The 7th Annual Women’s Breakfast will be themed Power Players: Women in Central Florida Sports. The honorees will include Mimi Chan, a Chinese/Jamaican-American martial artist, and Cari Haught Coats who was executive vice president of the NBA’s Orlando Magic. The remaining two honorees will be teams: the Orlando Pride, the city’s championship-winning NWSL soccer squad, and the Orlando Rebels, the fast-pitch women’s softball team organized by legendary coach Marge Ricker in 1954. | Courtesy Orange County Regional History Center
Every March, the Orange County Regional History Center recognizes women who have made a significant contribution to life in Central Florida and beyond. This year, the focus will be on a few who literally moved the ball down the field.
The history center’s 7th Annual Women’s History Breakfast—held Wednesday, March 25, from 8 to 10 a.m.—will be themed Power Players: Women in Central Florida Sports. Honorees will encompass a lineup that runs the gamut from a real-life action heroine to a softball squad whose players were truly in a league of their own.
Attendees will hear tributes to the likes of Mimi Chan, a Chinese/Jamaican-American martial artist who was the model for the title character in Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan. Today, Chan manages her family’s Wah Lum Cultural Center in unincorporated Orange County in addition to hosting her own podcast, The Sifu Mimi Chan Show.
There’ll also be a retrospective of the career of executive leadership coach Cari Haught Coats, who from 1987 to 2003 rose through the ranks of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, from the team’s promotions manager to dual roles as its executive vice president and president of its philanthropic arm, RDV Team Charities.
The remaining two honorees will be teams instead of individuals: the Orlando Pride, the city’s championship-winning NWSL soccer squad, and the Orlando Rebels, the women’s softball team that was organized by legendary coach Marge Ricker in 1954 and went on to three decades of championship-level competition.
Kay Rawlins, senior vice president and club ambassador, will represent the Pride, while Sissie Zollinger, who played first base for the softballers, will represent the Rebels. (Ricker, a member of the National Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame, died in 2013.)
For the first time, the breakfast will be held in a location other than the history center: the West Club inside Inter&Co Stadium. The new location couldn’t be more appropriate given the theme of this year’s edition; the stadium is, after all, home of the Pride. (They’re the official hosts of the event, with a supporting sponsorship by the Orlando Health Women’s Institute.)
Past installments have saluted women’s achievements in everything from aviation to art to politics. (The 2025 breakfast spotlighted public servants Mable Butler, Linda Chapin, Martha Haynie, Glenda Hood and Mary I. Johnson, each of whom was the first woman to attain her rank in local government).
Tickets are $45, with table sponsorships set at $500. As always, proceeds will support the HERstory: Women in History Internship Fund, which provides paid internships for students and recent graduates to work within the history center’s education department to uncover stories about the contributions of women.
Inter&Co Stadium is located at 655 West Church Street, Orlando. For more information, call or visit the website.
