SUNY Cortland Athletics

One of New York's finest volleyball coaches, Maura Olga Stouter led teams in the Smithtown (N.Y.) School District to 590 victories in 34 seasons. Her squads captured 23 league titles and she earned nine Coach of the Year awards.
 
A pre-Title IX female athlete, Stouter actively participated in volleyball, archery, badminton and fencing, served as an athletic trainer, and was a member of Cortland's Women's Athletic Association. Stouter earned a bachelor's degree in education from Cortland in 1970 and a master's degree from SUNY Stony Brook in 1975.
 
Stouter taught in Smithtown from 1970-2003 and coached girls' volleyball from 1970-2005. She was also instrumental in starting the boys' volleyball program as she coached Smithtown West High School's boys' volleyball extramural team from 1979-86 and was the boys' first varsity head coach in 1987.
 
Stouter's Smithtown West girls' teams won Section 11 and regional titles in the 1984 and 1986 spring seasons, and the program's first Long Island championship in 1990. Stouter was an advocate for girls' volleyball being played in the fall season, when the sport was played in most states and in college. Her team, along with a few others in the county, switched to the fall season in 1990 and participated in their first state championship. Stouter led Smithtown to the 1995 state finals and seven state semifinals, and her teams won seven Long Island championships.
 
An outspoken advocate for women's sports, Stouter tirelessly pressed for compliance with Title IX provisions. In 1993, she received the Jack Ault Memorial Award, named for a New York State athletic director instrumental in giving girls' sports a voice in the 1970s.
 
While at Smithtown, she helped create the Smithtown/SUNY Cortland Scholarship for Smithtown students attending Cortland. She directed numerous volleyball camps and was a long-time certified varsity volleyball official. She started the Suffolk Stars, the first club program on Long Island to provide opportunities for elementary school athletes to learn volleyball.
 
A 2003 Smithtown Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, Stouter founded and was the first president of the Suffolk County Volleyball Coaches Association and received its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. After retiring, Stouter returned to her native New Lebanon, N.Y. She coached and mentored the boys' high school volleyball team from 2009-11 and led them to their first regional championship. Stouter passed away in June 2011 after battling cancer.