About
UW Daily archive: Vanessa scores winning goal against USC in 2000.
VANESSA PIERCE is a writer/editor, an athlete, and an advocate of women getting outside and playing sports. She got her start in soccer and earned a scholarship to the University of Washington (1999-2003) where she led the team to a PAC-10 Championship and two NCAA appearances. As a captain with 2008 Beijing Olympic gold medalist Hope Solo, she earned team leadership awards and was one of the team’s go-to scorers—as a defender. In 2000, she scored two goals against University of Montana (her hat trick goal was called back) in the second round of the NCAA tournament (UW went on to the Sweet 16). That game, and her picture, are highlighted in the UW Hall of Fame. During her career, she earned Academic All-American honors and was selected as a member of the PAC-10 team (or best players in the conference).
La Grave, France (photo by Heather Erson)
Prior to her graduation from college, she began her career in journalism. She was selected out of 400 students to be part of a 24-person columnist team for The Seattle Times writing about politics. From there, she briefly went to Washington, D.C. to write for The Washington Times’ Insight Magazine. Missing the outdoors, she moved to Aspen, Colo., where she was hired as an A&E editor at the Aspen Daily News, which began her stint at mountain-town newspapers. Vanessa began to write about skiing, and fell in love with a childhood sport. She moved to Jackson Hole, Crested Butte, and finally landed in Salt Lake City where she was hired as features editor for Ski Racing magazine covering the U.S. Ski Team. While writing about skiing, she began a network of women in the sport hopeful, that though this community, more women would get involved in skiing. She started writing profiles and features on some of the amazing people she met along the way, and has been published in Outside, Skiing, The Ski Journal, Powder, Women’s Adventure, among many others magazines and newspapers.
Along with best friend and pro skier, Lynsey Dyer, she created SheJumps.org to showcase the community of women she help build. With business partner Claire Smallwood, the organization became a 501c3 nonprofit in 2008, and its mission is to increase female participation in outdoor activities by building upon a supportive community that inspires its members to reach their highest potential. The organization supports women in outdoor sports at all levels (from beginners to experts), and inspires (through much of Vanessa’s writing on the website) to take jumps to reach their goals.
Vanessa has been recognized by Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition as 2008 Snowsports Pioneering Woman of the Year, and continues to be involved with bringing the sports-world community together through both SheJumps and writing.
As her journey continues, along with her desire for the never-ending adventure, she has recently fulfilled a dream of becoming a pilot and is in flight school to become a professional pilot. Her goal is to become a seaplane pilot and marry her love of the outdoors and her childhood dream of flying.
Contact Vanessa at vanessa@shejumps.org.
