Biography of Jessica Mendoza

Olympic return
Jessica Mendoza will look to represent the United States at the Olympics for the second time in her career this summer in Beijing, where she will play the outfield for the gold medal favorites. Mendoza has been quite busy since winning gold in Athens. She has since gotten married, played for a club in the Netherlands and went on a U.S. Army Goodwill Tour of Afghanistan and Qatar.

Big time on the big stage
Mendoza made her Olympic debut in 2004, hitting .250 (5-for-20) with five runs and five RBIs on the gold medal-winning team. She had a breakout season in 2006, winning USA Softball Female Athlete of the Year. At the World Championship that year, she hit .500 (16-for-32) with five home runs, 16 RBIs and a .969 slugging percentage. At the 2006 World Cup, she hit .611 (11-for-18) with three home runs and 16 RBIs.

Goodwill ambassador
Mendoza was selected as one of five Olympians to go on the U.S. Army Olympic Heroes Goodwill Tour of Afghanistan and Qatar in January 2008. The other athletes participating were 2004 200m Olympic champion Shawn Crawford, seven-time Olympic gymnastics medalist Shannon Miller, three-time Olympic ice hockey medalist Angela Ruggiero and Mike Whitmarsh, who won silver in beach volleyball at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Mendoza said one of the reasons she went on the tour was because her husband, Adam Burks, was a U.S. Marine during Operation Desert Storm.

Smashing debut
Mendoza competed in her first World Championship in 2002, and made an immediate impact. Batting third in the order, she hit .313 while driving in seven runs and scoring eight more to help the U.S. to a 10-0 record and the gold medal.

Accomplished Cardinal
The Stanford center fielder was a first-team All-American all four seasons with the Cardinal. In 2001 she helped Stanford go to its first Women's College World Series. Mendoza graduated from Stanford in 2002 with a degree in American Studies. She remained at Stanford to pursue a master's degree in education.

Softball senorita
The Mendoza family owns property on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and often vacations there. Mendoza's father Gil was born in El Paso, Texas, and has dual American-Mexican citizenship. Gil Mendoza grew up in Watts, a notoriously poor part of Los Angeles. He played football at Fresno State and is his daughter's athletic hero.

Quick hands
When Mendoza was younger, her father played a game with her in which he would cover her hands with his hands, and she would try to flip her hands over quickly enough to slap his hands before he could pull them away. Gil Mendoza believes the reason he was able to play Division I college football was his hands, and he wanted Jessica to have quick hands also.

Cellular chick
Mendoza, who is a member of the Women's Sports Foundation Board of Trustees, Says she's addicted to her Blackberry and has had "interventions" from her friends to try to get her to scale back her use. While she may be attached to her cell phone, Mendoza loves being outside, and particularly enjoys skydiving and snowboarding.