Iconic Women Athletes

Deena Wigger

(Rifle, 1986-1988 and 1990)

From Columbus, Georgia, Deena Wigger is the daughter of the legendary Olympic shooter, Lones Wigger Jr. Under his wing, she claimed gold medals in small-bore rifle prone and team events as a 16 year old at the 1983 Pan American Games. As a student athlete at Murray State, Wigger won her first out of eight NCAA All-American championships. She also competed in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea as a college student. She holds many other records around the world in women’s rifle. After graduating from Murray State, Wigger joined the United States Air Force as a Medical Technician and assisted in the Air Force Academy as a shooting coach. She even competed in the Military World Championships.

Jill Doty-Misner

(Women’s Volleyball & Track and Field, 1988-1993)

Jill Doty-Misner was a student athlete at Murray State University from 1988 to 1993, competing in both women’s track and women’s volleyball. Previously, Doty-Misner was a part of Hoopeston-East Lynn High School track and volleyball program. She was champion of her high school's 100-meter dash and placed second in the 200-meter race at the IHSA State Track Championship in 1987. Doty-Misner was also selected to the volleyball All-Conference team in 1985, 1986, and 1987, where she was named Conference Most Valuable Player in 1987. At Murray State University, Doty-Misner added several impressive titles to her name for both volleyball and track, including being named to the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Freshman Team and the OVC Second Team in 1988 for volleyball. Doty-Misner was named OVC First Team in 1990 and 1991, and held seven MSU program records, some of which still remain. For track, Doty-Misner was a part of the team that set the MSU Indoor Sprint Medley Relay Record, and the Outdoor 400-Meter Relay Record in 1993. Not only was she a machine on the court and track but was also a recipient of the GTE Academic All-District Team Award in 1991, as well as an OVC Academic Medal of Honor Recipient in 1993. At the end of her MSU term, Doty-Misner graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Education, later achieving her Masters in Sports Administration at Eastern Illinois University. After her playing days were over, Doty-Misner became an assistant volleyball coach at Southern Illinois University. She eventually left SIU and started teaching at Unity Point Schools in Carbondale, Illinois where she kicked off the volleyball program in 2005. In 2007, Jill Doty-Misner was the first Murray State University volleyball player to be inducted into the MSU Hall of Fame. She also became a member of the Hoopeston Area High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

Heather Samuel

(Women’s Track, 1991-1994)

Heather Samuel was a Murray State Racer-turned-Olympian from Antigua and Barbuda. Samuel was a star player for the track team, earning OVC’s Women’s Track Athlete of the Year from 1992-1994 consecutively. To this day, Samuel maintains the OVC records for the 100-meter and 200-meter dash, which she set in 1994. She also holds the Murray State outdoor records in the 100, 200, and 400-meter relay. She has also won seven OVC individual sprint championships in the course of her three years at the university. After graduating from Murray State, Samuel competed in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. In the 1996 Olympics, she placed seventh in the 100-meter sprint and in 2000 she finished fourth in the 100-meter sprint. She was ranked fifth worldwide at the time. Samuel has gone on to compete in many more competitions worldwide, from Japan to the Caribbean. Currently, Heather Samuel is living in St. John’s Antigua West Indies and works for the Ministry of Education. Samuel was inducted into the Murray State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004.

Alexis Love

(Track & Field, 2009-2013)

Alexis Love, from Palmetto, Florida, was one of the best sprinters in Murray State women’s track and field history. Before her career at Murray State, Love was a three time state finalist and all-track female athlete of the year her junior and senior years of high school. As a student, Love majored in Criminal Justice while achieving her high status as a talented student athlete. In her second year with Murray State's track program, Love set the school record for the indoor 60-meter dash at the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Indoor Championship. In her third year competing, she was named 2012 Female Track Athlete of the OVC. Love also competed in the USA Olympic Trials, where she was one of only a few runners still in school competing against professional runners. Love was able to make it to the semifinals, although she was unable to make the Olympic team. Alexis Love remains one of the top professional sprinters in the country and was later inducted into the Murray State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013.

Delaney Howson

(Women's Golf, 2011-2014)

Delaney Howson was a student athlete at Murray State University from Newmarket, Ontario, Canada from 2011 through 2014. Howson holds the record for receiving the most medalist honors in Murray State Women’s Golf history, and is still known as one of the most consistent Women’s Golf players at Murray State and in the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC). As a freshman, Howson ranked sixth in stroke average, then went on to hold second place in her sophomore and junior seasons, finally placing first her senior year in 2014. She was the first Racer to make the All-OVC selection four times and in 2014 was named OVC Golfer of the Year. In total, she received seven individual titles within the Murray State Women’s Golf Program. Delaney Howson graduated in 2014 with a degree in Finance and was inducted into the Murray State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2021.

