Indiana University of Pennsylvania Athletics

Diane McCormick’s high school did not have a volleyball team.  And when she enrolled at IUP in 1968 varsity sports for women were still two years away on campus.
But when the university established such a program and installed volleyball as one of its initial four teams.  McCormick, signed up, and that move has played a big part in her life ever since.
Three years after graduating from IUP in 1972, for example, she became the first woman from Pennsylvania ever selected to the USA national team organized for the express purpose of training to compete in the Olympic Games.
At that time each Olympics admitted only eight teams and only the host country was assured of competing.  The other seven were required to play their way in once every four years, and the United States goal of competing in the 1976 Montreal Olympics was spoiled.  
Thus began four years of the national team training not only at its Colorado Springs base and in Texas and California but by playing in more than 200 international tournaments.  Including such events as the World Cup, World Championships, Pan American and World University Games, then the Olympic qualifying tournament again.
This time, Team USA gained the right to go to the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but three months prior to the big event, it was decided that the United States would boycott the Games as a protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.  Through November of 1980, the team continued to keep post-Olympic tour commitments; that had been made prior to the decision.
Over the five years, McCormick travelled worldwide. To destinations including Japan, Korea, China (crowds as large as 18,000) in the Orient, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and Finland in Europe, and did play in Russia in 1979 (for an International Volleyball competition).
That behind her, McCormick decided to go on to professional and personal endeavors and to stay in Colorado Springs, where she married Rick French in 1981 and went to work for Hewlett Packard. The IUP mathematics major is currently an information technology engineer engaged in software development and project management.  She volunteers for senior services and county parks programs and as outdoor education coordinator for a local school district. Husband Rick is a special education teacher; twin daughters Surah and Mary, 13, are middle-distance runners.
Since 1981, McCormick-French has also played for five United States national championship teams and has been named an All-American several times. She was named the U. S. Volleyball Association Player of the Year for the senior division at the 1987 national championships.