Before Madeleine K. Albright was named the first female Secretary of State, before she represented the U.S. at the United Nations, and before she was a champion for religious freedom and cultural and ethnic diversity, she was a student-athlete.

An activity card found in the archives at Wellesley College lists swimming and diving as one of her activities, as well as the Wellesley News, the student newspaper. Unfortunately, not much else is known about her career in the Wellesley pool, said Mary Ann Hill, director of public information at the institution.

"She was here in the 1950s, and sports for women were not prominent," she said. "The people putting together the video wanted footage of her swimming or photos of the swim team, but we didn’t have that. We just don’t have those materials."

At a celebration of her alma mater’s 125th anniversary, Albright spoke about the progress women have made since her graduation in 1959 — at a time when most women were searching more for husbands than personal fulfillment.

"We were very much in the process of transition. More and more, it happened that we would insist on the right to be taken seriously, to participate in the workforce, and to be judged as individuals and not as reflections or appendages of somebody else," she said. "I never imagined that I would be here as Secretary of State. Now that’s not because I was so humble, because, after all, I graduated from Wellesley. It’s just that I had never seen a Secretary of State in a skirt."