Mary Whipple
Building winning teams
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Three-time Olympic Medalist: Two Gold and One Silver
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Mary Whipple is a three-time Olympian, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 2012 London and 2008 Beijing Olympics, and won Silver in her first appearance at the 2004 Athens Olympics. She was the coxswain of the US Women’s 8+ Rowing Team. Her team was honored as the US Olympic Team of the Year in 2012 for their performance at the London Olympics. Mary is a select US Olympic Athlete Ambassador for youth at the YWCA, YMCA, and Boys and Girls Clubs. Mary has coxed the women’s team to five world championships.
Mary has a Master’s Degree in Intercollegiate Athletic Leadership from the University of Washington and graduated high school from Sacramento Adventist Academy. Along with public speaking engagement, Mary is building the future of rowing by teaching the next generation of coxswains by offering private instruction, clinics, and hosting summer camps through her company, the 9th Seat.
Mary will share her story of building winning teams, the dedication, practice and commitment to excellence needed to achieve Olympic gold.
Mary talks about how, as the smallest member of the team, she learned what traits make an innate leader and how she unifies a group of strong individuals into a winning team. She shares her experiences in building team identities, learning how to encourage and support each person as an individual while creating team unity, and how to recover from difficult challenges using the power of encouragement to win.
Mary shares what is most important about her legacy as an Olympian. It’s more than achieving gold, being a highly decorated athlete, and breaking world records. Mary considers the opportunity to inspire others to work toward their dreams and share her insights on the leadership traits which make people successful every day as her responsibility and her legacy.
Mary has a passion for engaging the youth in dreaming of what is possible because she started her rowing journey the summer before beginning high school and began to dream of the Olympics in college. She shares her experiences in all three Olympics, how her perspective changed along the way, and the important lessons she learned from achieving her dream.
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