Photo by: WVU Athletic Communications
Standout Former WVU Swimmer and Morgantown Resident Riccio McCutchan Passes Away
August 26, 2021 03:42 PM | Women's Swimming & Diving
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – What Erin Gilson remembers most about Renee Riccio McCutchan was the love and laughter that filled up any room she occupied.
Renee never had a bad day, and if she did, she would have never let anyone know about it. Yesterday, she passed away surrounded by her family after courageously and privately battling cancer.
She was just 50.
"As long as I've known her, she may have said a cuss word or two occasionally like we all do, but I never heard her say one thing negative about anyone, ever," Gilson said earlier today. "She is the only person that I can say that about."
Those living in Morgantown who know and love Renee will forever remember her involvement with youth swimming, her time spent volunteering at SteppingStones or her devotion to her faith as a member of St. Mary's Orthodox Church.
But what they probably didn't fully appreciate was that she was once a terrific swimmer at West Virginia University - one of the very best butterfliers in the country back in the early 1990s. You would have had to have interrogated Renee to get any of that out of her, though, because she was so humble and so down-to-earth.
"Man, was she tough, and what a special swimmer," her collegiate coach Kevin Gilson said earlier today from his family farm in Albany, New York. Gilson, who led the Mountaineer men's program from 1967 until 1996 and the women's program from 1980 until 1996, is a retired gentleman farmer these days. "When the men were pushing out on their workouts, I would often put Renee in their lane, and she would push them to work even harder."
Gilson did this for two reasons. One, because Renee was so much better than the other female swimmers in the program here at the time and needed better training partners, and, two, because it was a big blow to the guys' egos seeing this 5-foot-5, 125-pound girl hanging right there with them.
And she could!
Then known as Renee Riccio, she came to WVU after spending a year at The 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 every record Altoona had before enrolling at Peddie when she was 16.
That's where Gilson found out about her.
"The Peddie coach (Chris Martin) was a former Germantown (Pa.) swimmer, and I had a bunch of men's swimmers from Germantown who had heard about her, and that's how it filtered back to me that she was so good," Gilson recalled.
The 2008 Blair County Sports Hall of Fame inductee visited Villanova, Penn State and some other schools, but she instantly fell in love with WVU when she came on a campus visit.
Riccio was Gilson's top recruit, and she immediately became one of the team's best swimmers when she arrived in 1990. She was such a high priority that Gilson assigned his oldest daughter, Erin, a member of the team, to be her host for her recruiting weekend.
One of the first things Erin discovered about Renee was that her coach at Peddie used to make his athletes train in the pool while wearing sneakers. When Renee joined the team, Erin made her promise that she would never tell her dad that they used to practice in tennis shoes.
"I did not want to swim in sneakers, and I knew if my dad had found that out, we probably would have done it," Erin laughed.
Immediately, Riccio blew away the coaching staff with her intense desire to succeed and her amazing training habits.
But after tapering for her first big meet, Renee's time was far below Gilson's expectations. The puzzled coach called her into his office soon after the race to try and find out why.
"I pulled her aside, and I began to talk to her," he recalled. "We taper when we go into a championship meet, which means we lower the workload we put on the kids so their bodies get a chance to recuperate so they can go as fast as they can in the race.
"I said, 'Renee, your taper was perfect' and she said, 'I know, but I was working out on my own because I was afraid that I was going to get out of shape.' I said, 'Oh my God, you've got to promise me that you will never do that again!'" he laughed.
She didn't, but she did decide to go and train with world-renowned coach Jack Nelson in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials, being held in Indianapolis, Indiana, that year.
Riccio was one of 42 swimmers to qualify in the 100 butterfly, and she ended up finishing 13th in the prelims with a time of 1:02.16. The top two swimmers representing the United States in the 100 butterfly in the Olympic Games that year were two of the all-time greats in women's swimming - Stanford's Summer Sanders and Arizona's Crissy Ahmann-Leighton.
