{"id":8843,"date":"2023-03-09T16:21:37","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T00:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/long-beach-diving-legend-pat-mccormick-dies-at-92"},"modified":"2023-03-10T11:44:57","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T19:44:57","slug":"long-beach-diving-legend-pat-mccormick-dies-at-92","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/news\/long-beach-diving-legend-pat-mccormick-dies-at-92","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach diving legend Pat McCormick dies at 92"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long Beach diving legend Pat McCormick died at 92 years old due to natural causes on Tuesday evening, according to her family.<\/p>\n

McCormick was one of the greatest athletes in Long Beach history and a member of several local, national and international halls of fame\u2014and is still the only female double-double gold medal diver in Olympic history.<\/p>\n

McCormick was born on May 12, 1930, and grew up in Naples, where she would swim in the canals and practice diving off the bridges, becoming something of a local celebrity while still a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was remarkable. She\u2019d be in high school diving off of the bridges,\u201d said Rich Foster, Long Beach aquatic historian and former vice president of World Aquatics. \u201cShe had a specialty where she\u2019d try to get the boat owners driving by wet. They\u2019d call the Harbor Patrol, and they already knew who it was. She\u2019d be banned from the beach for a week, and that wouldn\u2019t stop her.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCormick\u2019s love of the water and her fearlessness served her well, as she began competing as a youth athlete, trying and successfully executing dives that weren\u2019t yet allowed in competition for female divers. The Wilson High School, Long Beach City College and Long Beach State graduate reached international fame at the 1952 and 1956 Olympics in Helsinki and Melbourne. McCormick made history still unmatched when she won the individual gold medal for both springboard and platform diving at back-to-back Olympics.<\/p>\n

\"\"
From left: Madeleine Moreau of France (silver medallist, 139.34 points); Patricia McCormick of USA (gold, 147.30 points); and America’s Zoe Jensen (bronze, 127.57 points) after the Women’s 3 Meter Springboard Diving event at the Summer Olympics Games in Helsinki, Finland on July 30, 1952. (AP Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1956, she won the James E. Sullivan Trophy, awarded annually to the best amateur athlete in the country, becoming just the second woman to win that honor. The list of McCormick\u2019s accolades almost stretches credulity: she is a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame, US Diving Hall of Fame, US Olympic Hall of Fame, Wilson Hall of Fame, LBCC Hall of Fame, Aquatic Capital of America Hall of Fame and the Long Beach Century Club Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many athletes are included in that many halls of fame?\u201d said Foster with a laugh.<\/p>\n

McCormick and husband\/coach Glenn had two children, Kelly and Tim, and raised their family in nearby Rossmoor. Kelly made her own history as a two-time Olympic diver, winning a silver in 1984 and a bronze in 1988.<\/p>\n

Kelly said it was hard following in her mother\u2019s footsteps as a diving Olympian, because her legacy loomed so large.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to be an Olympian, but I always wanted to be a gymnast so I wouldn\u2019t be in her shadow,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She made the switch at 13 years old and began training in her parents\u2019 backyard in Rossmoor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had shows in the backyard, we had bleachers, three rows of bleachers and people would come watch,\u201d said Kelly. \u201cWe\u2019d sell tickets and the proceeds would go to charity.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that while her mother was known for being a world-class diver, she also owned a horse and competed in jumping equestrian events, and was a skilled golfer as well.<\/p>\n

Pat McCormick\u2019s involvement in diving, though, did not end with her career and transition into family life. She was part of the organizing committee for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and took particular pride in the events that took place in Long Beach. She also founded Pat\u2019s Champs, a nonprofit foundation that helped send her to schools all over the country to talk to school-aged children about goal-setting and dreaming.<\/p>\n

Foster represented McCormick as her lawyer for a decade and said that her foundation became a true passion for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe really loved going to schools and talking to kids,” he said. “She talked to thousands of them and the kids just loved her. They all really responded when she\u2019d come talk.”<\/p>\n

Kelly also shared that her mom\u2019s heart was fully invested in Pat\u2019s Champs.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe really cared about those kids and loved helping out with low-income families,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Foster, meanwhile, said he\u2019s always touched by how well-loved McCormick has been, even at this point, six decades removed from her athletic career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took her to speak to the Long Beach Century Club five or seven years ago, and she had the place enthralled,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the only time I\u2019ve ever seen the Century Club give anyone a standing ovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct McCormick’s status as the only female double-double gold medal diver in Olympic history and to provide more information from Kelly McCormick Robertson.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pat McCormick was one of the greatest athletes in Long Beach history and a member of several local, national and international halls of fame\u2014and is still the only double-double gold medal diver in Olympic history.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":17271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[223],"tags":[26],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2730],"class_list":["post-8843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-obituary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8843"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=8843"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}