A Hero for Daisy

Mary Mazzio

April 17, 2001

In partnership with Women's Intercollegiate Athletics, the Tucker Center screened "A Hero for Daisy" with filmmaker Mary Mazzio. The over-flow event took place at Cowles Auditorium in the Hubert H. Humphrey Center. Heralded by The New York Times as "a landmark film," "A Hero For Daisy" is an inspirational 40-minute documentary about two-time Olympian and Title IX pioneer Chris Ernst, who galvanized her rowing team to storm the Yale athletic director's office in 1976 to protest substandard conditions. Nineteen women athletes stripped, exposing the phrase "Title IX" emblazoned in blue marker on their bodies. Carried by all of the major international news outlets, the impact of the demonstration was immediate and national in scope, shocking the nation and bringing attention to Title IX as well as to issues of equality for all women in sport. The film includes interviews with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (Yale '66); legendary football coach and former Yale Athletic Director, Carmen Cozza; President of the U.S. Rowing Association and Yale Rowing Coach, David Vogel; and many of Chris' former Yale and Olympic teammates. Director Mary Mazzio, herself an Olympian on the 1992 Olympic Rowing Team, made the film for her daughter, Daisy, as well as for other girls and boys, to showcase an ordinary woman with extraordinary courage. Mazzio attended Boston University's graduate film production program and is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Georgetown Law School. She is a recipient of numerous awards including the 2000 Women's Sports Foundation Journalism Award, the Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship and the Rotary Foundation Graduate Fellowship.