On this day 30 years ago Newsday profiled Ann Marie Wycoff ’85. Here is the article from George Usher.

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Ann Marie Wycoff of Fort Salonga still has burn scars on her right shoulder from being run over by a car when she was eight, but that hasn’t stopped the 21-year-old senior at West Point from becoming the best women’s swimmer at Army since the sport was started there in 1978.

Wycoff, who has never lost in dual competition dating back to Stony Brook Prep, recently won four national titles in the NCAA Division II Championships. With the five she’d already taken, she has won more titles than any other woman in Division II swimming.

Ann’s father, Roger, a former Triple-A baseball player in the Pirates organization and JV track and basketball coach at Newfield High School, will never forget the day his daughter was hit by a car.

“The brakes didn’t hold on her bike,” he said. “She was pinned under the car’s manifold and looked up at me and said, ‘Dad, get the car off me.’ I got enough pressure off and she slid out. The first thing she said was, ‘Get my goggles, I want to go swimming.’ “

Wycoff successfully defended her titles in the 200 individual medley, setting an Army record of 2:05.98; the 200 butterfly (2:03.26), and the 400 individual medley (4:24.76), in which she’s a three-time champion. She also won the 1,650 freestyle in 17:01.17.

She hopes to compete in the 1992 Olympics but says she is taking it one day at a time. “The Army and my troops are the most important thing to me right now,” she said. “I’d like to compete in the Pan Am Games and the Goodwill Games, but it depends on whether the Army thinks it’s a good idea or not. The Army is a job, a career, your life, and swimming isn’t going to be my life.”

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