MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Eight outstanding contributors to Mountaineer athletics make up the 34th class of honorees in the West Virginia University Sports Hall of Fame, announced today by Vice President and Director of Athletics Wren Baker.
The 2024 class includes Anthony Becht (football), Chris Brooks (men’s basketball), Bob Donker (men’s cross country and track & field), Bette Hushla (swimming), Mark Landers (baseball), Rasheed Marshall (football), Adrian Murrell (football) and Liz Repella (women’s basketball). This class brings the total number of inductees to 237.
Induction ceremonies will take place Saturday, Sept. 21, prior to the West Virginia-Kansas football game.
Anthony Becht
Anthony Becht, who played football from 1996-99, finished his Mountaineer career second in tight end receptions (83) and tight end receiving yardage (1,178).
In 1999, Becht was voted MVP by his teammates and won the John Russell Memorial Award from the WVU coaching staff as the team’s top lineman. He earned All-Big East Second Team honors, played in the Senior Bowl and was a Football News honorable mention All-American.
He had five touchdowns on the year with 35 receptions for 510 yards. Becht recorded five catches for a career-high 105 yards against Boston College, the first 100-yard game by a WVU tight end since 1995 and had two touchdowns against Navy.
A native of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, Becht had 29 receptions for 393 yards with four touchdowns as a junior in 1998, earning All-Big East Second Team honors. Becht had a career-best six receptions against Missouri in the 1998 Insight.com Bowl. As a sophomore, he had nine receptions for 135 yards and one touchdown and had 10 catches for 140 yards and one touchdown as a freshman.
For his career, Becht played in 46 games, had 83 receptions for 1,178 yards and scored 11 touchdowns.
Becht was selected as the 27th overall pick in the first round by the New York Jets in the 2000 NFL Draft. He played 11 seasons over 12 years at tight end in the NFL for the Jets, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, St. Louis Rams, Arizona Cardinals and Kansas City Chiefs. From 2000-10, he played in 161 straight games, trailing only Brett Favre and Peyton Manning in that span.
In the NFL, he started 140-of-176 games played, finished with 199 receptions for 1,621 yards and had 22 touchdowns. Becht set career highs of 40 receptions and 356 yards in 2003 for New York and caught a career-best six passes, including a 1-yard touchdown at Miami.
Following his playing career, Becht worked as a college football analyst for ESPN and is a host for the New York Jets Gameday. He coached tight ends in the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl for seven years before accepting the same position with the San Diego Fleet of the Alliance of American Football in 2019. Becht served as a Trust Captain for the NFLPA Trust from 2015-20 and the Legends Community Southeast Coordinator from 2020-23.
Becht is currently the head coach of the St. Louis BattleHawks of the United Football League, where he led the team to a 7-3 record, which was the most wins among rookie head coaches in 2023. In 2024, the BattleHawks also finished with a 7-3 record and lost in the XFL Conference Championship game.
A graduate of West Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, Becht and his wife, DeeAnn, have two children, Rocco and Olivia.
Chris Brooks
The late Chris Brooks, who holds the school record for career field goal percentage, was a first team All-Atlantic 10 Conference forward during his career from 1988-91 under coach Gale Catlett.
A native of the Bronx, New York, Brooks was the first McDonald’s All-American to sign with Mountaineer basketball in 1986 after starring at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Virginia. He was considered the nation’s fifth-best recruit by the Chicago Sun Times and was also a Parade Magazine All-America choice who arrived at WVU with considerable fanfare.
Brooks was the first big-name, nationally-known New York City recruit to come to WVU in the mid-1980s, opening the door for more Big Apple area standouts to play for the Mountaineers before they joined the Big East in 1995.
After sitting out his freshman season in 1987, Brooks became an immediate starter on West Virginia’s NIT squad in 1988, teaming with Darryl Prue and Tyrone Shaw in WVU’s frontcourt.
In 1989, the 6-foot-6 forward helped the Mountaineers to a 26-5 record, a first place regular-season finish in the Atlantic 10 and a first-round NCAA Tournament victory over Tennessee. He averaged 12.5 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, while shooting 61.3% from the floor for the 17th-ranked Mountaineers that season.
Brooks only attempted one 3-point shot during his junior year in 1990 at Duquesne, a game winner over the Dukes. One of the most explosive leapers in school history, Brooks’ best year statistically came in 1991 when he averaged 16.7 points and 8.0 rebounds while shooting a school-record 66.3% from the floor.
He made 12-of-13 field goal attempts in a game against Marshall in 1990, another school record. Brooks scored a career-high 37 points against Massachusetts on Feb. 12, 1991, and pulled down a career-best 15 rebounds over Old Dominion on Dec. 18, 1990.
