FEBRUARY/MARCH 2001
PIONEERS IN SPORTS AND THE FUN OF LEARNING
Lucy McDaniel
After her opportunities were limited severely in college, Lucy Mc-Daniel decided to fight for women's athletics.
And she has.
She's the first woman in Florida to donate more than $1 million
to wo-men's athletics.
When McDaniel ar-rived at FSU in 1955, she was a national qualifier in swimming and gymnastics. FSU swim coach Bim Stults welcomed her to work out with the men's team, and FSU's national championship gymnasts invited her to train with them in Tully Gym.
But the university administration wouldn't allow her to swim or work out with the men. So she settled for synchronized swimming, a combination of the two sports.
After she graduated, she coached at Palm Beach High, started a gymnastics program at Miami Senior and ran more than 100 summer clinics across the United States. After 10 years coaching volleyball at Stetson University, she joined the staff at Florida Technology University (now the University of Central Florida). She taught and started the school's first intercollegiate teams in softball and volleyball and rang up a perfect 55-0 record to win the Division II national title.
"I had watched man after man, couple after couple, donating a million or two million to Florida State, but there was never, ever, one woman to come forward with a major gift to women's athletics," said McDaniel, who owns an athletic apparel company, McDaniel Enterprises, Inc.
"When she first told me she was going to do it," said FSU volleyball coach Cecile Reynaud, "I was typing on my computer and I caught myself saying, 'OK, put your work down and listen to this. Listen to this because this is a historical conversation you are having.' " - Jerry Kutz
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