I was 18 when I read that.
It came from Jack Pettinger.
If you swam in the 60s and 70s you know the name. One of the most incredible coaches of that era. 25 years as head coach at Wisconsin. He coached Jim Montgomery, who became the first man in the world under 50 seconds in the 100 freestyle.
Everyone wanted to swim for Jack.
I’d wanted it since I was 13.
Wisconsin. Nursing. Swimming for Pettinger.
That was the plan for five years.
The acceptance letter came. I was in.
Then I waited to hear from the coach.
Weeks went by.
Then the letter came.
Welcome to the U, Wendy. You’re a good swimmer. But you’re not U swimming material. If you want to try out next year, you can.
The man I’d looked up to since I was a kid had put it in writing.
Not good enough.
People throw the word setback around. A bad practice isn’t a setback. A rough day at work isn’t a setback.
A setback is when the plan you’ve been building since you were 13 is gone, and the only road left runs out of your state, away from your family, to a school you’ve never heard of.
That’s what this was. Monmouth College. It’s Monmouth University now. Back then, a small school in New Jersey nobody in Wisconsin had heard of.
And they took a shot at me.
Dick Stedman was the head coach. He got me a full scholarship. One of the first given to a woman under Title IX.
So I left Wisconsin and went east.
And that’s where I met Bill Palmer at Central Jersey Aquatic Club. He’d coached Olympians and national record holders.
What are the chances of that.
He saw something. Not just the swimming. The courage and desire underneath it. He trained me.
At 21 I made the Olympic team.
That summer I stood on the podium in Montreal, Gold and Bronze.
What that letter couldn’t measure was what I’d do when nobody was watching. Every morning. For fifteen years.
And the people who believed in me when a letter said not to.
I saw Jack plenty of times over the years. College meets. The Games.
Always the same. “Hey, Wendy.”
He never once said he was sorry. Jack wouldn’t do that, and I never needed him to.
It was his team. He made a call on what he’d seen of me. I lived with it.
And honestly, I believe Jack lived with it too.
In 2019 the Wisconsin Swimming Hall of Fame inducted me.
Here’s the part I still shake my head at.
Jim Montgomery was on that 1976 team with me. He swam for Jack too, in Madison, before Indiana and Doc Counsilman.
Fifty years later, at our reunion, I sat with Jim and told him this story.
He couldn’t believe it. He had no idea.
Same coach. Two different letters.
And if I’m honest, had I stayed in Madison I’m not sure I ever make that team. Jack had great swimmers. I might have been one of many. Never seen at all.
The setback is what launched me.
Adversity doesn’t build character. I don’t believe that.
Adversity makes you decide.
You get to read the letter. You don’t get to skip that part.
But you decide what it means.
