They've been teachers, school administrators, businesspeople, coaches, physical therapists, professionals of various kinds…even stay-at-home moms. Most have grown children. A number have grandchildren. 
 
But 40 years ago, they were the young women of the hour.
 
They were players on the 1984 and 1985 Portland State University volleyball teams that won PSU's first national volleyball championships at the Division II level, with both tournaments being played on PSU's home turf. 
 
Next Tuesday, Oct. 29, those two squads – coached by Jeff and Marty Mozzochi – will be inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.
 
And, even after all those years, memories of those two championships haven't faded for these players.
 
Leah Davidson (Natwick) and Shelley Moore (Rumberger) remember the two match points.
 
"I remember serving game point (in 1984) — and the team collapsing in a giant hug on the floor. The crowd was SO incredible!! To contrast that to playing in Florida (the year before when PSU lost the final match), so far away and no crowd, to having ESPN present to capture the finals in front of 3,000 raucous Viking fans was amazing. Unforgettable," said Davidson, a right-side hitter and strong-side blocker who was a team co-captain.
 
Moore blocked match point in 1985.
 
"I got to block match point on the 1985 team. It felt like slow motion. I turned around and was enveloped in a huge hug and eventual dog pile on the ground. It was joy on a level I'd never ever felt before and gratitude that rippled in the coming months and to this day to all the people that believed in our team and what our result would be," Moore recalled.
 
Setter and outside hitter Lynda Black (Johnson), a four-time All-American, said she was "ecstatic and kind of in disbelief that we finally did it in 84. In 85, I was relieved."
 
Black's younger sister Cathy Johnson Mitchell, who transferred from Gonzaga, wanted "to watch the reactions of the seniors…and, of course, my sister, as the ball dropped to the floor before running out to join the dog pile in the middle of the court. The reactions of everyone were jubilation and excitement."
 
And in '84, the victory was especially sweet.
 
"We finished second the year before (losing in a five-set match to Cal State Northridge--CSUN). That one hurt. After the coaching change (Coach Marlene Piper was replaced by Jeff and Marty Mozzochi), there was some initial panic, but we had almost our whole team coming back, the whole starting line-up except one, so we decided to stick together, that it didn't matter who they brought in as coach, we were GOING to win it the next year," said middle blocker Teri-Jo Schlatter (Kelly).  "I looked forward to going to practices every day because that meant we were one day closer to our goal of winning the national championship. There was no doubt."
 
And the newly arrived Jeff and Marty Mozzochi had to keep the team operating at a high level to fulfill that certainty.
 
Jeff Mozzochi arrived at PSU in the late winter of 1984, a 26-year-old first-time head coach. He'd been an associate head coach at Cal Berkeley which had finished in the top 10 nationally. He was confident, but unproven as a head coach. His new bride, Marty, had been head women's volleyball coach at the University of San Francisco.
 
He inherited a Viking program that had twice won the Division I Mountain West Conference and finished second nationally the previous year on the Division II level.
 
"Marty and I were newly married, had uprooted our lives to move to Portland where we knew almost no one, and were coaching together for the first time after coaching against each other for four years. We had to make sure the athletes believed in what we were doing while we figured out the details as we went. Fortunately, Marty and I are both highly organized and had great confidence in each other's coaching abilities, strengths and weaknesses. I am very technical and tactical. Marty has a great feel for the mental and emotional ups and downs of athletes and teams," Mozzochi said.
 
Spring training was their first look at the talent Piper had amassed prior to heading for Cal Berkley…and they were impressed.
 
The 1984 team had a good spring training session and "once we saw the new athletes learning quickly, we felt we had the physical potential (to win it all)".
 
And the Mozzochis made a good early impression on the team.
 
Besides bringing a style of play that most of PSU's competition wasn't used to (audible plays and a quick middle), Davidson said she "appreciated [Mozzochi's] new ideas and training and that he seemed to have a respect for who we already were as a team, solidly drilled in fundamentals and solid as a unit.  In my opinion, he opted to guide us at a high level without messing too much with our core strengths. Marty was an excellent addition. She was the softer side, the one who could expertly intervene with communication issues, logistics and was an early adopter of mindfulness and relaxation techniques."
 
The first 1984 championship was almost too easy in the minds of some.
"The 1984 season was pretty well scripted. We rolled through the conference and the first few rounds of the NCAA tournament. But, I don't think any of us expected us to sweep (defending champion) CSUN in three," said Black.
 
Davidson remembers "almost wishing we could lose a set so I could keep playing because the moment was so awesome."
 
Repeating is always harder, so 1985 presented a stiffer challenge.
 
When the players decided they wanted to repeat as national champions, Mozzochi and his staff decided they needed to challenge the athletes even more physically and mentally than in 1984.
 
"My coaching philosophy always revolved around discipline and great fundamentals leading to highly efficient execution offensively and defensively. I analyze a win as critically as a loss and I'm tougher in training sessions than I am in matches," he said.
 
That's not always easy for young players to understand, he said. "When a coach is being critical in practices and after matches while the team is winning, it can take its toll over the course of the season. Add to that the elevated expectations that came with the goals the team had set and I'm sure there were times during the season where the athletes thought it was us (coaches) against them (athletes)."
 
