Rita Crockett

Rita Louise Buck-Crockett (born November 2, 1957 in San Antonio, Texas) is a retired female volleyball player from the United States, who won the silver medal with the USA National Women's Team at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California under the guidance of coach Arie Selinger. She was a student at the University of Houston.

A 1984 issue of Sports Illustrated touted her as the world's best athlete and nicknamed her "The Rocket", because of her 42-inch vertical leap and her 100 mile-per-hour kills. In 1981, she was one of six players selected to the All-World Team. She has coached and played in the U.S., Japan, Italy and Switzerland for seventeen years.

Buck-Crockett earned AIAW All-America honors at the University of Houston prior to joining the U.S. Olympic team to train for the 1980 Summer Olympics. In 1981, she led the U.S. to a bronze medal at the World Cup in Osaka, Japan. In 1982 that team won the bronze medal at the World Championships in Lima, Peru.

From 1982 to 1986, Buck-Crockett was a member of the Daiei Team in Kobe, Japan. Her 1986 Daiei squad was the champion of the Japan League. She played beach volleyball on the Women's Professional Volleyball Association Tour from 1988-96 and played Major League Volleyball from 1986-87. Buck-Crockett was also a Major League Volleyball champion in both 1986 and 1987 and earned league MVP honors in 1986. In 1986, she teamed with Jackie Silva of Brazil, to win the World Beach Volleyball Championship.They were the first black and Hispanic duo to win a World Beach Championship. The following season she was the league runner-up with Angela Rock (United States). From 1988 until 1993, she was a player for Matera, a professional league team in Matera, Italy, and also played in Rome. In 1991, she was voted the MVP of the Italian League, and her 1993 Rome team won the European Championship.

From 1993 to 1998, Buck-Crockett coached and played in Switzerland for RTV Basel. During her tenure, her squads won titles including the Swiss Cup (1994-1996), the Swiss Championship (1995-1996) and participated in the European Cup of Champions (1995). Buck-Crockett was named most valuable player four times. In the summers of 2000 through 2002, Buck-Crockett was one of only three collegiate head coaches to coach some of the elite youth talent in the country at the USA Youth High Performance Camp at the Olympic Training Center in Salt Lake City and at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

Buck-Crockett received a bachelor of Liberal Studies/Communications degree from the University of Iowa in August 2002.

In 2004 Buck-Crockett was fired as coach of the Iowa Volleyball team and became the Associate Head Volleyball coach at Florida State University. A year later she left Florida State to take over North Florida Volleyball Academy as the director and president.

References

* [http://www.databaseolympics.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=CROCKRIT01 databaseOlympics]
* [http://www.olympic-usa.org/13220.htm US Olympic Team]
* [http://atarimagazines.planetmirror.com/v2n12/atarisolympicteam.html Atari Magazines]
* [http://seminoles.cstv.com/sports/w-volley/mtt/buckcrockett_rita00.html CSTV]
* [http://www.northfloridavolleyballacademy.org]
* [http://www.ritacrockett.com]