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Brief Bio
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Art and Comics
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Interview
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Interview
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Interview
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Interview
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A former Stanford and pro basketball player, Mariah Burton Nelson is an award-winning author, speaker, and thought leader who has written seven books — including The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football — for Random House, Harcourt Brace, Harper San Francisco, and William Morrow.
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She has written for The New York Times, Newsweek, Ms., Glamour, Shape, USA Today, and many other publications, and wrote a weekly column for The Washington Post. She has delivered keynotes to hundreds of audiences in 49 states, and has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, PrimeTime Live, Dateline, Nightline, Donahue, Larry King Live, Diane Rehm, Terry Gross, and many other TV and radio shows.
She also served as Executive Director for the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation and Vice President for Innovation at ASAE, the Center for Association Leadership.
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Recently, she co-authored an article for Forbes about trans girls and sports. NPR's Morning Edition interviewed her about Title IX; Sports Illustrated quoted her in their recent Title IX 50th anniversary edition.
She lives with her wife, Katherine, in Arlington, Virginia, and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where she writes, draws, swims, and works with the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group to preserve fairness and safety for female athletes.
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Nelson earned a B.A. from Stanford (‘78), and a Masters in Public Health from San Jose State (‘83). One Stanford rebounding record was unbroken for 24 years.
After college, she played for Clermont Universite Club, which was the best women’s pro team in France, and which competed in the European Cup.
Later she played for the New Jersey Gems of the Women’s Pro Basketball League, the first US women’s pro league, which lasted from 1978-81 and was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame as a Trailblazer of the Game (2018).
Groundbreaking Feminist Author & Athlete
I fell in love with the written word early, while seated on Mom’s lap as she read to me. I started writing about the empowerment of women through sports in 1980. Almost no one else was paying attention to female athletes then.