Isabelle Francis DANIELS

In 1955, Isabelle Daniels finished second in the 60 m and was on the winning 4×100 m relay team at the Pan American Games (with Barbara Jones, Mae Faggs, and Mabel Landry). Although Daniels finished second to Mae Faggs in the 1956 AAU 100 m, she reversed the decision at the Final Trials and went to Melbourne as the first-string U.S. sprinter. At the Games she was initially awarded third place in a desperately close finish, but after a reexamination of the photo finish she was placed fourth. In the relay she ran the anchor leg on the team that set a new U.S. record of 44.9 behind Australia and Great Britain, with all three teams bettering the previous world record. At the 1959 Pan American Games she won a gold medal in the 60 m, a silver medal in the 200 m and again the gold medal in the 4×100 m relay (with Barbara Jones, Lucinda Williams, and Wilma Rudolph). Isabelle Daniels won five AAU sprint titles outdoors and seven indoors. She was also a member of the Tennessee State team that won the AAU relay for five years in a row. She became a girls’ track coach at Ronald E. McNair High School in Georgia, and was named National Coach of the Year by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association in 1990. Daniels was inducted into the Tennessee State University Hall of Fame in 1984, and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.

Personal Bests: 100 – 11.6 (1956); 200 – 23.6 (1959).