A coaching icon and pioneer, Cardinal Gibbons names school gym in honor of Louise Crocco
Louise Crocco won her first state championship as Cardinal Gibbons’ girls’ volleyball coach in 1975.
The team had barely finished celebrating and admiring its new trophy when she gave one of her assistant coaches a simple message:
“Let’s get one more,” Crocco said.
One more became two, and then three, then four, then five… and eventually 18 with Crocco’s message the same each time.
That relentless drive put Crocco on a path to not only becoming one of the winningest high school coaches in the country, but a pioneer for women’s athletics, as well.
With the 50th anniversary of Title IX, Fort Lauderdale Cardinal Gibbons school officials figured what better way to honor Crocco than by naming the school’s gym in her honor.
“I’m taking this honor for everyone that ever played for me or coached with me or had anything to do with this,” said Crocco at a recent dedication ceremony at the school’s gym which was attended by several of her former players and coaches.
“This was never about me alone. We were always a family. Generations and generations came in and became part of this.”
During her four decades coaching at Gibbons, Crocco led her volleyball teams to a state-record 18 state championships and a state-record 1,132 wins with only 123 losses.
Her teams put together stretches of dominance rarely matched or topped around the country not just in volleyball but any high school sport.
Gibbons still owns the most state titles in state history with 20 and the longest championship streak of any South Florida team when her squads won six consecutive titles from 1984 to 1989. Crocco also led Gibbons to two different streaks of five consecutive state titles (1975-1979 and 1992-1996).
Crocco moved back to South Florida recently after living in North Carolina for some time after her retirement.
Crocco still watches all of Gibbons’ games on live streams and tries to attend games when she can.
One of Crocco’s alums, Kathryn Reeber, succeeded her after she retired from coaching following the 2007 season. Crocco said she has proudly watched as the Chiefs have won two more state titles in 2010 and 2015 under Reeber’s guidance.
“That was always going to be the case,” Crocco said. “I wanted someone from the family to take over, and she’s done a great job.”
The Florida High School Athletic Association held its first state-sanctioned girls’ volleyball championships in 1974. Miami Gardens Monsignor Pace won that first title at a time when there was only one classification in the sport and therefore one championship for teams to vie for.
Margie Scott remembers how determined Crocco was the following season to get her Gibbons team that same accomplishment.
“We woke a sleeping giant,” said Scott, who was invited to speak about Crocco at the dedication ceremony. “That next year, [Gibbons] started ‘The Run.’”
Four of Crocco’s teams completed unbeaten seasons (1976, 1978, 1984, 2006) and over a 25-year span from 1975 to 2000, Crocco’s teams won 364 consecutive matches against teams in their classification.
Crocco was named the National High School Coach of the Year in 1988 and was the first woman to be inducted into the Florida High School Sports Hall of Fame. She was later inducted into the American Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame the same year as men’s volleyball legend Karch Kiraly.
Crocco, who enrolled at Gibbons as a junior in 1963 just two years after the school opened and at a time when it had only swimming and tennis as varsity sports for girls, also coached softball and basketball for 15 years at Gibbons.
Growing up, she loved to play basketball., but volleyball became her passion as a coach.
Crocco began coaching soon after graduating from Florida Atlantic University in 1969. When she first became girls’ volleyball coach at Gibbons, the school did not even have a gymnasium.
And even after it did, Crocco’s teams still often had to set up a net outdoors to practice.
But that never deterred Crocco, who was used to playing sports with her brothers as a kid growing up in Albany, New York and later being told she could not participate at the high school level because the sports she loved to play weren’t available to girls.
Fast forward almost half a century later, there’s hardly a banner in the Gibbons’ gym that doesn’t bear Crocco’s name or a milestone accomplished by the school’s volleyball team.
“When I first started at FSU in 1976, I came down to Cardinal Gibbons to witness this program and their fantastic teams,” said former Florida State University volleyball coach and fellow Hall of Famer Dr. Cecile Reynaud. “I walked into this gym and I was in awe. I’m still in awe today seeing all these banners. And in awe being in her presence.
“Fifty years from now, girls at this school will be playing in the house that Crocco built.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2023 at 3:55 PM.
