How Molly Creech is Making Her Own Claim to Fame

Tous Les Jours bakery in Oxford is proud to bring you this week's Front Row Feature.
Coffee, cakes and pastries freshly baked every day.

Visit Cakes, Coffee, Pastries, Bakery in Oxford, OH | Tous les Jours for more information.
- - -

For most student-athletes, putting together a Hall of Fame career during their four or five years in college is a dream. It's the nearly unattainable pinnacle of sport: One that the tiniest percentage of players could even imagine, let alone reach.

But when it comes to Miami Volleyball's Molly Creech, the Hall of Fame is not only a goal, but to the outside observer, it might strangely seem almost like an expectation.

That's because branches of Creech's family tree are already interwoven throughout not only Miami Athletics' Hall of Fame and various record books, but other institutions' as well.

The sophomore outside hitter from nearby Cincinnati is the daughter of Dan Creech, the first men's soccer player to be inducted into Miami's Hall of Fame. He was named 1994 MAC Player of the Year, earned All-MAC recognition three times, concluded his career as the all-time goals leader in MAC history and led the Red and White to a regular-season championship, conference tournament title and NCAA Tournament berth in 1994.

Dan Creech's older brother —and teammate— Ryan also played soccer at Miami and was a three-time All-Conference pick and a three-time All-Ohio selection. He was named conference Player of the Year in 1990 and was inducted into Miami's Hall of Fame a year after Dan was.

To top it all off, the oldest sibling in the family, Todd Creech, played baseball at Miami and —while not in the Hall of Fame— collected Academic All-American, Academic All-District and Academic All-MAC accolades in 1990.

But wait, there's more...

Molly's mother, the former Amanda Gruber, is a member of the Xavier University Athletics Hall of Fame. She was a soccer All-American in 1997 to go along with an A-10 Player of the Year award and broke the Musketeers' program record for most goals in a career and in a season.

Amanda was able to play college soccer with her younger sibling, Annette, who was an accomplished player in her own right; in fact, Annette finished her career second on the Xavier scoring list behind only – you guessed it – her sister. Annette was then inducted into Xavier's Hall of Fame four years after Amanda was, joining...

...their father Jim Gruber, who played baseball at XU in the 1960s and spent several years in the minor leagues after graduation. He became the family's first Xavier Hall of Famer in 1995.

So...no pressure, Molly?

Molly Creech

"I never look at it as pressure," she smiled as she finished recounting her family's remarkable athletic history in a recent interview. "I look at it more as something I look up to, something I want to be and something I strive towards...

"I think it's so cool that my dad and my uncles all played here [at Miami], and I just want to be like them and get to where they got to. I'm really excited for that possibility to ever be what they were."

Creech seems well on her way to doing just that.

A fixture in Miami's starting lineup since her first day on campus, Creech earned All-Conference and All-Freshman honors last season as a rookie, piling up a team-high 428 digs (to rank eighth in the MAC) and a team-best 347 kills. The newcomer's progress from week to week was obvious; for instance, after only reaching 15 kills in a match once up until mid-October, Creech averaged 15 kills a night the rest of the way.

"When we started MAC play, I started to get more comfortable and more confident in what I could do," she said simply.

This fall, the Preseason All-MAC selection has picked up where she left off, staking out a place on the All-Tournament team last week at the Bearkat Invitational in Huntsville, Texas to get the season underway. That included outscoring an opponent by herself with five kills in a a stunning 25-3 set victory over Cal State Fullerton, the most lopsided Miami win in a quarter century of the rally-scoring era.

To put Creech's statistics to date in perspective, only nine players in Miami's storied program history have amassed both 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs in a career; Creech is significantly ahead of pace to potentially become the 10th.

And none of this success has been a surprise to Miami Volleyball head coach Dan Gwitt, who began recruiting Creech literally the day after accepting the RedHawks' job.

In fact, his quote in the press release the next spring announcing Creech's signing didn't shy away at all from the long line of athletic success and ability she inherited.

"I know this school means a lot to her and her family," Gwitt said then. "I'm excited to see Molly carve her own path here, and hopefully, one day, join her dad in the Hall of Fame."

