Marshall University Athletics
Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2002
- Class:
- 1990
One of the most versatile athletes in Marshall history, Lea Ann Parsley not only played multiple sports as a member of the Thundering Herd, but added – and excelled at – even more after graduation. The Granville, Ohio, product won All-Southern Conference track and field honors in the high jump and javelin, winning the league javelin championship in 1988 and 1989. Parsley also was all-conference in basketball in 1988-89 and the following year, as a senior, led the nation by making 92.3 percent of her free throws. Over the course of her career, during she scored 1,053 points and pulled down 566 rebounds. She was honored with the 1988 and 1990 Dr. Dorothy Hicks Female Athlete of the Year Awards.
After graduating from Marshall, Parsley took up team handball and competitive sledding, and in 1998 earned a position on the U.S. National Skeleton team, spending six years on the international World Cup circuit. Her second-place finish in Lillehammer, Norway, in 2000 gave the United States its first medal in women’s World Cup competition. She won the silver medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games and was the 2004 U.S. national champion. Parsley also became a firefighter and was named the 1999 Ohio Firefighter of the Year for the role she played in rescuing a mother and daughter from a residential house fire. Parsley was inducted into the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002.
