Few people have built a legacy in South Puget Sound recreational sports to compare with Margaret McCormick’s, and it all can be traced back to a happy accident when she showed up for the wrong class in college. 

Born April 10, 1933, in Albany, Oregon, McCormick was attending the University of Oregon when she walked joined a class and the professor discovered she was not on the class list. An hourlong conversation with the professor over coffee pointed her toward a Parks and Recreation major and a meeting with the department chair. The rest, as they say, is history. 

“I knew I had found what I was meant to do,” McCormick said. “I went from being a solid C student to being on the Dean’s List.” 

McCormick’s early years allowed her to establish her own athletic bona fides on the basketball court at St. Mary’s High School in Medford, where they only played half court “since we were girls and too delicate to play full court.” She also fondly recalled four years as a cheerleader “for a consistently losing team.” 

During that time, McCormick also became the first female to earn a byline in the Medford Mail Tribune as she reported on the B League baseball game in Eagle Point in the early 1950s. After graduating from U of O in 1968, she was hired as Senior Citizen coordinator at Vancouver Parks and Recreation before earned a promotion to Recreation Manager. 

By 1984, Metro Parks Tacoma was pulling out all the stops to recruit McCormick from Vancouver. As former Superintendent of Parks Ken Heany recalled, “She withdrew from the first interview, but we did not give up! We wanted her, as she was known as the most driven, creative recreation manager in the west.” 

Heany and his team eventually succeeded, and McCormick worked as Director of Recreation and Community Services at Metro Parks Tacoma from 1984 until 1996. Of course, that was only her first retirement, as she has gone back repeatedly, retired twice more, and still works there part-time. As she explained it, “I liked the retirement parties.” 

In her work at the organization, McCormick continually sought out the best staff she could recruit and mentored them until they were ready for their next challenge. She created a welcoming and supportive atmosphere at every event and showed her love for the community with involvement in everything Metro Parks worked on. She continually looked for new program opportunities to meet the needs of underserved members of the community and always found a way even when resources were limited. 

“I don’t think I really understood her impact and importance until we worked together at Metro Parks,” former Tacoma Rainiers General Manager and Metro Parks Tacoma Director of Recreation & Community Services Dave Lewis said. “That is where I learned more about her deep love for the community. She used Parks & Recreation as a means to serve the community she loves. She was a pioneer in the field. Not only did she blaze a path for women in the industry, but she was also good at getting the ‘old boys’ to think differently about the industry’s impact on everyone.” 

Along with her work at Metro Parks (and numerous other roles in the community), McCormick served as director of the Tacoma Tigers (and eventually Rainiers) Community Fund. She helped the team with community engagement activities and continually encouraged everyone she encountered to get involved with virtually every local organization. Every interaction was a chance for her to make a new connection. 

“I loved walking with Margaret at state and national conferences,” Lewis said. “We couldn’t walk 10 steps without someone yelling ‘Margaret!’ and wanting to give her a hug and catch up. Many people called her the godmother of recreation.”