On Fortin's plaque: Prior to her arrival, three Penn women had won one individual title each in the history of the Ivy League Championships. Shelby won seven, taking first place three times each in the 200 and 500 freestyle and winning the 1,000 free as a freshman. She also was a two-time NCAA Championships qualifier, being the first woman in program history to make NCAAs and received honorable mention Mid-Major All-America recognition from CollegeSwimming.com. As a senior year captain, she graduated with the Ivy League Championships meet record in the 200 free, five program marks as an individual, and four more Penn records on relay teams. Between her junior and senior years, she qualified for and competed at the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 400m freestyle.
 
by Marc Narducci
 
Looking back, Penn head swimming coach Mike Schnur was prophetic when he first met swimmer Shelby Fortin during a recruiting visit.
 
It was not hyperbole when Schnur predicted incredible future success during their first meeting.
 
"He told me I was going to the NCAAs, going to the Olympic Trials, and he said I was going to be leading our team," recalls Shelby. "Part of the reason I went to Penn was I believed him, and it was nice to see somebody who saw the potential in me."
 
Yes, there was something about the veteran coach, who still guides the men's and women's swimming and diving programs at Penn, that clearly struck a chord with Shelby.
 
"I knew I was good, but he knew I was great," she said.
 
That greatness will be honored on Sept. 27 when Shelby is among the inductees for the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame Class XIII in a ceremony to be held at the Inn at Penn.
 
Now known as Shelby Schwartz, who along with her husband Dan are parents of two young children, she graduated from Penn in 2014 with seven individual Ivy League championships, which is still the most in program history. To put her dominance in context, prior to her arrival just three Penn women had won one title each.
 
Before listing all the other accomplishments, she achieved high status before ever stepping onto the pool deck at Penn. We'll let Schnur explain.
 
"She was the only person, up to that point, that I ever went into the office on a Sunday morning to meet a recruit on an unofficial visit," Schnur said. "I have to say, it was an extraordinarily worthwhile meeting."
 
It must be noted that Schnur had hosted official Sunday visits to that point, but not unofficial ones.
 
Fittingly, Shelby's swimming career at Penn went just as the coach had forecast.
 
Shelby did indeed qualify for the Olympic Trials, in 2012. She was also a two-time NCAA qualifier. And, of course, she was the unquestioned leader of the team.
 
Besides the seven individual Ivy League titles, she also owned five individual records upon graduation. Those records were in the 100-yard freestyle (49.37), the 200 freestyle (1:45.69), the 500 freestyle (4:41.34), the 1,000 freestyle (9:45.17) and the 1,650 freestyle (16:15.47).
 
Even though Shelby no longer owns any of the records, she remains in the top five in all of them, a decade past the end of her career.
 
She was also part of four record-setting relays teams at Penn.
 
And, of course, there were the aforementioned seven Ivy League titles.
 
At the Ivy League Championships, she won the 1,000-yard freestyle in 2011, the 500 free in 2011, 2012 and 2013 and the 200 free in 2011, 2012 and 2014.
 
As a senior in 2014, she qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 100, 200 and 500 freestyle. During the 2013 season as a junior, she qualified for NCAAs in the 500.
 
There were so many great memories, but Shelby says the best came last. It was her senior year and the last of her seven Ivy League championships, in the 200 freestyle. Not only did she win the event in a time of 1:45.69, but she set an Ivy League record in the process. The record has since been broken, but it stood for nearly three years.
 
"My last Ivy League meet, I won and was so relieved and Mike gave me the biggest hug, telling me how proud of me he was and of my career," she said. "I was most proud of the Ivy League record I held and that one was really memorable."
 
All Shelby cared about was earning a W; breaking the record was icing on the cake.
 
"I was never trying to break records," she said. "I was just trying to swim my best. If a record happened, that would be great, but it was fun to swim that way."
 
Competing at the Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska was another unforgettable memory.
 
"The Olympic Trials proved to be a great experience," Shelby said. "Ivy League swimming is like a small world, where you know everybody. Now you're on the big stage and you realize how good these women are. To be in the pool with some of the all-time greats was a tremendous experience."
 
