Pat Daniels


Billie Jo Patricia "Pat" Daniels is a retired female pentathlete and track and field coach from the United States, who was the U.S. track and field national champion in the women's 800m in 1960 and 1961 and in the women's pentathlon from 1961 to 1967 and in 1970. She was National long jump champion in 1967. She won the gold medal in the women's pentathlon at the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada. A three-time Olympian, she set her personal best in the pentathlon in 1967. She first represented the US in 1960, running just 5 days after her 17th birthday, days before beginning her senior year at Capuchino High School in San Bruno, California.
She was the first coach of the women's track and field team at the University of California Los Angeles, which she coached to AIAW National Championships in 1975 and 1977. In 1983, she coached UCLA alumna Evelyn Ashford to a world record in the women's 100m of 10.79A seconds, set in Colorado Springs. In 1984, she coached Ashford to gold medals in the women's 100m and 4 × 100 m relay at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles and later that year to a new world record in the 100m of 10.76 seconds, set in Zurich.
She became head men's and women's track and field coach at Radford University in 1998 and was named Big South Coach of the Year in 2001 before retiring the following year. In 2004, she came out of retirement to coach Allyson Felix to a silver medal and world junior record in the women's 200m at the Olympic Games in Athens.
In 1989 she testified before a Senate hearing on steroid abuse chaired by Senator Joseph Biden. She has published numerous articles in publications including the New York Times on the subject of performance-enhancing drugs. She is author of . She was married to American hammer thrower and Olympian Hal Connolly until his death in 2010. In 2010, she was inducted into the African-American Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame. Also, starting in 2010, she began coaching for Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland. She helped coach the Greyhounds to championships in the MIAA for both indoor and outdoor track and field.

International competitions