In the late 1980s, Denise Day was earning her undergraduate degree at the University of Nebraska, where she had a full Division I softball scholarship. She later played for the USA national team, competing in the 1990 World Games and the 1991 Pan Am Games.
While softball is one of Day’s passions, so is the YMCA. Since college, she has worked for Ys across the country and is now in charge of one of the country’s largest: The YMCA of Greater Brandywine has more than 80,000 members at nine branches, from Kennett Square to Berwyn. Only 10 percent of the 900 YMCAs in North America are led by female CEOs. So, once again, Day is part of an elite team. “We have created a woman’s Y network to have those peer-to-peer connections,” she says. “The guys had their own network for years. We weren’t going to get into that group, so we created our own.”
