Career
Freeman competed in the preliminary heats of the women"s 100-meter backstroke and recorded a time of 1:18.0. Freeman married Olympic rowing bronze medalist John B. Kelly, Junior., the brother of movie actress Grace Kelly, in 1954. Mary Kelly went on to become a renowned swimming coach.
In the mid-1950s, she established one of the first all-women swim teams in the country, which she named Vesper Boat Club.
In 1958, Lyn Hopkins, was Coach Kelly"s first swimmer to placed in the finals of the women"s national championships -- both for short course in Dallas, Texas and then for the long course championship in Topeka, Kansas. Other Vesper Boat Club swimmers, including Ellie Daniel, Susan Doerr, Nina Harmer and Martha Randall, quickly began to compete at the national level
By 1960, half a dozen of her team members swam at the United States. Olympic Trials, with two being selected to compete at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Altogether, Freeman sent five women on to represent the United States in the Olympic Games.
She also went on to coach the University of Pennsylvania"s women"s swim team
She would have been the first woman to be an Olympic swimming coach for the United States in 1964, but took her name off the list because it was not important to her at the time. In her short coaching career, she inspired many women, including over a dozen of her own swimmers, to go into coaching.
