Indy swimmer never got shot at Olympics - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

An Indianapolis athlete got the call to swim in the 1940 Olympic Games, but never actually competed.

It seems fitting that Patty Aspinall Reel would start her day in a swimming pool. Even now, at age 85, she enjoys the camaraderie that goes with it.

She always has.

"I must have been about ten. Doesn't that look like a ten-year old?" she said, looking at an old photo.

It was 1937 and Aspinall was already making waves nationwide or, as the Chicago Daily News noted, she was making the water churn.

"This part, at age 12, broke the American record at the dedication of the Purdue University pool," she said of her record in the breaststroke.

The next year, at the age of 13, she would earn a spot on the 1940 U.S. Olympic team that was originally slated to compete in Tokyo, but was switched to the runner-up location of Helsinki because of the rising tensions of war. She was America's first swimming phenom.

"Oh here, I like this. 'Patty the Child Champ, Patty the Child Champ.' I like that. And here I was with Benny Goodman. Look, I appeared at the Lyric theater with him. With Benny Goodman," Aspinall said.

By 1940, America - and the entire world - was dancing less as the Olympic Games became yet another casualty to World War II.

"I wish I could have gone, so I could say I went," Aspinall said. "That party I really would have liked and maybe won a medal."

But now, talking on the back porch of her north Indianapolis home, this 85-year-old swimming legend doesn't want to talk about what might have been.

"I've had a good life. A nice marriage, two wonderful children and grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, even. I've been fortunate. I've had a good life," she said.

At the Indiana Swimming and Diving Wall of Fame, you see some of the biggest names: Mark Spitz, Kathy Ellis, Frank McKinney and our Patty Aspinall. Even though she didn't get a chance to swim, her picture is still up on the wall and, fittingly enough, so is the woman who taught her how to swim - Euphrasia Donnelly.

Donnelly is the first female from Indiana to make the Olympic team. Aspinall was the second.

One year later, Aspinall would smash the national women's 220-yard breaststroke record in Buffalo, New York by 1.2 seconds. She was named to the 1944 ceremonial Olympic team, but that was canceled, as well. By her senior year in high school, she quit swimming and turned her attention to college.

"I went down to DePauw and I took PE, so I took swimming, thinking it would be an easy A. I got a C in it," Aspinall said.

The instructor said she didn't show enough improvement. But of all the highlights and all the races, the one that really brings out her Olympic spirit also happened in that class.

"I got second and was really furious. I like to win. I am still that way today. I like to win. That's a spirit you never lose," she said.

It's the Olympic spirit.