Manhattanville Athletics Hall of Fame
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Manhattanville College women’s swimming program was one of the top teams in the country, and Judy Felice was at the forefront of that unprecedented national success.The most decorated Valiant swimmer during its most decorated time, Felice is still Manhattanville’s only two-time individual national champion, earning first place in the 50-yard breaststroke at both the 1980 and 1981 Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) National Championships. In four years, she earned an incredible 18 All-America honors from both the AIAW and the National Collegiate Women’s Swimming Coaches Association, including four consecutive AIAW All-American honors in the 50-, 100- and 200-yard breaststroke and six national top-three finishes in her final two seasons. She was named Manhattanville’s Female Athlete of the Year as a junior in 1980 thanks to her exploits both in the pool and on the tennis court, where she also was a four-year letterwinner and two-year captain on the Valiant women’s tennis team as well.
With Felice in the pool, Manhattanville never finished outside the top-10 at the AIAW National Championships during her four seasons with the team, including a pair of national runner-up finishes in 1978 and 1980. The Valiants also won a Metropolitan Conference championship and three consecutive New York State AIAW championships during that span, putting together one of the longest runs of sustained national excellence Manhattanville has ever seen.
She also excelled in the classroom as well, as the chemistry and biology double major was the first student in Manhattanville’s history to win both the Mother Grace Dammann and Eleanor O’Byrne awards for academic excellence at commencement.
