IOWA CITY, Iowa — In a recent Iowa women’s basketball team meeting, after the Hawkeyes had dropped five straight Big Ten games, first-year head coach Jan Jensen told the story of Florence Chadwick, an American swimmer.
In 1952, Chadwick attempted to become the first woman to swim the 26 miles from the Catalina Islands to the California coastline. Fifteen hours into the swim, a heavy fog settled on the open waters and the 34-year-old began to doubt herself. An hour later, convinced she couldn’t make it, since she couldn’t see the coastline, she pulled herself into a boat. She was less than a mile from the shore.
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