Conversation with Marlene Bjornsrud

In episode 8, Neil and Gil talk with Marlene Bjornsrud in an amazing conversation about advocating for women, LGBTQ persons, and people of color in all areas.

 Marlene Bjornsrud has been a leader and advocate for women’s sports as an athlete, coach and administrator at the college and professional levels for more than 35 years. As an executive administrator of nonprofit organizations in the sports world, she has been recognized by her peers, the White House and the International Olympic Committee for her accomplishments and vision. 

Ms. Bjornsrud’s advocacy at the national level began in 2003 when she, along with six female Olympic athletes, testified at a US Congressional hearing about the importance of Title IX in ensuring equitable opportunities for women in sports. The selection of Ms. Bjornsrud as the sole woman who was not an elite Olympian to participate in the hearings attests to the recognition of her able representation of the thousands of women who play sports at the collegiate level. 

In 2011, the White House Council on Girls and Women invited her to Washington DC to gain a clear understanding of the Council’s purpose to ensure that all legislation takes into account the needs of girls and women. In 2012, she was honored to engage in a small group conversation with First Lady Michelle Obama about women’s rights, Title IX, homophobia and the work of the nonprofit that she founded, the Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative (BAWSI), in engaging female athletes to inspire physical activity among young girls in high-poverty communities. 

As a leading expert on gender equity in sports in the United States, Ms. Bjornsrud has been sought out by international groups to speak in their countries. In 2014, she spoke at the Doha GOALS Forum in Doha, Qatar as the only American on a panel addressing “Changing the Perception of Women in Sport.” The Doha GOALS Forum came to Los Angeles in 2015 as part of the Special Olympics World Games, and Ms. Bjornsrud coordinated and led a task force session on women in sport for an international audience. The Japanese Center for Research on Women in Sport requested her assistance in creating an academy for women coaches in their country modeled after the NCAA Women Coaches Academy. In February 2015, Ms. Bjornsrud went to Tokyo to address media and community leaders in an all-day event. In September 2015, she taught two sessions at Japan’s first-ever women coaches academy in Karuizawa, Japan. She continues to serve on the faculty of the Japanese Women Coaches Academy annually. 

Ms. Bjornsrud’s lifetime work of helping girls and women find full participation in sports was recognized by the International Olympic Committee in 2013 with its prestigious Women and Sport Award for the continent of the Americas. The award was presented in Lausanne, Switzerland in the presence of dignitaries from around the world. She joins a select group as a recipient from the United States; the only previous winners from the United States were Donna Lopiano and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. 

Her work in sports has been acknowledged through other awards as well, including the Woman of Achievement Award by the San Jose Mercury News and Women’s Fund of Silicon 

Valley, the Arizona Pathfinder Award, the National Association of Girls and Women in Sport, the Wilson National Tennis Coach of the Year, the Women's Tennis National Community Service Award and the NAIA National Women's Tennis Coach of the Year. 

Ms. Bjornsrud began her career in sports at Grand Canyon University where she was named the school’s women’s tennis coach in 1979 and led her team to the NAIA National Tennis Championship in 1981. She served as an athletic administrator at Grand Canyon and later at Santa Clara University with broad responsibilities for more than a dozen sports. In 2000, with the formation of the first women’s professional soccer league in the United States, she was named General Manager of the Bay Area team which won the first league championship in 2001. In 2004 with U.S. Women’s National Team soccer stars Julie Foudy and Brandi Chastain, she founded BAWSI. From 2014-2016, she served as Executive Director of the Alliance of Women Coaches, the only organization of its kind supporting women coaches from all sports across the nation and beyond. In her role, she worked closely with the NCAA Office of Inclusion and directed the NCAA Women Coaches Academy.