Bio
In February 1954, at the urging of Mary Diana and others, the Orange County Community College Board of Trustees approved a petition for a girl’s activity program.
During the 1955-56 academic year, Diana formed and coached the College’s first women’s basketball team. During her time at SUNY Orange, she also coached or advised the cheerleaders, bowling team, twirling club, tennis team, and field hockey team, as well as several student clubs.
She was also a campus leader who was heavily involved in the Faculty Association and community service efforts. She first joined the College faculty as a part-time professor (1953-56) before being hired full-time in 1956. She remained at SUNY Orange until retiring in 1982.
Away from the College, Diana was an outspoken advocate for equality in women’s and girl’s sports. She was a three-time member of the Middletown Recreation Commission and played an important role in the development of Women’s City League softball and basketball in Middletown. She organized sports officiating clinics for women and developed women’s varsity athletic tournaments in Region XV of the National Junior College Athletic Association. She was named Middletown Sportsman of the Year in 1973, becoming the first woman to win the award.
An outstanding athlete in her own right, Diana was a low handicap golfer and above-average bowler. She won the Orange County Tournament of Champions (golf) twice, the Mid-Hudson Golf Association Championships five times, and nine club titles at the Orange County Golf Club in Middletown. In 1961, she bowled a 672 series, the highest score in New York State that year, in the state tournament at Niagara Falls.
Diana attended an all-expense paid tryout with the South Bend (Ind.) Blue Sox of the Midwest Professional Women’s Softball League in 1949. She was offered a contract as a shortstop and catcher, but was unable to get time off from her duties as a teacher in the Middletown school system and had to decline.
In 2009, the College named its new on-campus softball field in her