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A central figure in the development of Lycoming College's women's athletic programs, Deb Holmes was included in the 2022 Middle Atlantic Conference Hall of Fame class.
After serving as the social director at Pocono Manor Inn, Holmes returned to her hometown, Williamsport, in 1976 when she was hired as an instructor of physical education at Lycoming College. She also immediately picked up a new title as the women's tennis coach, a position she held for the next 34 years.
By November of that year, she was also tasked with starting a women's basketball team. With just little Hilltop Gymnasium and wrestling and men's basketball already practicing in the gym, court time was a logistical issue for the team in its early years. By 1978, she had helped elevate the team to varsity status and worked with Director of Athletics Dutch Burch to gain the cooperation of the existing sports programs to use the gym for the women's basketball team.
At the time, she said, "I think this will be a great program because the college is displaying a sufficient interest in women. Lycoming is supporting Title IX -- equal rights for women with regards to education and sports -- which will greatly facilitate women's basketball as well as other competitive sports."
The opening of Lamade Gym in 1980, complete with a wrestling room, helped alleviate the women's basketball program's issues with finding space and time to practice.
During the team's first season, it won just one game, a 60-54 triumph over Williamsport Area Community College on Jan. 22, 1978. After the game, Holmes' comments to the school newspaper, The Spectator, were similar to ones she gave after any of her team's accomplishments. "It was the best game they've all played, and they all blended together well. It was a tremendous job because everyone gave 200 percent."
Just two years later, Holmes women's basketball team was playing nearly twice as many games as it had during its first year and it was enjoying its first of two straight .500 or better finishes. Always a coach that stressed the importance of team efforts, she told the Sun-Gazette of her 1980-81 team, "I always tell my players that we have five scoring threats and five defensive threats on the court at all times."
While the women's basketball team began to develop, so too did the women's tennis program, which won just two matches in Holmes' first two seasons. By 1981, the team had finished 4-0 in the MAC Northern Division and reached the conference title match, coming during a run of five .500 or better seasons in six years.