Slippery Rock University Athletics

Ranks fifth in PSAC career history in women's basketball coaching wins, inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame Western Chapter, four-time PSAC Coach of the Year, won a total of 462 games over 33 years as a head coach between Thiel and Clarion.
 
Parsons played two seasons of women's basketball at Slippery Rock before graduating in 1971 and embarking on a highly successful collegiate coaching career, the merits of which have landed her in the Rock Athletics Hall of Fame.
 
She earned her degree in health and physical education and began her career as a teacher at Lakeview High School, where she also coached from 1971-74 before leaving the country to spend six years playing professional basketball. She played in Australia and New Zealand while she continued to teach and coach overseas.
 
Parsons returned to Slippery Rock in 1980-81 to officially transition her career from coaching at the high school level to the collegiate level when she served as a graduate assistant. She was hired at Thiel the following year and would spend the next 33 years as a head coach.
 
Her name will sound familiar to those associated with PSAC and Division II basketball as Parsons retired as Clarion University's head coach after a 25-year run in 2014. During those 25 seasons, she led Clarion to five PSAC West titles, three PSAC overall titles, two trips to the NCAA Elite Eight, two trips to the NCAA Round of 16 and six NCAA Division II playoff appearances.
 
Parsons posted a career record of 352-336 over 25 years at Clarion, which came after she started her collegiate head coaching run with a record of 110-73 during a span of eight years at Thiel College. Her combined head coaching record of 462-409 in 33 years put her in an elite group of coaches with more than 400 career wins.
 
During that stretch, Parsons was named the PSAC Western Division Coach of the Year four times and was the WBCA Region Two Coach of the Year in 2005. She was also honored with the 1992 Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award before being inducted into the Thiel College Hall of Fame in 2007 and the PA Sports Hall of Fame's Western Chapter in 2011.

In addition to her coaching career at Clarion, Parsons also served on the Board of Directors for the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, was a member of the Clarion Athletics Hall of Fame committee and served more than 20 years as a director of the Adopt-a-Highway program.