Anita DeFrantz Wins 2024 NCAA President's Gerald R. Ford Award

Legendary rower, Olympic icon and trailblazer, Anita DeFrantz will be honored with the 2024 NCAA President's Gerald R. Ford Award on Wednesday, January 10, at the NCAA Convention Welcome and Awards Presentation in Phoenix, Ariz. The award is presented to an individual who has provided significant leadership as an advocate for intercollegiate athletics on a continuous basis over the course of the individual's career. She previously received the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in 1999.

An Indiana native, DeFrantz began rowing as an undergraduate at Connecticut College before entering graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974 and joining Vesper Boat Club. DeFrantz went on to captain the U.S. women's rowing team at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, winning a bronze medal in the eight. At the same time, she began serving on the United States Olympic Committee's Board of Directors, after her election to the Athletes' Advisory Committee in 1976.

In 1980, DeFrantz made her second Olympic team but was unable to compete due to the U.S. boycott. DeFrantz led the athletes' fight to compete in Moscow, standing up for her beliefs and the rights of athletes, something she has continued to do throughout her career in sports.

After finishing her international racing career, DeFrantz served as vice president of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and was elected to IOC membership in 1986, becoming both the first African American and first woman to serve on the committee.

In 1987, she began a 28-year run as president of the LA84 Foundation, stewarding the legacy of the 1984 Olympic Games. Over the past 32 years, the foundation has invested more than $225 million to support more than 2,000 youth sports organizations and continues to provide Los Angeles youth with recreation and sports opportunities.

In 1992, DeFrantz was elected to the IOC Executive Board and was appointed to the IOC's Olympic Program Commission. In 1995, she was appointed chair of the Women and Sport Consortium, which succeeded in opening up sport more to women, and then in 1997, she was the first woman elected to a four-year term as an IOC vice president, a position she held until 2001. She was elected to a second term as an IOC vice president in 2018.

She currently is president of the Tubman Truth Corp., an organization working to provide liberty and justice for all people, and also serves on LA 2028, the Los Angeles organizing committee for the 2028 Olympic Games.

DeFrantz has a B.A. from Connecticut College and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The two-time Olympian competed on the U.S. National Team from 1975-1980, winning a bronze medal in the eight at the 1976 Olympics and a silver medal in the four with coxswain at the 1978 World Championships.

Read the full release from the NCAA.