Lily DeSpain was one of the Top-30 finishers for this year’s NCAA Woman of the Year Award. She was one of two swimmers nominated among all three divisions, the other swimmer, Alexandra Turvey, ended up winning the award.
DeSpain graduated magna cum laude from Missouri State with a degree in cell and molecular biology, and minors in biomedical sciences, chemistry, and Chinese. She is currently attending Medical School at the University of Arkansas as a second-lieutenant of the United States Army.
While she is in the Army now, she actually started her swimming career at the United States Naval Academy. Both of her sisters, Corrine and Jade, already attended school there, and she even graduated a year early so that she could be with them.
She spoke very highly of her time at the Naval Academy, “I loved my time there”, and the reason behind her transfer was not related to her athletic career at all. On one of her summer breaks, she met a Navy physician, and after speaking with him, she realized “I think I’m missing out on something, this is what I am meant to do with my life.”
She began shadowing physicians, and she fell in love with the career. The Naval Academy is not designed for this career path, however. They are more focused on developing fighters, people who will be on the front lines as “submarine officers, and pilots, and Marine Corps officers” and while there are a few spots open for doctors, DeSpain thought it would be best to leave on positive terms and fully dedicate her time to getting accepted into medical school.
Ultimately, she chose to swim at Missouri State. She had incredibly positive things to say about the coaching staff and recruiting, and she described them and their help in the transfer process as “warm and lovely”. She made sure to continuously credit the Missouri State coaches, and the Missouri State swim team for her success in and out of the pool. DeSpain also credited how quickly they made her feel at home saying that “even though I missed a year-and-a-half, I feel like I never missed a beat with them.”
Despite feeling like she had found what she wanted to do with her life, and how much she was enjoying her college team, DeSpain was not happy with her performance her junior year. She told us “I’m going to admit for probably my first year and a half with them, I was not the best swimmer.”
At her first Missouri Valley Conference Championships, DeSpain won the 400 IM in 4:17.90. Her other events were the 200 fly where she finished 6th, (2:03.07) and the 500 free where she placed 9th (4:54.65). She also swam on one relay for the team, the 800 free relay, where she went 1:49.03 to anchor the team to a first place finish.
She was far from happy with this performance, however, and she “had some tough conversations about how [she] wasn’t where [she] wanted to be.” She says this conversation with coach Dave Collins (Head Coach) and coach Chelsea Dirks-Ham (Associate Head) led to her having the season she was looking for her final year, which helped lead to her mile long list of awards, including the top-30 honor. At her last Missouri Valley Championship, and her last meet ever, DeSpain won all three of her individual events, and she helped lead her team to two relay titles and a bronze medal.
She swam the same event lineup both years, getting the opportunity to defend her 400 IM title and continue her “revenge arc” as she called it. She went 4:48.23 in the 500 free for a three second victory. On the 2nd day of individual events, she won the 400 IM again, swimming 4:14.92, almost four seconds ahead of the rest of the field. Finally, on the last day of the meet, she won the 200 fly in 1:58.89 as the only swimmer to break the 2:01 mark. All three of these events were personal best times.
She also anchored two of the three freestyle relays for Missouri State. Their 200 free relay earned a bronze medal with DeSpain splitting 22.58. The 400 free relay won the title with her 49.41 split. She also swam on the winning 800 freestyle relay, going 1:46.76 in the 2nd position.
She set Missouri Valley Conference Records in the 400 IM, 400 freestyle relay (3:18.87) and 800 Freestyle relay (7:12.19).
At her conference meet, she won scholar-athlete of the year, an award that goes to the highest individual point scorer with a GPA of 3.5 or above. She later won the Missouri State “Outstanding Female Athlete Award” from this performance.
DeSpain’s swimming career is far from the most impressive thing about her, however. She spent her junior and senior year applying to medical schools, going through the interview process, and continuing to swim and study. This would be a lot for most people, but this was just the top of her iceberg. Additionally, she spent her senior year serving as SAAC President at Missouri State and as president of her school’s chapter of Tau Sigma, a national honor society for transfer students.
She was also a member of the Bears Leadership Institute, an organization that she would meet with for a few hours a week with other student athletes where they discussed leadership skills and learned about how to be an effective leader without sacrificing your values. One of the things she discussed about the process was how she felt that “in order to be a great leader you have to be a servant to those you lead.”
This isn’t just something she said. This was something DeSpain lived by. On top of her busy schedule she made time to volunteer in her community, saying “I love volunteering. It really keeps me going. I feel so excited and free at the prospect of being able to give my time to a group of people. There is no greater feeling than being able to go to bed at night, knowing I did something for someone, even if they don’t know.”
She listed some of the things she volunteered at including reading to children, volunteering with Alzheimer’s patients, packing up and helping ship things from children’s book drives to schools that are in need, helping translate texts to make them more accessible from the National Archives. She is particularly passionate about children’s literacy and volunteering opportunities in that area.
On top of her normal volunteering, DeSpain also needed to get medical volunteer hours for her medical school applications. Despite the fact that her applications were submitted in May of her Junior year, she wasn’t sure she would get in the first time. Many applicants have to apply two or three times to get into medical school. Because of this, she spent her nights volunteering at a hospital nearby to get more volunteer hours, working overnight before going to practice or before going to meets. She says this taught her a lot about “how much further you can go than you think you can.”
She was incredibly complementary of the Missouri State coaches and team and their flexibility during the whole process, even being completely accepting of her missing practices to go to medical school interviews. She says she is far from the only person who has been given this grace and flexibility and that every year there are students who need to miss due to nursing school interviews, or internship interviews, or various other things, crediting the coaches for prioritizing student success after college, not just in athletics.
When asked what advice she would give a younger female swimmer, DeSpain said “Try Everything. If you have time and energy and someone asks you to do something or you want to try something, just say yes. You never know what it could lead to.” This went along with her second piece of advice, “Be Bold”.
