McCormick was born in 1872 to Henry McCormick and Annie Criswell. He attended
Harrisburg Academy and
Phillips Andover before completing a
civil engineering course at
Yale University. McCormick graduated from Yale's
Sheffield Scientific School in 1893, and was given an honorary
MA degree by the university in 1907. While at Yale he was a member of
St. Anthony Hall. A born
athlete and leader, he became captain of the class
football and
baseball teams his freshman year and was on the university football team his junior and senior years. Vance was named to
Walter Camp's All American Team as the first team
quarterback. He served as president of Intercollegiate Football Association his senior year and garnered other university honors and awards, as well, including being a class
deacon. He was also student body president of Yale in 1893.
Business and politics In 1902, McCormick began his career as journalist and publisher. He was president of The Patriot Company, publishers of several area newspapers including
The Patriot (1902 to 1946),
The Evening News (1917 to 1946), and
Harrisburg Common Council (1900 to 1902). He was also president of the Pinkey Mining Company, located in Harrisburg. In 1912, he served as a delegate to the
Democratic National Convention from Pennsylvania. McCormick was the Democratic nominee for
Governor of Pennsylvania in
1914, finishing second in a seven-candidate field. Republican nominee
Martin Brumbaugh, Superintendent of the
School District of Philadelphia, defeated McCormick on the strength of a strong performance in
Philadelphia and
Allegheny counties. From 1916 to 1919, McCormick served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee and went on to be appointed chair of the
American Commission to Negotiate Peace (1919) at
Versailles, under President
Woodrow Wilson, heading up numerous clubs and organizations along the way. He also served as Wilson's
1916 campaign manager, as chair of the War Trade Board (1916 to 1919) and as a member of many local, state, national and international organizations throughout the later years. He helped professor
Thomas Garrigue Masaryk legions especially in Russia in 1918.
Later life McCormick remained a
bachelor until the age of 52, when he married the widow of
Martin Olmsted, an eight-term
Republican Congressman. They announced their engagement on December 29, 1924. Vance died at his country estate (Cedar Cliff Farms), June 16, 1946, near
Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Mrs. McCormick died in 1953. McCormick was a
teetotaler for his lifetime. ==Head coaching record==