MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – What Erin Gilson remembers most about Renee Riccio McCutchan was the constant love and laughter that filled every room she occupied.
Renee never had a bad day, and when she did, she didn’t let anyone know. Yesterday she died with her family after fighting courageously and privately against cancer.
She was just 50.
“For as long as I’ve known her, she may have said an occasional swear word or two like we all do, but I’ve never heard her say anything negative about anyone,” Gilson said today. “She’s the only person I can say that about.”
Those who live in Morgantown and know and love Renee will forever remember their dedication to youth swimming, their time as a volunteer at SteppingStones, or their dedication to their faith as a member of St. Mary’s Orthodox Church.
But what they probably didn’t quite appreciate was that she was once an excellent swimmer at West Virginia University – one of the best butterflies in the country in the early 1990s. However, Renee would have had to be interrogated to get all that out of her because she was so humble and so down to earth.
“Man, she was tough and what a special swimmer,” her college coach Kevin Gilson said today of his family farm in Albany, New York. Gilson, who directed the Mountaineer Men’s Program from 1967 to 1996 and the Women’s Program from 1980 to 1996, is now a retired gentleman farmer. “When the men stepped up their workouts, I often got Renee on their trail and she got them to work even harder.”
Gilson did this for two reasons. First, because Renee was so much better than the other swimmers in the program at the time and needed better training partners, and second, because it was a big blow to the guys ego, those 5 foot 5, 125. to see -pound girl hanging right there with them.
And she could!
Known then as Renee Riccio, she joined WVU after spending a year at Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey. She had accomplished everything she could at Altoona High in Altoona, Pennsylvania, from setting a national YMCA record in the 50-yard freestyle as a 10-year-old to breaking all the records Altoona had before she settled in Enrolled with Peddie at the age of 16.
It was there that Gilson found out about her.
“The Peddie trainer (Chris Martin) was a former Germantown (Pa.) Swimmer and I had a bunch of former Germantown men’s swimmers who had heard of her and that was how I realized she was so good.” Gilson remembered.
The Blair County Sports Hall of Fame, inducted in 2008, attended Villanova, Penn State, and a few other schools, but she immediately fell in love with WVU when she came on a campus visit.
Riccio was Gilson’s top recruit, and she instantly became one of the team’s top swimmers when she arrived in 1990. It was such a high priority that Gilson hired his eldest daughter, Erin, a member of the team, to host her weekend recruiting.
One of the first things Erin found out about Renee was that her trainer at Peddie made his athletes train in the pool in sneakers. When Renee joined the team, Erin promised that she would never tell her father that they used to train in tennis shoes.
“I didn’t want to swim in sneakers and I knew if my dad found out we probably would have,” laughed Erin.
Riccio immediately blown the coaching team with their intense will to succeed and their amazing training habits.
But after shortening herself for their first big meeting, Renee’s time was way below Gilson’s expectations. The confused trainer called her to his office shortly after the race to find out why.
“I pulled her aside and started talking to her,” he recalled. “We rejuvenate when we go to a championship meeting, which means we reduce the workload on the kids so their bodies can recover so they can race as fast as possible.
“I said, ‘Renee, your rejuvenation was perfect’ and she said, ‘I know, but I trained on my own because I was scared of getting out of shape.’ I said, ‘Oh my god, you have to promise me you’ll never do that again!’ “He laughed.
She didn’t, but decided to train with world-renowned trainer Jack Nelson in Fort Lauderdale, Florida ahead of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials, which were held in Indianapolis, Indiana, that year.
Riccio was one of 42 swimmers who qualified for the 100 butterflies and finished 13th in the heats with a time of 1: 02.16. The top two swimmers to represent the United States in the 100 Butterflies at that year’s Olympics were two of the greatest swimmers of all time – Stanford’s Summer Sanders and Arizona’s Crissy Ahmann-Leighton.
Twenty-eight years after graduating from college in 1993, Rene is still one of only seven female swimmers in school history to have qualified for at least three NCAA championships with a total of seven different events.
Her 200 IM time of 2: 02.38, which she posted in 1993, is the fourth fastest in school history, and her 200-fly time of 2: 00.06 ranks fifth. To give you an idea of where that stands today, Renee and Valerie Patterson are the only two swimmers from that era who are fast enough to finish in the school’s top 10 of all time.
Riccio was much smaller than the other top butterflies in the country – Sanders and Ahmann-Leighton, for example, were much larger than them, but they drew every last drop from God ‘s body.
“She had no body fat at all, it was just muscles,” marveled Erin Gilson.
During Riccio’s 1993 senior season, West Virginia was three points behind an undefeated campaign, with wins that year over Pitt, Virginia Tech and Maryland. The team also won the Atlantic 10 and Eastern Championships.
“This year we decided to get rings because we deserved it, so we went out on our own and bought rings,” said Kevin Gilson.
Renee met her husband Frank McCutchan when they were both on the WVU team, and after moving to Atlanta, Charlotte, and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, the couple decided to make Morgantown their home 20 years ago.
“He was her # 1 fan,” said Erin. “He was the best husband ever.”
Her daughter Jacqueline is junior to coach Vic Riggs at WVU, where she is a school record 200 freestyle relay, and son Frankie is now a senior at University High and an aspiring college swimmer.
Gilson said he was in town with his wife Googie about a month ago and they invited the McCutchans out for dinner.
“We knew Renee was having trouble, but we had a great time,” said Gilson. “She looked good and seemed happy. The only thing we noticed was that after an hour and a half with us, she was getting tired. Thank goodness we had the opportunity to have dinner with her.”
Gilson added, “She was special, so positive, always smiling, and so ready to help others. You understand why Renee was Renee because she came from such a beautiful family. Her mom and dad and her brother Phil, who is the sports director at Altoona High, are just so special.
“She was definitely an angel on earth, and now she will be an angel in heaven forever,” he concluded.
The family plans to visit the Hastings Funeral Home in Morgantown on August 29, from 4pm to 8pm. Funeral services will be held in St. Mary’s Orthodox Church and in Alto on Monday, August 30th at 11am. A funeral service will be held in Remains Park in Altoona, Pennsylvania on August 31 at 11 a.m.
Instead of flowers, the family asked for donations in honor of Renee:
stepping stones
400 Mylan Park Lane
Morgantown, WV, 26501
Comments are closed.