Meet She Is Fierce! Mentor Debbie Powers. Debbie grew up in Indiana in the ‘50s and ‘60s as a gifted athlete with an unrelenting passion for sports. She mastered her skills on the playgrounds against boys because there were no teams for girls. Playing basketball at Indiana University finally gave her a taste of organized competition, but also exposed her to the glaring inequities between men’s and women’s sports. Debbie shares her story as an athlete, an author and a professional speaker and how she inspires and empowers young women to persevere and reject discrimination. 

Here are some great tidbits from the Podcast…

• Debbie shares the social climate of how she grew up in the 1950’s and that her former expectations were that if she wanted to be an athlete she would never date or marry.  (3:15-4:54)
• Debbie talks about her memoir, “Meeting her Match” based on her coaching experience of her girls volleyball team playing against boys and how they WON!  Debbie describes this experience as one of the most “Unprecedented, unforgettable athletic experiences of her life.” (13:35-14:28)
• The author talks about not wanting her memoir to be a “woe is me” story, rather one of empowerment, persistence, determination and love what you do for other women to look to. (23:40-24:05)
• The advice she shares as one of her most important tips as an athlete is “never give up, but also you can reinvent yourself and use your history to empower others.”  (34:12-34:36)
• The final tip Debbie shares is not to live in the past, but rather to learn from it. (35:20-35:45)

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