Amid ongoing Chiefs celebration, another WIN for KC resounds as cause to celebrate
Even with much of the region lingering somewhere between afterglow and haze after the spectacular Chiefs season and rambunctious downtown parade on Wednesday, it turns out there was room and time to pause for another meaningful celebration this week.
In contrast to all that was uncorked for a Super Bowl victory a half-century in the making, the 26th annual WIN For KC Women’s Sports Awards Celebration is a stirring event we can count on every year but that never gets routine.
It’s for a righteous, uplifting cause that comes with its own March of Champions (high school girls who won state championships) and also features an ongoing parade of some of the world’s greatest athletes … who also happen to be females.
At the Kansas City Convention Center, the baton of a distinguished procession of past keynote speakers that has included Simone Biles, Tamika Catchings, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Billie Jean King, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Abby Wambach was passed Friday to swimmer Natalie Coughlin.
Her 12 Olympic medals match the most among American women (tied with swimmers Jenny Thompson and Dara Torres). For that matter, only six people in modern Olympic history have more medals than Coughlin — whose vast career path includes some local flavor in Columbia on her only previous trip to Missouri.
At the Missouri Grand Prix at the Mizzou Aquatic Center in 2008 leading up to the Beijing Olympics, Coughlin broke her own world record in the 100-meter backstroke (59.21 seconds, besting her previous record by 0.23 seconds) in a preliminary round that she might ordinarily have coasted in.
The secret, she said at the time, was that she was cranky because she hadn’t eaten enough. And going into the final 50 meters, warming down and getting barbecue were “seriously the only things going through my mind” — something she laughed out loud about when reminded of that episode in a pre-banquet interview with The Star.
As she summarized her life out of that limelight now, Coughlin, a mother and cookbook author, smiled and said that “no pun intended” she “dove in head-first” into a winery (Gaderian Wines) in Napa Valley.
Then again, Coughlin also hasn’t officially retired from swimming so she can occasionally compete on the professional circuit ... and because she isn’t ready for that “in memoriam” feeling.
It’s all part of an illustrious and instructive life for someone who says she owes everything to sports and considered herself a “chubby uncoordinated kid on land” before finding her depth in the pool at age 6.
That just happened to be in 1988 when Janet Evans was winning three gold medals at the Seoul Olympics. That captured her imagination.
Four years later in Barcelona, so did Summer Sanders as she won four medals and little Natalie Coughlin got a neon “It’s Summer-Time” T-shirt she remembered fondly on Friday.
All of which was a reminder of the empowering influence of being able to see yourself in the examples before you, the sense of possibility that can open up — whether in terms of healthy exercise or competition itself.
That notion is part of the essence of an event that speaks most directly to young girls with messages like “strong is the new pretty” as it seeks to further its mission to create “a community where sport ignites the life of every woman (and) girl.”
While Coughlin was the marquee name, speaking in a conversational format with host Dani Welniak, she was only part of the motivational force for a crowd of nearly 2,000.
Beyond the March of Champions, captivating for the delight on the face of virtually every participant as their schools’ or own names were called, were the stories of the annual awards winners.
The spectrum of the six might be summarized in the age range of those recognized:
From 90-year-old Lois White, presented the UMB Lifetime Sportswoman Award after taking up pickleball a year ago, to 10-year-old Brijhana Epperson winning the Children’s Mercy Rising Star Award for her dual endeavors in ballet (including a role in the Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker three years in a row) and boxing (having won a National Junior Olympics).
“Whatever I want to do,” she said in a video presentation, “I can do.”
Other winners included Flora Haug (BKD WOW Award for bringing the mission of WIN for KC to life — including as she was fighting stage four gastric cancer to now become cancer-free); Lincoln Prep’s Meredith Doyle and Elizabeth Fowler (Kissick Construction Game Changer Award for their roles in starting a softball team from the ground up); Claire Richards (the Lockton Courage Award for redefining barriers and overcoming obstacles after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a car accident) and Whitney Rodden (Hallmark Leadership Award for mentorship, an award that also reflects her “Harper’s Hugs” initiative in the wake of her infant daughter dying in 2016 after being hit by a car at daycare).
You weren’t alone if you misted up during some of those beautifully done videos about each.
But you also weren’t alone if you felt the sheer power of the broader messages about a parade just starting, one with no end and fewer ceilings in sight.
Days after the first Super Bowl to feature the Chiefs in 50 years also included the first woman to coach in the game (Katie Sowers of Hesston, Kansas, an offensive assistant with the San Francisco 49ers), there was plenty more to honor and encourage Friday.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 5:38 PM.