Jack Gross is a Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Shadow Mountain High School.

Danielle Gleason’s life has been filled with a lot of athletic success. Swimcloud.com ranks her as the second-best girls swimmer in Arizona and 104th worldwide in the 2024 class.

The Shadow Mountain High School senior and her family have always been into sports. She played volleyball and soccer growing up before fully focusing on swimming.

Her mother, Katherine Gleason, said that they attend a lot of sporting events as well, even having season tickets to the Arizona Coyotes.

Katherine was a swimmer herself and at the very least made sure that Danielle, along with her brother, who’s currently a freshman at Shadow Mountain, did their swimming lessons when they were younger so they’d be able to enjoy places like water parks and beaches.

When Danielle was 6 years old, she swam in the City of Phoenix Recreational League.

“She really enjoyed it,” Katherine said. “We just kept it really simple. She did an intro to swim team program. We stayed really low on the workouts. By the time she was about 9 or 10, she had made the decision that it was for her.”

In her eighth-grade year, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Just like everyone else, Danielle was stuck inside with no outlet. She sat in her house, quarantined, doing what all the kids did during that time, trying to find ways to not be bored.

She played video games and did her best to stay in condition. She went hiking and cycling before the Arizona weather got too hot to even do that, then swam a bit in her backyard pool.

In 2020, her father passed away.

“He was always super supportive like my mom was,” Gleason said. “He was busy at work but always made time to watch me race and be at my meets.”

Gleason felt like he was always there for her. There was no escape during the grieving process due to the pandemic. She couldn’t go hang out with friends. She couldn’t even escape to the pool.

Katherine said that Danielle’s father’s passing was hard for her for a couple of years, but in the last year and a half, she’s started to move on from the grieving process and has grown a lot from it.

“I realized that he’d want me to be doing well and want me to succeed,” Danielle said. “It’s still sad to think about but I know that he’d be happy to see where I am. Swimming definitely helped me too, to be able to focus on something else and have goals to move forward.” 

After the pandemic, Gleason continued her club swimming at the Phoenix Swim Club.

Since 2021, she’s been coached by Olympic gold medalist Darian Townsend, who was on the South African men’s 100-meter freestyle relay team that won gold and set a world record at the 2004 Olympics.

On top of that, she started swimming for Shadow Mountain, where she’s currently coached by Kevin Diefenbach.

“Danielle is extremely committed and focused and has natural talent, but it doesn’t get to the level that Danielle has achieved without the hard work that she puts in,” Diefenbach said.

Gleason is committed to swimming at the University of Missouri to begin her college career next year.

“I chose Missouri because I really enjoyed the team,” she said. “I really enjoyed the team atmosphere and the coaches. They had really good facilities.”

Part of her reasoning for her commitment was the commitment she felt back from the school.

“I remember going there and I just clicked with the team and I really liked all the girls,” Gleason said. “Throughout the recruiting process, I got to know all the coaches. With some schools, I only got to talk to one coach, but at Mizzou, all the coaches would text me and I really got to know the whole team. It felt like I belonged.”

Townsend estimates that Danielle swims about 65,000 yards per week between her club workouts and school workouts. Just at the Phoenix Swim Club, she has 12 practices a week.

“She’s a very motivated athlete,” Townsend said. “Those are the athletes that are the easiest to work with.”

She’s preparing for one of the biggest meets of her career, the U.S. Open in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“I’m working really hard, training hard, racing fast,” Gleason said. “Eventually, we’ll go down in yardage and rest for it.”

Gleason said that she’s never swam a meet at that high of a level.

“I’m definitely nervous, but I’m really excited for it because it’s a new experience and I’ve been training really well so I think it’ll go very well,” she said.