said.

She lauded the "extraordinary" list of people who have received the Teddy previously, especially last year's winner, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, with whom she served on the board of directors for Special Olympics for 21 years. De Varona said that just as Shriver emphasized that the NCAA should work more with Special Olympics, she will carry a message that the NCAA and other national and international sporting bodies need to work together for the mutual benefit of student-athletes.

Donna de Varona's career highlights

Television Emmy award winner for a profile on a Special Olympic athlete.

Two-time Lucy award winner for excellence in broadcast sports journalism for sporting news radio commentaries.

2000 Olympic Order given by the International Olympic Committee -- the highest distinction given for contributions to the Olympic movement worldwide.

Chair, 1999 Women's World Cup Organizing Committee, 1997-99.

Has covered 14 Olympics as host, co-host, special reporter and analyst.

Won 37 national championship titles in backstroke, butterfly, freestyle and relay events, including 18 gold medals and three national high-point awards.

Recipient of the Flo Hyman Award for dignity, spirit and commitment to excellence, 1996.

International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.

Special consultant to Peter Ueberroth, 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Special consultant to United States Senate during preparation of Amateur Sports Act, 1976-78.

Founding member and first president of Women's Sports Foundation.

International Swimming Hall of Fame inductee, 1969.

Two-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer (400-meter freestyle and 400-meter relay), 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Set 18 world records and world best times from 1960 through 1964.

Special Olympics Board of Directors, 1970-90.

United States Olympic Committee Board of Directors, 1980-89.