Bucknell Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2008
- Class:
- 1990
Judy Perry West earned 12 career varsity letters in cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field, and she was the No. 1 runner on four East Coast Conference champion cross country teams. She was also part of three ECC track championship teams and five others that finished second.
At the 1987 Penn Relays, Perry West, then just a freshman, clocked a time of 35:05.14 in the 10,000-meter run. That smashed the previous school record by 58 seconds, and it held up as the school record for 30 years, making it the oldest outdoor running record in the books at the time. At graduation, Perry West also ranked among the all-time leaders in the 3,000 and 5,000, both indoors and outdoors.
She won ECC track championships in the indoor 3,000 in 1987 and 1990 and in the outdoor 10,000 in 1990. Perry West also earned All-East honors after finishing third in the ECAC indoor 5,000 in 1987, second in the outdoor 10K in 1987 and fifth in the outdoor 10K in 1989. In her four ECC cross country championship appearances, she finished first-first-fifth-second, and she was All-East in cross country in 1986. Perry West was also named the ECC Scholar-Athlete of the Year in cross country in both 1987 and 1989, and she was a Christy Mathewson Award winner as the top athlete in her class.
A native of Towanda, Pa., after graduation she married Steve West '89, who was also an ECC cross country champion, Scholar-Athlete and All-East runner. Perry West earned her master's degree from Bucknell in 1991 and then went on to coach cross country and track and field at Villanova, where she was part of two NCAA championship teams and coached multiple national champion athletes. After moving to St. Louis, she continued to run competitively and organized a running club while pursuing a career in the ministry.
(Bucknell Hall of Fame Class of 2008)
