EMU Hall of Fame coach, pioneer in women’s sports, Mim Mumaw passes at 87

Staunton native Larry Sheets, the former Baltimore Orioles slugger, was sitting in the box seats behind home plate belonging to friend and former teammate Cal Ripken, Jr. during an evening game on Aug. 24, 2022, at Camden Yards.

Taking a break from watching his son Gavin collect three hits for the visiting Chicago White Sox, the former Staunton High baseball and basketball star made his way about 30 rows up to chat with four fellow graduates of EMU midway through the game.

Among the group of EMU alums sitting just to the right of the press box was Miriam (Mim) Mumaw, who had coached several women’s sports at what was then EMC in Harrisonburg in the 1960s and 1970s and was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2002.

She had followed Sheets’ baseball career for decades, from his time in the minors while playing basketball in the winters while attending EMU to his MLB debut in 1984 with the Orioles to his comeback to The Show in 1993 with the Seattle Mariners after playing in Japan.

Mumaw, who had not seen Sheets in person in several years, wore a big smile as the 1987 Orioles MVP spent a few innings talking to her and others in the group.

Mumaw, a long-time resident of Arlington, passed away on Dec. 5, 2025, at the age of 87 following a stroke.

The daughter of former EMU president John R. Mumaw, she will have a private burial on Jan. 3 at Lindale Mennonite Church in Linville.

“Mim was first and foremost a wonderful Christian woman, a huge fan of EMU and a huge supporter of my career and then my son’s career,” Sheets wrote in a text to the AFP. “It was always special running into Mim at the stadium in Washington or Baltimore whenever Gavin’s team was in town playing. She will be missed.”

Gavin Sheets broke in with the White Sox in 2021 and signed with the San Diego Padres prior to the 2025 campaign.

“She got to know Larry through him playing basketball those years (1979-1982) at EMU,” Tom Baker, friends with Sheets since college, noted of Mumaw. “Throughout Larry‘s career, I would run into her and see her at his games, I think in the minors some, but definitely in Baltimore.”

Baker was the men’s basketball coach at EMU from 1992-2003 and now teaches physical education at Lacey Springs Elementary in Rockingham County.

“When I became head men’s basketball coach, I recall Mim sometimes attending our games in the Northern Virginia area. She definitely was knowledgeable about the game of baseball, one of the biggest fans I have ever met. And she definitely followed Larry in his career closely. Through my many years associated with EMU, I have heard many people comment on the importance of Mim’s leadership in promoting women’s athletics and the total athletic program at EMU. No doubt she was a pioneer as a female coach,” Baker noted.

Pioneer at EMU

Mumaw helped get the EMU field hockey program started in 1970, and it became a varsity sport in 1971, with Dianne Gates as the coach for four seasons.

“I was more of a faculty adviser than a coach,” Mumaw told Ryan Cornell of emu.edu in 2024. “Dianne’s the one who developed the program.”

The Title IX Act of 1972 required equal funding for women’s athletics. “A lot of the expansion in women’s athletics came from that,” Mumaw said in that story for the EMU alumni magazine on field hockey and its improved facilities. “We were fortunate to have Madison College (now JMU) and Bridgewater College close by, because we could play them in almost any sport.”

Mumaw coached basketball at EMU from 1966-1975 and volleyball from 1968-1979, compiling a mark of 151-99 in the latter sport.

Mumaw was the basketball coach when EMU played JMU for the first time, losing 51-27 on Jan. 25, 1973. But she did guide the Royals to wins over JMU at least twice in volleyball, in 1975 and 1976.

The EMU field hockey team played in its first national tournament in 1980, held at Hollins College near Roanoke, under coach Sandy Brownscombe. When Mumaw took a sabbatical in 1979 (which eventually led to her move to the D.C. area), she rented out her apartment to Brownscombe, according to EMU publications.

The school was one of the founding members of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC), which now has offices in Salem, in 1976. The ODAC added women’s sports six years later.

Former EMU baseball player Rich McElwee, who lived in the same Oakwood dorm as Sheets and Baker in Park View, as a coach took the EMU women’s basketball team to the Sweet 16 at the Division III level in 2004 with a squad that included standout Laura Ludholtz, a Fort Defiance High graduate. McElwee, the former athletics director at Glenvar High in Salem, passed in 2020 at the age of 59 due to cancer.

Besides coaching, Mumaw served on the Board of Trustees at EMU from 1988-1996, making many drives down 1-66 and I-81 from Arlington to the Park View campus.

Current athletics director Carrie Bert, the first woman to hold that title at EMU, recalls a warm conversation with Mumaw this past September.