Twenty-eight years after completing her collegiate career in 1993, Rene is still one of just seven female swimmers in school history to qualify for at least three NCAA championships, encompassing seven different events in all.
Her 200 I.M. time of 2:02.38 posted in 1993 is the fourth-fastest in school history, and her 200 fly clocking 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 with times fast enough to rank in the school's all-time top 10.
Riccio was much smaller than the other top butterfliers in the country – Sanders and Ahmann-Leighton stood much taller than her, for example, but she got every last drop that she could out of the body God gave her.
"She had like no body fat at all; it was all muscle," Erin Gilson marveled.
During Riccio's senior season, West Virginia was three points shy of having an undefeated campaign with victories over Pitt, Virginia Tech and Maryland. The team also won the Atlantic 10 and Eastern Championships.
"That's the year we decided we'd get rings because we deserved it, so we went out on our own and bought ourselves rings," Kevin Gilson said.
Renee met her husband, Frank McCutchan, while both were members of the WVU team and after moves to Atlanta, Charlotte and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, the couple chose to make Morgantown their home 20 years ago.
"He was her No. 1 fan," Erin said. "He was the best husband ever."
Their daughter, Jacqueline, is a junior for coach Vic Riggs at WVU where she is a member of the school-record-holding 200 freestyle relay team, and son, Frankie, is now a senior at University High and an aspiring collegiate swimmer.
Gilson said he was in town a month or so ago with his wife, Googie, and they invited the McCutchans out to dinner.
"We knew Renee was having difficulties, but we ended up having a grand time," Gilson said. "She looked good and appeared to be happy; the only thing we noticed was that she was getting tired after spending an hour and a half with us. Thank God we had that chance 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 athletic director at Altoona High, are just so special.
"She was definitely an angel on Earth, and now she will forever be an angel up in heaven," he concluded.
The family is planning an Aug. 29 visitation at Hastings Funeral Home in Morgantown from 4-8 p.m. Funeral services will be held at St. Mary's Orthodox Church at 11 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 30, and there will be a graveside service at Alto Reste Park in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 31 at 11 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations be made in honor of Renee's memory to:
SteppingStones
400 Mylan Park Lane
Morgantown, WV, 26501
Renee never had a bad day, and if she did, she would have never let anyone know about it. Yesterday, she passed away surrounded by her family after courageously and privately battling cancer.
She was just 50.
"As long as I've known her, she may have said a cuss word or two occasionally like we all do, but I never heard her say one thing negative about anyone, ever," Gilson said earlier today. "She is the only person that I can say that about."
Those living in Morgantown who know and love Renee will forever remember her involvement with youth swimming, her time spent volunteering at SteppingStones or her devotion to her faith as a member of St. Mary's Orthodox Church.
But what they probably didn't fully appreciate was that she was once a terrific swimmer at West Virginia University - one of the very best butterfliers in the country back in the early 1990s. You would have had to have interrogated Renee to get any of that out of her, though, because she was so humble and so down-to-earth.
"Man, was she tough, and what a special swimmer," her collegiate coach Kevin Gilson said earlier today from his family farm in Albany, New York. Gilson, who led the Mountaineer men's program from 1967 until 1996 and the women's program from 1980 until 1996, is a retired gentleman farmer these days. "When the men were pushing out on their workouts, I would often put Renee in their lane, and she would push them to work even harder."Gilson did this for two reasons. One, because Renee was so much better than the other female swimmers in the program here at the time and needed better training partners, and, two, because it was a big blow to the guys' egos seeing this 5-foot-5, 125-pound girl hanging right there with them.
And she could!
Then known as Renee Riccio, she came to WVU after spending a year at The 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 every record Altoona had before enrolling at Peddie when she was 16.
That's where Gilson found out about her.
"The Peddie coach (Chris Martin) was a former Germantown (Pa.) swimmer, and I had a bunch of men's swimmers from Germantown who had heard about her, and that's how it filtered back to me that she was so good," Gilson recalled.
