Nancy was born in Cleve-land, but spent most of her volleyball career in Palos Verdes, while attending Narbonne HS. There were no local girls VB teams in school, so she started playing on the USA Na-tional Team in 1963. She became part of the first USA Women’s Olympic Team in 1964 (5th), and in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City (8th). Owen also gained fame on the international level, playing on three USA Pan American teams, win-ning silver in 1963 (San Paulo), gold in 1967 (Winni-peg), and silver in 1971 (Cali, Columbia), plus two World Games. She was a five-time USVBA All-American play-ing for the Long Beach Ahern Shamrocks and Los An-geles Renegades, and won five national titles. She started at Long Beach State and after the 1968 Olym-pics she went onto play at Pepperdine (1969-71). She was inducted into their HOF in 1981. She later was thefirst top female coach at Loyola-Marymount, and was inducted in their HOF in 1994. In 2013 she became a charter member of the Los Angeles City Athletics Hall of Fame. She is married to former Pepperdine women’sbasketball coach Ron Fortner.