Diana Lerma named to the RGV Sports HOF class of 2025
Whether by design or coincidence, the average person is just that. Rare are the indomitable spirits, the transcendent leaders, and ferocious competitors. What’s most improbable is meeting that person, experiencing life with them, being impacted by them. Despite this, over the past two decades, one proud woman from Mission, Texas, has been that person for thousands. Which is why this summer, the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame will be inducting Diana Lerma into its pantheon of legends.
“I am honored. My second family away from home was the gym, my teammates and coaches. Thank god I was exposed to all those authoritative figures who were very well-disciplined,” Lerma said when reflecting on her achievement
Coach Lerma has helmed a volleyball machine at Mission Veterans Memorial High School for over twenty years. She has coached the Lady Patriots to a staggering 800+ wins, 18 district championships, 17 Bi-District Championships, 11 Regional Championships, and four Sweet Sixteen appearances. As a player, Coach Lerma was a multi-sport, All-Area performer when she starred at Mission High School. Her success earned her a Volleyball scholarship to Laredo Junior College, where she dominated. There, she garnered the attention of Southwest Texas State University, now known as Texas State University. She was named to the Southland All-Conference team and held the serving ace record for ten years.
She’s done it all.
Lerma credits her success to her mother, the late Socorro Trevino. Her inspiration powered her daughter to the unimaginable heights she cartwheels on today.
“My mom was very disciplined. We couldn’t be in sports just because we had to do our best. She used to say, ‘If you’re not going to do your best, just get the heck out,’ Lerma said when describing her mother’s inspirational force.
When Lerma called home second-guessing her decision to attend Texas State, her mother refused to humor her. She commanded her daughter to stand by her convictions and try her best.
“You do your best, and you represent,” Lerma remembers her mother telling her.
All five of Socorro Trevino’s children, especially her four daughters Leticia, Diana, Sonia, and Gloria, followed in their mother’s footsteps by internalizing and embodying her grit, consistency, and will to succeed, not only for herself but also for others. Her childhood memories are fond images of which friendly competition and rivalry are hallmarks.
“I’d always ask my sister, ‘How much did you run?’ She’d say, ‘Two miles,’ and then I’d go run three,” Lerma said about competing with her older sister, Leticia “Letty” Ibarra.
Along with their mother, coaches like Roy Garcia, Carmela Martinez, and Carlos Lopez pushed Lerma and her sisters to be the best student-athletes they could be. Determined to achieve greatness, Lerma and her sisters created a makeshift volleyball court with water hose lines and a swing set beam as a net. The beam taught Lerma and her sisters that precision and resiliency are necessities in life. Forearm bruises were a small price to pay.
“Quitting was not in our vocabulary,” Ibarra said when describing how the sisters fashioned their competitive spirits together.
Lerma and Ibarra would go on to compete against each other when Ibarra played at East Texas State University, now known as Texas A&M Commerce. After college, Ibarra became a teacher and coach while Lerma moved away. She had planned to live away from the game, but after witnessing her sister coach, she knew she had to jump back in.
“My husband was an engineer for NASA. I would come down, watch my sister, and think, ‘God dang, I can do that.’ I loved the way the kids would respond to her. So, I told my husband, ‘I’m going to try it, and if I like it, we’re moving back.’ That’s how it all started,” Lerma said about her start in coaching.
She assisted her sister at La Joya High School before taking over for her when she accepted the head coaching job at the duo’s alma-mater Mission High School. After unsuccessfully applying to be her sister’s assistant, she was hired to lead the newly established Mission Veterans Lady Patriots as their inaugural volleyball coach in 2002. Since she started, Lerma has coached over 30 scholarship athletes and counting.
“It was never the place. It was who you were surrounded with and the love and power of belief that mattered. I always prayed that god would send people in my life to get me where I needed to be, and I would thank him later. That’s why I’d always thought I had to come back to Mission and give back to the kids and the girls the same opportunity I got. That’s what the dream and passion are all about: giving back the opportunity that was given to us,” Lerma said about her decision to join the teaching and coaching professions.
Like her sister, Lerma has been an institution at Mission CISD and within the City of Mission. Her longtime friend and colleague, current Veterans Memorial athletic coordinator David Gilpin, attested to her legacy.
“I went to high school with Sonia. I have coached alongside Diana for 23 years, and I worked under Letty when she was (MCISD’s) Athletic Director. My daughter Shania played volleyball for Diana and played volleyball with Diana’s daughter Gaby. Gaby is now our varsity assistant volleyball coach. I coached Sonia’s son Michael and Diana’s son Carlos in football. My son Landry is a longtime great friend of Sonia’s children, Michael and Jackie. I was very, very happy to hear the news that Diana was being inducted into the RGV Sports Hall of Fame. The RGV Sports Hall of Fame is a tremendous organization; becoming a member is an extremely high honor. Diana Lerma is DESERVING of this honor. Her record of success speaks for itself. She has earned this and deserves it,” Gilpin said when describing Lerma’s coaching legacy.
Lerma will now be the second Patriots’ coach inducted into the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame, joining girls’ Head track and cross-country coach Kathy Howell.
“I am very proud of her. This is very well deserved. I’ll be the first to say that. To be honest, it’s been a long time coming. So very well deserved,” Lerma’s sister Letty said affectionately about her younger sister’s achievement.
The only thing Diana Lerma was ever gifted was a chance: a chance to grow and improve, a chance to compete, a chance to prove herself. That was all she ever needed or cared to want. Now, she stands on the opposite side of that road, dedicating her life to ensuring others cross and go beyond.
“It’s not about what your parents have, what connections or political power you have. It’s about what you bring day in and day out. We do not only coach the game of volleyball. We are coaching the game of life. If we expect something, we expect you to follow through. If you can do a good job here, you’re going to be running companies and the city; you’ll succeed at whatever you decide to do. Because we create leaders, and right now, it’s just points in a game. But if you come through my program, you’re going to be very successful in life,” Lerma said about what motivates her as a coach.