Hall of Fame
Named NAIA Coach of the Year three times in her five years at McKendree, Coach Crotty-Thomas built the women’s volleyball Bearcats into nationally ranked competitors. Signing on for her first collegiate coaching job, she arrived at McKendree in 1981, two weeks before the season opened, and led the team to a fourth place state finish. Achieving state ranking all five years, her teams of hand-picked recruits were first in state in 1982, where they finished 12th in the nation, and in 1985, where the team beat the number-one and number-two ranked teams before finishing fifth in the nation. Several of her players were named to the All-District, All-State, and All-American teams. After leaving McKendree, Coach Crotty-Thomas took a hiatus to spend time with her young family and returned to coaching volleyball in 1988 at Queen of Peace Elementary School in Belleville.
