Transcript
U of M’s Tucker Center announces Fall Distinguished Lecture to feature Minnesota Olympians

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“Sports are great and the Olympics are great, but what I’m really going to remember are the life lessons I learned through running track…”

U.S. Olympic triple jumper  …and University of Minnesota aluma, Shani Marks has a lot of great experiences to share after returning from the Beijing games. And she’ll be sharing those stories with members of the public at the U of M’s Tucker Center for
Research on Girls & Women in Sport Distinguished Lecture Series event, Wednesday, October 22nd.

“Set goals, always do your best and don’t worry about the outcome …you’re getting so many gifts just doing what you’re doing and you’re learning so much, regardless of if you win or lose …so work as hard as you can, do your best and the rest will be taken care of.”

“…this is an opportunity to talk to women athletes and get some of their perspectives and experiences. So it’s a great opportunity for a public audience to hear from athletes that they are excited about …for a scholar like myself, it’s a great opportunity to talk about my ideas …and how they’re experienced by the folks who are living them out.”

Doug Hartmann is a sociologist at the U of M who’s studied women’s role in sports …and Hartmann says the Chinese model for women’s athletics, has some interesting aspects.

“…the central role that women athletes in China have played, because they’ve been very successful, very high profile… so  lot of the resurgence of Chinese nationalism in sports has been because of women athletes, not men athletes …scholars have had a lot of questions about that regarding how we understand women in sports …does it challenge our assumptions of men dominating sports…”

Hartmann will moderate the Distinguished Lecture Series event and says he’s hoping for some audience participation.

Shani Marks, who will be joined by other U of M and Olympic athletes, says the audience participation is also one of the main reasons why she’s excited for the event, as well.

“…the young girls and women …that’s the group that I love working with. And not just coaching them, but being a friend and a mentor, so I’m really looking forward to it.”