athletics hall of fame 1999
Marjorie Berkley (’45) was a multi-sport participant as a JMU undergraduate and later was a successful coach and athletic administrator. As a JMU student she competed in four sports, including basketball, and later served as basketball coach at her alma mater. In 1989 Berkley retired as a professor and physical education department chairman at Hollins College following a 30-year tenure there. She formerly served as associate commissioner of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, whose women’s athlete of the year award is named for her, and among the numerous administrative positions she held was site director for the 1986 International Federation of Women’s Lacrosse Association World Cup. Pat Dean (’61) played basketball and field hockey as an undergraduate and later became one of the leading scholastic coaches in Virginia history. She concluded her coaching career at Northern Virginia’s James Madison High School, where her softball teams compiled an overall .908 winning percentage and won 13 district, six regional and five state titles. She was inducted into the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame in 1991, and the James Madison High School softball field is named in her honor.
Former assistant coach Andrea “Andy” Morrison (left), Julie Franken Graessle and former head coach Shelia Moorman (right) at Graessle’s 2004 JMU Athletics Hall of Fame Induction.
2001
2009
Shelia A. Moorman guided JMU basketball teams to unprecedented success in 15 seasons (1982-97). Her teams won more than 300 games, played in six NCAA Tournaments (1986-89, 91, 96) and won four conference titles. She engineered two of the bigger upsets in NCAA Tournament history -- a 1991 victory at top-ranked Penn State and a 1986 win at regionally top-seeded Virginia -- and her teams were the first JMU basketball squads to be ranked in the national Top 25 polls. Four of Moorman’s six NCAA Tournament teams advanced to the “Sweet 16” (1986-88, 91), and the Dukes won four straight Colonial Athletic Association Tournament titles (1986-89).
Missy Dudley Heft (‘89) was a member of four JMU teams that had combined records of 108-16, won four consecutive CAA championships and advanced in NCAA Tournament play four times, including three times to the “Sweet 16.” She was named to the CAA Team of the Decade (1985-95) and scored 1,284 career points.
2004 Julie Franken Graessle (’87) helped lead the JMU basketball team to its first-ever Top 20 national ranking, two CAA championships (1986, 1987) and two trips to the NCAA “Sweet 16” (1986, 1987). The Columbus, Ohio, native is one of only three players in JMU history to have career totals of more than 1,000 points and 800 rebounds. One of the best passing forwards in JMU history, she handed out 201 career assists. Alisa Harris Gantz, who played on three CAA champion and NCAA “Sweet 16” (1986-88) teams, was recognized in 2005 by the Colonial Athletic Association as a basketball “Legend” from its member schools.
2006 Alisa Harris (‘88) had 1,473 points and 683 rebounds in a career during which JMU compiled a 104-19 overall record, won three CAA titles, and advanced three times to the “Sweet 16” of the NCAA Tournament. She is among only four Dukes with career totals of more than 1,400 points and 600 rebounds, and she currently ranks seventh on the team’s career scoring list and 12th on its all-time rebounding list.
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