The 2008 Blair County Sports Hall of Fame inductee visited Villanova, Penn State and some other schools, but she instantly fell in love with WVU when she came on a campus visit.
Riccio was Gilson's top recruit, and she immediately became one of the team's best swimmers when she arrived in 1990. She was such a high priority that Gilson assigned his oldest daughter, Erin, a member of the team, to be her host for her recruiting weekend.
One of the first things Erin discovered about Renee was that her coach at Peddie used to make his athletes train in the pool while wearing sneakers. When Renee joined the team, Erin made her promise that she would never tell her dad that they used to practice in tennis shoes.
"I did not want to swim in sneakers, and I knew if my dad had found that out, we probably would have done it," Erin laughed.
Immediately, Riccio blew away the coaching staff with her intense desire to succeed and her amazing training habits.
But after tapering for her first big meet, Renee's time was far below Gilson's expectations. The puzzled coach called her into his office soon after the race to try and find out why.
"I pulled her aside, and I began to talk to her," he recalled. "We taper when we go into a championship meet, which means we lower the workload we put on the kids so their bodies get a chance to recuperate so they can go as fast as they can in the race.
"I said, 'Renee, your taper was perfect' and she said, 'I know, but I was working out on my own because I was afraid that I was going to get out of shape.' I said, 'Oh my God, you've got to promise me that you will never do that again!'" he laughed.
She didn't, but she did decide to go and train with world-renowned coach Jack Nelson in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials, being held in Indianapolis, Indiana, that year.
Riccio was one of 42 swimmers to qualify in the 100 butterfly, and she ended up finishing 13th in the prelims with a time of 1:02.16. The top two swimmers representing the United States in the 100 butterfly in the Olympic Games that year were two of the all-time greats in women's swimming - Stanford's Summer Sanders and Arizona's Crissy Ahmann-Leighton.Twenty-eight years after completing her collegiate career in 1993, Rene is still one of just seven female swimmers in school history to qualify for at least three NCAA championships, encompassing seven different events in all.
Her 200 I.M. time of 2:02.38 posted in 1993 is the fourth-fastest in school history, and her 200 fly clocking 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 with times fast enough to rank in the school's all-time top 10.
Riccio was much smaller than the other top butterfliers in the country – Sanders and Ahmann-Leighton stood much taller than her, for example, but she got every last drop that she could out of the body God gave her.
"She had like no body fat at all; it was all muscle," Erin Gilson marveled.
During Riccio's senior season, West Virginia was three points shy of having an undefeated campaign with victories over Pitt, Virginia Tech and Maryland. The team also won the Atlantic 10 and Eastern Championships.
"That's the year we decided we'd get rings because we deserved it, so we went out on our own and bought ourselves rings," Kevin Gilson said.
Renee met her husband, Frank McCutchan, while both were members of the WVU team and after moves to Atlanta, Charlotte and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, the couple chose to make Morgantown their home 20 years ago.
"He was her No. 1 fan," Erin said. "He was the best husband ever."
Their daughter, Jacqueline, is a junior for coach Vic Riggs at WVU where she is a member of the school-record-holding 200 freestyle relay team, and son, Frankie, is now a senior at University High and an aspiring collegiate swimmer.
Gilson said he was in town a month or so ago with his wife, Googie, and they invited the McCutchans out to dinner.
"We knew Renee was having difficulties, but we ended up having a grand time," Gilson said. "She looked good and appeared to be happy; the only thing we noticed was that she was getting tired after spending an hour and a half with us. Thank God we had that chance 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 athletic director at Altoona High, are just so special. "She was definitely an angel on Earth, and now she will forever be an angel up in heaven," he concluded.
The family is planning an Aug. 29 visitation at Hastings Funeral Home in Morgantown from 4-8 p.m. Funeral services will be held at St. Mary's Orthodox Church at 11 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 30, and there will be a graveside service at Alto Reste Park in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 31 at 11 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations be made in honor of Renee's memory to:
SteppingStones
400 Mylan Park Lane
Morgantown, WV, 26501
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