In more than one team meeting frustrations were voiced but Mozzochi said he would ask them if they wanted to change their goals…"and if that didn't work, we'd bring our young son Daniel (born July 30, 1985) into the gym. That always worked."
 
Later, he said, the coaches reflected on the differences between 1984 and 1985 season and realized "just how tough we'd been on that 1985 team. It was a group of experienced, talented veterans combined with inexperienced, athletic rookies that really went through fire to come out forged into champions. It was truly a remarkable accomplishment for these young women and we felt privileged to be part of the journey."
 
Portland State was able to attract some of the best women's volleyball talent because women's collegiate sports generally were just on the upswing following Title IX, which mandated equal opportunity for women in higher education sports programs. Portland State was aggressively expanding its sports program in compliance. The Al Giusti women's basketball tournament was an example.
 
Right side blocker Karen Aker, who played four years with PSU's basketball team before joining the 1984 championship squad, credited Title IX with her collegiate sports and educational opportunities. "Thanks to Title IX, I was able to play college sports and further my education after high school," said the Tacoma, Wash., native.
 
"I know it was 40 years ago, but I'm so proud to represent Portland State and its first national championship and to be part of women's sports when they were starting to grow and we actually were starting to have the opportunities men had in sports. I never took that for granted," said Davidson.
 
Under coach Marlene Piper, the PSU program had become well known.
 
"My dream was to play at PSU. If you knew volleyball at all in the northwest, you knew this was THE school to play at. I attended camps on purpose at PSU so I could get seen and learn from the best in the nation," said Moore, out of Beaverton High School. "My entire time at PSU was very special. PSU is a holy place to me and being a PSU volleyball player is on another level," she said.
 
Black was another local. Out of Barlow High School, she was recruited by many of the top volleyball universities in the nation, but ended up at PSU "because the history of volleyball excellence was unmatched by any other team in the northwest at that time."
 
Schlatter said she was "recruited by all three Oregon schools but chose Portland State because it had a winning reputation and they worked harder than anyone else. I wanted that."
 
Memories of those times and what they accomplished haven't faded with the years. For example, Aker remembers "waiting in the cold and dark along Interstate 84 in Eastern Oregon when the bus broke down on the back from Boise…then, hanging out in a truck stop and waiting for the yellow school bus to take us to Portland. Who could forget that?"
 
Several remember singing on the way to matches and middle blocker Lisa Gambee (Couch) even wrote a special song for the team to sing before a final four match.
 
"One cool thing that Jeff and Marty did that (1984 championship) weekend was to surprise us with special new sleek black bun-hugger uniforms we would get to wear for the final match. The unis made us look so good! The night of the final match, we were already so filled with adrenaline, hearing the crowd noise, getting to wear those new uniforms, we figured we could borrow some warmup time to sneak away and listen to this song Lisa had written. It was titled "Together We Will" (a favorite team cheer)." They were very late to warmups and the stressed coaching staff wasn't amused, she said.
 
Fun and camaraderie also were woven through their memories.
 
"Our volleyball team had so much fun together. We loved food! Eating was a highlight on the road. Marie Callender's was a team favorite. Before each match, we did a special chant to get us fired up…it went: '1-2 tell me who are you-PSU. 3-4 tell me who you are for-PSU. 5-6 tell me who you pick-PSU. 7-8 Tell me who's really great-PSU. 9-10 Tell me who's going to win-PSU. 10-9 tell me who's really fine-PSU. 8-7 tell me who goes to heaven-PSU. 6-5 Tell me who's alive-PSU. 4-3 tell me who we are-PSU.  2-1 Tell me who's number one-PPPPSSSSUUUU.'," recalled Defensive Specialist Lisa Lane, who said she "rolled and dove for almost every ball in the back row"
 
Their reactions to being inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame were equally enthusiastic.
 
"Just WOW!," said Meri-Jo Hicks-Nunley, who grew up in Trona, Calif., an hour from Death Valley. Her high school had 120 students and she described herself as "Outside Hitter, OPP and cheerleader". She also remembers "upsetting some big schools (University of Oregon and Others), and our team being so pumped and filled with belief that anything was possible."
 
Another big win occurred at an early season tournament in Southern California in 1985 when the Vikings soundly beat the No. 1-ranked Division I team in the nation, USC.  "Our team did not get overly excited about the win. They did not go crazy. They acted like they expected to win. That was when we knew that we might have another special group," said Mozzochi.
 
Moore called the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame induction "a little surreal. I knew it was a big deal when I saw fellow inductee Megan Rapinoe filmed watching the Paris Olympics."
 
"Awesome Sauce! An Honor!" said Middle Blocker Mary Harris-Shearer.
 
There have been other highlights for Viking volleyball over the years, but the first back-to-back national championships still stand out. Perhaps Schlatter and Black put it best:
 
"Once everything had settled down after the match, we had a team party to celebrate (Lane remembers hoping the floor of her little house wouldn't collapse with the crowd). The season was so special, the ending so storybook. I remember crying at the party after because I was so sad it was ending.," Schlatter recalled.
 
Said Black: "Our group definitely stood on the shoulders of those who came before. And, as Title IX babies, we benefited from the dawn of women's sports at PSU.  To see the growth of women's sports including volleyball at PSU makes me proud and I'm excited to see the future."