When Schnur recruited Shelby, he didn't need to have a long interaction to know what type of competitor she was.
 
"You just had to talk to her for 15 seconds and you knew she had a burning desire for success," said Schnur, a 1988 Penn graduate who has been the head swimming and diving coach of the men's and woman's programs since 2000 after serving eight seasons as an assistant coach.
 
And then there was her textbook technique that captivated the coach.
 
"When I saw her swim, she may still to this day have the most beautiful technique in our program's women's history," Schur said. "Her stroke was so beautiful."
 
Shelby's impact on the Penn program is still being felt today. Her presence helped open the recruiting doors.
 
"When she graduated, she won the (Ivy League) 500 three of four years, and because of that we were able to recruit high-level women in that event," Schnur said. "She was the first female superstar that aspired to the national level, and by getting to the national level we were able to recruit youngsters to follow her."
 
An example of the success is that since her graduation, Penn has produced seven of the past nine 500-yard freestyle champions at the Ivy League meet.
 
What is interesting is that Shelby never envisioned being a distance swimmer until Schnur suggested it.
 
"Mike made me do it," she said laughing. "I was recruited as a sprinter, and I remember Mike said 'think about the 500 and the 1,000' and I said 'are you crazy.?!'"
 
Apparently, he wasn't.
 
Shelby grew to love the challenge of distance swimming and was aided by training frequently with men's swimmers from Penn.
 
"That really helped me," she said.
 
It must be noted how much work it took to be a distance swimmer.
 
"It was miles and miles of practice, much longer than the sprinters," she said.
 
Shelby estimated that on an "easy day" she would swim about four miles total and the harder days it would be nine or 10.
 
That is the type of dedication that led to her success.
 
With all that she accomplished, it would have been easy for the younger swimmers to be in awe of Shelby, but her welcoming nature made everybody feel part of the team.
 
"Shelby is one of the most inviting, kind, welcoming people ever," said former teammate Lauren Church, from the Penn Class of 2016. "From Day One, she was hands down the best on the team at making you feel comfortable."
 
Not only that, but her experiences as a swimmer helped her younger teammates.
 
"She was very willing to show me the ropes and tell me what college swimming was all about," said Church, who owns the second-fastest 50 backstroke time in school history (25.29). "It was so great to have a mentor on the team who was so talented."
 
What impressed Church was Shelby's mental approach to the sport.
 
"She wanted to be as good as she could be and was never competitive with anybody but herself," Church said. "She also wanted everybody to succeed so much."
 
Emily Ashton, a 2015 Penn graduate and former teammate, says Shelby's work ethic truly stood out.

"She made such a name for herself, but what doesn't show is all the work it took to get there," said Ashton, who ranks 22nd on the school's all-time 50 breaststroke list (31.41). "I would say Shelby trained harder than anyone I knew, and she was the epitome of a competitor."
 
To this day Ashton cherishes the life-long friendship with Shelby.
 
"She has become one of my closest friends and she has flourished outside the pool and has become an amazing mother with her husband Dan to their children," said Ashton. "I am really proud of her for that."
 
What Shelby appreciated was the effort it took to achieve her goals. There were double-session workouts three days a week, long practices on Saturday mornings, time in the weight room.
 
"We worked so hard in practice, and all of our results were directly from the hard work we put in," she said.
 
Coupling swimming with the academic demands was another big challenge for Shelby. She earned an undergraduate degree in architecture. Later she returned to NYU for dental training and is now a dentist.
 
"That was always a challenge and something Mike mastered," she said. "Helping balance athletics and school because you were always a student athlete, not an athletic student. It was extremely hard to do and something to be proud of."
 
As for her induction to the Hall of Fame, she called it a "fun surprise."
 
It has been a decade since she competed for Penn.
 
"I tell people it feels like another lifetime," she said. "So much has happened since then, being married and becoming a mom, and I hadn't thought about it in quite a while. But as I do, it brings back so many great memories."