When Bert was named athletics director after being the interim, Mumaw sent her an email on Aug. 15, 2022 – nine days before that Orioles game in Baltimore that Sheets and Mumaw attended.

“Carrie, congratulations on your promotion. And best wishes on all the fun and challenges ahead! And there will be both. You have the background for this,” Mumaw wrote to Bert, a former volleyball coach at EMU. “It will be exciting to see where EMU Athletics is headed under your leadership.”

Sheets was drafted by the Orioles out of Staunton High in 1978, the same day as Ripken. The lefty slugger left the minors on a few occasions, upset with the lifestyle, and had enrolled at EMU. He made his MLB debut with the Orioles in 1984 and graduated from EMU a few years later. Sheets has coached baseball at the Gilman School in Baltimore for several years.

He was an assistant baseball coach at EMU in 1982 before returning to pro ball as a player, as he hit 18 homers in 88 games later that year for Single-A Hagerstown in the Baltimore system.

Orioles, then Nationals

Mumaw’s athletic pursuits stretched well beyond her days at EMU.

Soon after she moved to Arlington about 45 years ago, she became a bigger fan of sports teams in the region while gaining respect in the work place as a valued employee for more than 40 years of Gammon & Grange, a law firm in Northern Virginia. She was also very involved in leadership positions at Washington Community Fellowship (WCF), a Mennonite-affiliated congregation.

She became a season ticket holder of the Orioles, and then did the same when the Washington Nationals moved to the nation’s capital in time for the 2005 season.

Mumaw was a regular at Nationals Park in 2019 as a Washington baseball club won the World Series for the first time since 1924.

Even as she aged, Mumaw tried to get to Camden Yards and Nationals Park when she was able, and she attended games in both cities during the 2025 season. She attended about five to 10 games at Nationals Park this past season. “Every usher at Nats and O’s in her sections was treated royally and returned the respect and care,” according to friend and Arlington resident Carol Weatherly, who joined her many times.

Mumaw, who played golf when she was younger, would also take relatives (she was single) and friends to her place in the Cayman Islands. “Where they knew and treated her like family every visit. She seemed to know everyone here (in the DC area) and in Harrisonburg. Special person,” noted friend Rob Huey, who joined her at many Nationals’ games.

And she kept in touch with EMU athletics, more than four decades after she left coaching behind.

“During one visit to EMU Athletics, Mim shared with me how her father, president of EMC at the time (likely reflecting the feeling of the wider church), was opposed to growth in women’s physical activities at EMU,” Bert wrote to the AFP. “She just laughed and said ‘Well, that wasn’t going to stop me … we just had to agree not to talk about it.’ Mim was always so encouraging of me both in words of affirmation and in the wonderful way she would squeeze my hand while we chatted. I could feel her positivity and enduring support in those moments. Talking with her was both comforting and exciting; her eyes twinkling with an uncontainable feisty spirit while openly sharing her life experiences. Mim saw opportunity all around her and that joy in the journey influenced my outlook on my personal and professional life.”

“I first met Mim when I arrived at EMC in the fall of 1972, but I had no idea of the trailblazer she was and the impact she had on women’s sports until I returned as Director of Athletics in 2005,” former EMU student and athletics director David King, who held the position before Bert, wrote to the AFP. “Besides coaching women’s sports and teaching PE classes, her involvement with the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women exposed EMC athletics to the broader collegiate athletic community and elevated the EMC sports programs.”

“Mim was a friend and mentor to many, supporting student activities beyond the classroom, courts and fields.  She helped us organize teams of athletes who presented programs in churches in VA, PA and NC.  She was an avid, and competitive Rook player,” King added. “Unfortunately, I don’t think she was adequately recognized or affirmed for what she did for EMC athletes and sports teams during her time of coaching, teaching and administrating.  She was a true gift to EMC and those of us who followed are indebted to her for what she did for EMU athletics.”

Mumaw returned to EMU countless times over the years.

“Graduated from then EMC in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science degree and later received a Master of Science degree from the University of Iowa in 1968. After four years on the faculty at Iowa Mennonite School, she returned to her alma mater as an instructor in business and in physical education. She later achieved the rank of assistant professor of physical education and remained at EMU until 1979,” according to EMU.

A funeral service will be held for Mumaw on Saturday, Jan. 31 at 3 p.m. at the Washington Community Fellowship at 907 Maryland Ave NE, Washington, D.C.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Washington Community Fellowship Church Renovation Fund, which can be found at wcfchurch.org.

Note: The author is a long-time member of WCF, a church that Mumaw had attended since the early 1980s. His mother, Marilyn Kriebel Ritchie, was classmates at EMU with Mumaw and a fellow 1961 graduate.