NEWS

Trailblazing woman sportswriter Christine Brennan to speak April 22

By L.J. TOLER
UNC-CH News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan, also a network TV sports analyst and best-selling author, will discuss the emergence of women in sports in a free public lecture April 22 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The lecture for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at 7:15 p.m. in Carroll Hall Auditorium will be part of the school's Reed Sarratt Distinguished Lecture Series.

The author of "Edge of Glory: The Inside Story of the Quest for Figure Skating's Olympic Gold Medals" and "Inside Edge: A Revealing Journey into the Secret World of Figure Skating," Brennan is interviewed often about women's sports, the Olympics and other sports topics.

She was an on-air contributor to ABC News during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Brennan has appeared on ESPN's "Sports Center," NBC's "The Today Show" and ABC's "Nightline," "Good Morning America" and "World News Tonight."

"She is one of a handful of truly top-tier women sports writers, so she offers a unique perspective on the issues involved," said John Sweeney, a professor in the school and coordinator of the Sarratt series. "She was one of the most-interviewed figures about the Olympic judging controversy in figure skating this year."

Brennan comments regularly on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," ESPN Radio and WMAL Radio in Washington, D.C.

Previously she was the first woman sports writer at The Miami Herald, from 1981 to 1984, and a staff writer at The Washington Post, from 1984 to 1996. There she became the first woman to cover the

Washington Redskins and covered international sports, reporting from nations including Cuba and the former Soviet Union. She has covered every Olympics since the 1984 games in Los Angeles.

Brennan won the Women's Sports Foundation's journalism award four times and the Ohioana Library Association book award for "Edge of Glory." In 1993, she was named the Capital Press Women's Woman of Achievement. A native of Toledo, she was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1995. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism at Northwestern University in 1980 and 1981.

In 1988, Brennan was elected the first president of the national Association for Women in Sports Media. In that role she initiated a scholarship-internship program for college-age women that now goes to six students annually.

The Sarratt series, begun in 1987, honors the late Reed Sarratt, a Charlotte native and 1937 Carolina graduate. Sarratt directed the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation for many years and later directed the association itself.

Sarratt, the inaugural president of the school’s Journalism Alumni and Friends Association, was named to the N.C. Journalism Hall of Fame in 1985. Former Sarratt lecturers include TV journalist David Brinkley, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jeff MacNelly and founding editor of Ms. Magazine Patricia Carbine. For more information, call Sweeney at (919) 962-4074.

- 30 -

School of Journalism and Mass Communication contact: John Sweeney, (919) 962-4074