Going for the gold with Mary Wineberg

But she also understands that a necessary part of competition is navigating times when a person or team doesn’t carry home a trophy. So Wineberg was caught off guard when a student in her second-grade classroom, responding to a general Monday-morning greeting, related a concerning weekend event.

“I remember a child was very angry and upset about losing their basketball tournament,” she remembers. “They said they threw this temper tantrum and threw themselves down on the ground. And I'm just like, ‘You did what? Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

Wineberg seized the opportunity to create a teachable moment, explaining to the student that while winning feels great, loss is an inevitable reality of competition. The incident stuck with Wineberg, too, leading her to write and, in 2020, publish a children’s book, I Didn’t Win, that tackles the tricky topic of losing.

Wineberg’s story is powerful. Born to a teenage mother in Brooklyn, New York, she was brought to Cincinnati at five years old and adopted by a single mother who provided a strong foundation of love and security. “It was a blessing and an opportunity for me to be able to locate to another city and state and be raised by someone who … gave me a world of opportunities — being able to go to school, being able to have basic needs, and just in love.”

As a student at Cincinnati Public Schools’ (CPS) now-closed Losantisville Elementary, Wineberg was invited to take a test for acceptance consideration into Walnut Hills High School, a college preparatory public school that consistently ranks first within Ohio. When she learned she was accepted, she couldn’t have known how dramatically the opportunity would affect the trajectory of her life.

“You walk in being a little seventh grader with a big old backpack full of books and just taking it all in,” she says. “I enjoyed participating in some events, but my mom was very strict. She was a Caribbean mom, and Caribbean mothers take academics very seriously.”

In addition to the school’s rigorous academic standards, Wineberg was drawn to the track and field program. She didn’t feel she was especially talented in the sport but, rather, craved the camaraderie of teammates. Wineberg thought her mother might object but eventually found a way to get her onboard with joining the team. “I remember my best friend had to persuade her mother to persuade my mom to say, ‘Hey, you know this will be a fun opportunity,’” she laughs.

From the beginning her running coach at Walnut Hills, Karl Kauffman, saw something in her, giving Wineberg opportunities to showcase her abilities even at an early age. “I can recall going to running practice in seventh and eighth grades and being able to step up and practice with some of the high school students,” she says. “I realized that, hey, maybe I am actually pretty good.”

Listen to the full conversation with Mary Wineberg on the "CECH Chats" podcast!

When it came time to explore college options, Wineberg knew she wanted to stay in Cincinnati and initially planned to attend Xavier University. Xavier didn’t have a track program at the time but, drawing on her tenacious spirit, she believed she had the solution to that problem. “I told my mom, ‘I want to start a track program at Xavier. I know I can do it. I have this talent of running. Let's see where it can take me.’”

But Wineberg didn’t have to take on the task of founding an athletics program during her freshman year in higher education, as two coaches from UC—Bill Schnier and Jim Schnur—ultimately approached her with a scholarship offer. “Being able to have another set of coaches see something in me as my high school coach did,” she says, “that was an awesome and amazing feeling.”

Which is why her post-graduation decision to train for the Olympics wasn’t really the obvious choice. But she remembers watching the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and picturing herself running with the world’s elite athletes and cites the moment as the seed for her dream.

“It surprises me, the evolving I've done over the years,” she says. “You think most of the kids who want to go to the Olympics are striving from the age of 5 and their parents are putting them into all this special programming and additional training. Then you have me, the girl from Brooklyn, New York, moving to Cincinnati, being raised by a single Caribbean mother who was no nonsense.”

Wineberg ultimately retired from track and field in 2014, when she went to work as a second-grade teacher in the CPS district. Following COVID, she left teaching for a four-year term on the CPS school board, which she understood would expand her impact to all the 36,000-plus students and families in the district.

Today Wineberg works as a motivational speaker with her company, Secure Your Gold, sharing her own story of resilience, success and, yes, sometimes loss to inspire others to unlock their potential. And she’s recently returned home to the halls that set her on the track to Olympic success to coach the track and field team at Walnut Hills, her alma mater. Of all the accomplishments she’s achieved in her life, the coaching job seems like one that surprises her the most.

“My husband is a college coach at the University of Cincinnati, and it is very hard and difficult because he's always on the road with his athletes,” she says. “I knew that I did not want to ever coach.” But when she learned of the open coaching position at her alma mater (where her daughter Brooklyn also competes on the track and field team), she knew she needed to take her own advice and step out of her comfort zone for the job. “I was very nervous and scared about it,” she says, “But I said, you know what? This is what I'm supposed to do.”

Now entering her third year in the role at Walnut Hills, she’s proud of the work she’s been able to do with students in the athletics program. “This year, having the best year that we ever had … it allowed these young ladies and guys to see, wow, Walnut Hills is coming back on the map. I am excited to continue to trailblaze and push these individuals to be the best that they can be.”

She’s had a varied career full of ups and occasional downs, but Wineberg’s persistence has carried her to the Olympic podium, the classroom, the speaking stage and more. She’s proud of her story and, whether through books, a coaching moment or whatever comes next, she’s grateful for opportunities to inspire people to pursue greatness, just as she’s grateful to UC for helping her get where she is today. “It allowed me to get my education, and it allowed me to run and do what I love,” she says. “Forever will I bleed red and black, and so I love the Bearcats.”

Featured image at top: Gold medal Olympian, author, speaker and high school coach Mary Wineberg. Photo/provided