One Golden Spike is the multi-faceted memoir of J.J. Gearhart, a woman who earns one of the first athletic scholarships for women to Stanford University. There, she plans to study pre-medicine so she can cure her mother's mysterious autoimmune illness. She is 100% a mama's girl.
Mama Jo's suffering fuels J.J.'s ambitions as she struggles to be seen as more than a "dumb jock" who took an admissions spot away from a "more deserving" intellectual. Balancing the demands of athletic competition with the rigors of the pre-medical workload challenges J.J.'s mental and physical limits. Then she learns women who try to break into the male-dominated worlds of intercollegiate athletics and pre-medical studies face dangerous and sometimes unintended consequences. After to be acknowledged in the classroom and on the court, she sinks into imposter syndrome and despair. Her heroine's journey is full of obstacles, some financial and class, some of her own making. Yet J.J.'s iron-will and sense of humor allow her to restart her career and help propel Stanford volleyball from the lower ranks of the AIAW to the NCAA national championships. With a flourish of feminism and a sprinkle of the strange and magical culture that was Stanford in the 1980s, J.J. learns to love the liberal arts and appreciate the unbreakable bonds of teammates.