WHEN THE READING LIGHT WENT ON

Anita L. DeFrantz, 47, president, Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles; bronze medal winner, 1976 Olympics; first woman named vice president of the International Olympic Committee:

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I remember being able to read when I was about 4 years old, and I was at a day camp and I realized that I was in the line of kids who said they knew how to swim. And fortunately, I knew how to do both.

I do know that reading was very important in my family, and there were books and magazines around, and of course the newspaper. I was the only girl on my block, so I spent a fair amount of time alone and through reading I could live countless lifetimes. And that’s one of the wonderful things about books. You can read about things that you may never experience.

I must confess I had a love for comic books. Truth, justice and the American way: Superman, Superwoman and, eventually, Superboy. I also read Bible stories, a lot of Bible stories. Some of them were in the comic book form, and that saved me sometimes when I was reading the other kind.

Growing up, there were no opportunities [for girls] in athletics. My experiences were through reading about great athletes, like Wilma Rudolph. Indeed, my elementary school teacher was an Olympian: JoAnn Terry. She was on the track team, in 1960, out of Tennessee State.

Sports for me came with college, so I needed to be fluent in reading to get to college. And when I was training for the Olympic Games, I was in law school at the University of Pennsylvania. I competed in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. I was on the rowing team, and we won a bronze medal.