And that was before she'd ever played a collegiate match! Molly Creech

"She's a unique player," Gwitt explained as the 2026 season got underway in August. "Nowadays to find a 'left side' who can play all the way around and do everything baseline pretty good is hard...that was one of the reasons I was really excited about her and we needed that...

"Initially when you recruit someone you have to have some vision of how good they can be: What do they do as a high school player and how does that translate to college? Then you're hoping they become the very best version of that, but you never know until you throw them out there.

"Molly had an extremely unique situation – she got to play right away, and throughout the course of the season you saw her game go to another level and become one of the best players in the MAC," Gwitt continued. "There's nothing she can't do at an all-conference level...

"Now, as a sophomore, there are still some things in her game she's working on, but she's so good right now that if she stays healthy and tracks that way, there's no reason she shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame when she gets out of here.

"She should shatter records and be a First-Team All-MAC player for years to come and take this program to the next level. Once in a while, you're right as a coach, and thankfully it worked out!", Gwitt concluded with a laugh.

As the daughter of an alum, Creech obviously was familiar with Miami University from a young age, which made for a simple and straightforward recruiting pitch. "I remember we would drive through [campus sometimes when my siblings had games in the area]; the green fields always had this gorgeous glow on the grass and the buildings were all so pretty," she recalled. "When I came on my visit, it seemed like the perfect fit because the school is gorgeous, on the academic side the business school is perfect for me, and my dad went here, so I got a lot of stories. I immediately loved it right away."

Still, it's possible Creech's father enjoyed the Miami visit in his old stomping grounds even more than she did!

"He told us some good stories from his college days," Gwitt said. "With Molly, it was just a perfect fit and good timing; I can't believe that she was still on the board when I got the job."

The second-generation Miamian has not only put up impressive numbers during her young collegiate career so far, but her production has been a key to the progress and improvement for the RedHawks' team as a whole. Miami won eight more MAC matches in 2025 than the previous season and secured the program's first winning record since 2020. The RedHawks qualified for the MAC Tournament, earning the fifth seed, and have their sights set on taking another giant step forward this year as they chase some conference hardware.

"I think it's really exciting that we finally flipped to a winning record like that; we hadn't made the MAC Tournament in a few years before that, so it's really exciting to see that we're 'on the up,'", Molly Creech said.

"Our skill is going to be a lot better this year...I think our chemistry and team culture is [even] stronger...and I think that is going to translate on the court...

"The new players coming in want to make a difference, and I think the whole team is super-motivated to not only get to the MAC Tournament but finally win it this year!"

The 2-1 RedHawks hope to continue their strong start this weekend when the home portion of the schedule gets underway with the annual Miami/Best Western Invitational, as Evansville, Kansas City and Purdue Fort Wayne come to Oxford Sept. 4-5. Miami will then compete in the ISTAP Collegiate Cup at Alabama State (Sept. 11-12) and play a home-and-home with Northern Kentucky before beginning MAC play Sept. 24.

"Our ultimate goal is to be one of the best programs in the Midwest [and] in the country," said Gwitt. "We have players with experience now that know what we're after, so I think we're faster, we're older and we're tougher. We still have new players that will take time —they're going to have to learn their lessons— but we fully expect to be able to go in and compete every single match, and we fully expect to go in and win...

Molly Creech

"I think there's nobody in the conference that if we play our very best volleyball, and we serve and pass well, and players like Molly dominate like she's capable of, that we can't beat.

"Our expectations are through the roof, and they'll never be any lower looking forward."

That doesn't bother Molly Creech one bit. After all, the high-flying star has always risen to expectations.

Even, just maybe, the 'Hall of Fame' ones.

Find more Front Row Features at: MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures

Miami Volleyball opens the Miami/Best Western Invitational on Friday, Sept. 4 at 10:30 a.m. on Carolyn Condit Court in Millett Hall. Single-match and season tickets are available here.

How Molly Creech is Making Her Own Claim to Fame

Related News

Players Mentioned

Molly Creech

Related Videos