Scottie Lee Ingram

(Women’s Volleyball, 2013-2016)

Scottie Lee Ingram was a student athlete at Murray State University from 2013 to 2016, her contributions to the volleyball program being most noteworthy. Ingram was recruited from Solsberry, Indiana, being a two-time All-State champion at Eastern Greene High School before she joined the Murray State Racers in 2013. During her time at Murray State University, Ingram acquired an impressive amount of titles, including Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Player of the Year in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Ingram was the second person to win three Female OVC Player of the Year Awards, following behind Jacksonville State’s, Abbey Breit (2005-07). The team went on to win three straight OVC regular season titles and become the 2014 and 2016 OVC Tournament champions, Ingram being a driving factor. The year between, Ingram gained the title of 2015 All-OVC Tournament Most Valuable Player to add to her list of accomplishments. In 2016, she was named All American Volleyball Coaches Association All-Region, as well as Murray State’s All-Time Kills Leader (1,598), where she was ranked as 14 in the OVC as of 2021. Not only was Ingram a volleyball superstar, she also was an Academic Medal of Honors recipient for all four years she spent as MSU. As her time with the university came to a close, Ingram’s iconic number seven jersey was raised into the rafters of Racer Arena in 2016, making her number the first in the history of Racer Volleyball to be retired. Ingram graduated from MSU with a Bachelor’s degree in Business, and stayed until 2018, where she was given her Master’s of Business Administration. After three years, Ingram was called back to her old stomping ground as the fourth volleyball player to be inducted into the Murray State University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Harriet Withers

(Women’s Soccer)

Harriet Withers is an Australian athlete who took part in the Women’s Soccer Program at Murray State University from 2014 through 2017. In her time at MSU, Withers helped earn a third place title in the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) in 2014 and was part of the All-OVC Newcomers Team. Withers has also helped aid the team to win three straight regular season OVC titles as well as two trips to the NCAA Tournament. The Women’s Soccer Program saw their most successful period in program history in 2015 through 2017, Withers playing a major role in success for the team. In 2015, Withers was named OVC Player of the Year as a Sophomore with 11 goals and seven assists. In the same year, she also clinched the record for most game-winning goals (5), as well as tied the season record for points (29). In 2016, Withers became back-to-back OVC Player of the Year, scoring eight goals with four assists. Withers was once again named OVC Player of the Year in 2017, scoring 12 goals, and became the MSU Career Leader in goals (37), points (89), game-winning goals (13), and points per game (1.16). In 2018, Withers’ #12 jersey was retired as the first in MSU Soccer History. After her collegiate career, Withers coached as an assistant for Bard College Women’s Soccer Program in 2018, before going back to Australia to play for Melbourne City FC in 2020-2021, Melbourne Victory FC in 2021-2022, and then Western United FC in 2022. Currently, Withers plays for the Gold Coast Knights F.C., still wearing her iconic #12 jersey. Harriet Withers was inducted into the Murray State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2023.

Pat Spurgin Pitney

(Women's Rifle, 1984)

Pat Pitney (née Spurgin) began shooting when she was just nine years old at the Yellowstone Junior Rifle Club in Billings, Montana. In her college years, she was the first woman to win gold in Olympic rifle shooting in 1984 as an eighteen-year-old freshman at Murray State. She was also selected as NCAA individual champion in air rifle, later earning the title of OVC Female Athlete of the Year. The following year, she won the national individual championship in smallbore rifle. In recognition of her many successes as a student athlete, Pitney was inducted into the Murray State Hall of Fame in 1993. The Pat Spurgin Rifle Range on campus was later named in her honor. After graduation, she moved to the University of Alaska Fairbanks and began coaching their rifle team, also serving as the university's vice-chancellor of admissions. She became president of the University of Alaska system in 2022.

Margaret Simmons

(Women’s Track & Cross-Country Coach, 1968-1991)

(Margaret Simmons, bottom center)

Margaret Simmons was a well-known leader in Murray State's athletics, establishing programs in women's track and field, cross-country, basketball, and volleyball, and winning several championships for each. Simmons became the first female head coach in Murray State history in 1967, boosting women's sports years before the Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, which mandated women's sports in several collegiate institutions, was passed in 1972. By 1968, she had established Murray State's first women's track and field program, then advocated for a women's cross-country program three years later, and many more women's athletic programs in the years to come. In her twenty-three years as head coach, her teams won eight OVC championships. Simmons herself was named OVC Coach of the Year six times and Kentucky Women's Athletic Conference Coach of the Year twice. She brought world-wide recognition to Murray State through her international recruitment, finding talent in locations such as the West Indies, Great Britain, Canada, and the Caribbean. One of her athletes, Heather Samuel, brought home five OVC Women's Athlete of the Year acknowledgements and competed in the 1992 Olympics. Several more of Simmon's athletes went on to become NCAA National Qualifiers and Athletes of the Year. Simmons served as the women's editor of the NCAA Men's and Women's Track and Field Rules Book from 1983-1985 as an editor of the same publication from 1988-2004, making several changes that are still in place to this day. She became a volunteer track coach at Murray High School after her retirement in 2012. Simmons was inducted into the Kentucky Track and Cross-Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and the OVC Hall of Fame, and the Murray State Hall of Fame,