Ellie Daniel - Ivy@50

Ellie Daniel, a 1976 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and one of the Ivy League's most decorated Olympians, credits learning to swim at the relatively late age of 11 with helping her make the decision on her own that it was something she really wanted to do. A few years later, when she went with her father to watch the National AAU championships in Philadelphia, near her hometown of Abington, Pa., the die was cast.

"You know how kids are hero-worshippers?" she was quoted as saying in the May 1973 Pennsylvania Gazette. "Well, I decided right then that I was going to be like them. I was going to be an Olympic medal-winner."

That determination took her through years of training with Philadelphia's renowned Vesper Boat Club, starting out with the B team - which meant swimming in what she calls "a dump" at the aquarium, underneath the art museum. A year late, she was promoted to the A team, which practiced at the University of Pennsylvania's Weightman Hall pool and was coached by Mary Kelly (then the wife of Jack, brother of Princess Grace of Monaco).

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