Mary Kelly Spitzer is a rare story in the sport of swimming, as she had a very short career in the sport, winning a national title in 1951, then competing in the 1952 Games in Helsinki, then retiring from the sport. But Spitzer did not leave the sport for good. She became a renowned coach in the 1960s by establishing one of the first all women swim teams in the country called the Vesper Boat Club out of Philadelphia. The Vesper Boat Club won the 1961 National Championships over Santa Clara and later sent 5 women on to represent the United States in the Olympic Games. She would have been the first woman to be an Olympic Swimming Coach for the United States back 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.