Brooks’ 1,661 career points rank 12th all-time at WVU while his 755 rebounds rank 15th. He averaged 13.7 points and 6.2 rebounds in 121 career games.
Once his college career ended, Brooks played briefly overseas.
Brooks, born in London, England, died at the age of 54, in January 2021.
Bob Donker
Bob Donker became the first three-time, single-season All-American in school history during his cross country and track career from 1991-95.
The Georgetown, Ontario, native earned All-America honors in cross country, indoor track and outdoor track in 1993-94.
Donker earned his first All-America honor by finishing 24th at the 1993 NCAA Cross Country Championships. He followed that with a seventh-place finish in the 5,000-meter run at the 1994 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships. Donker earned his third All-America honor in the same academic year with a fifth-place finish in the 5,000-meter run at the 1994 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
He earned his fourth All-America honor in 1995 at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships with a sixth-place finish in the 5,000-meter run. At the end of his career, he was one of four Mountaineers to earn All-America honors in two sports.
In addition to his All-America honors, Donker captured first place in the 5,000 meters at the Penn Relays to become WVU’s first male winner in 100 years. He earned three consecutive Atlantic 10 Conference individual championships in cross country from 1991-93, making him the only three-time winner in league history. Donker helped lead WVU to two Atlantic 10 team championships in cross country.
He was named the Atlantic 10 Male Student-Athlete of the Year, was a three-time selection to the All-Atlantic 10 Cross Country team and won the McCoy Award as the top track & field athlete in the state of West Virginia in 1994.
Following his WVU career, Donker was the Canadian indoor 3,000-meter track champion in 1995 and represented Canada at the Pan American games in Argentina in 1995. Donker’s running career ended in 1996 due to a moving accident.
Donker currently works in the sporting goods industry, and he and his wife, Heidi, have three daughters, Sofie, Maja and Lily. They spent the last 20 years living in Oslo, Norway, and Donker is currently on an ex-pat assignment living in Boulder, Colorado.
Donker attended high school with current WVU cross country/track coach Sean Cleary and encouraged Cleary to join him at WVU. Since then, Cleary has been WVU’s head coach since 2007.
Bette Hushla
Pioneering athlete Bette Hushla was among the first women to ever compete in intercollegiate athletics at West Virginia University in 1965 when she was a member of the Mountaineer men’s swimming and diving team.
That was seven years prior to the passage of Title IX and nine years before WVU began sponsoring women’s sports teams.
A native of Williamson, New York, Hushla arrived on campus in 1964 – four years after rifle’s Marilee Hohmann became the first female athlete to perform on a Mountaineer athletic team in 1961.
Hushla was a champion AAU swimmer competing in the Rochester, New York, area for her sports-minded parents, Fred and Beatrice Hushla. Her father, who worked at Eastman Kodak as an industrial engineer, once served as national chairman of the U.S. Luge Committee.
Hushla’s swimming exploits included owning the world’s fourth-fastest time in the 100-yard backstroke with her long-course clocking falling three-tenths of a second shy of the winning time in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.
She represented the U.S. three times in swimming competitions in Canada and hoped to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials in either 1964 or 1968. However, because aspiring female athletes were unable to compete collegiately, Hushla’s opportunities were limited.
Familiar with West Virginia University as a result of having some relatives living in the Mountain State and wanting to obtain a music degree to become a concert pianist, Hushla opted to attend WVU to study music and to compete on the men’s swimming team.
She performed as an unattached athlete as a freshman in 1964, and then when new coach Jack Lowder took over the men’s program the following year, he asked Hushla to join the squad after researching her times and realizing that he didn’t have any back strokers on campus.
Hushla’s lone season at WVU in 1965 was noteworthy and controversial, considering the times. Winning six of the eight races she entered led to Hushla’s profile in Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd” section before qualifying for the Southern Conference championships held in Williamsburg, Virginia, on March 3, 1965.
Unfortunately, three days prior to the meet, the Southern Conference ruled Hushla ineligible because she was a female, resulting in a firestorm of controversy. WVU’s Dean of Women, Betty Boyd, organized a student protest that garnered more than 2,000 signatures in one day and was sent via telegram to the league’s headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Her plight soon became a national news story with columnists from Boston to Los Angeles taking up Hushla’s cause. Bud Collins, writing in the Boston Globe, was among them.
“The case of Miss Hushla, a 19-year-old sophomore at West Virginia, is clearly one for the Supreme Court,” he wrote. “The Constitution seems to disapprove of decrees such as the one issued by Southern Conference Commissioner Lloyd Jordan regarding Miss Hushla.”
Although Hushla remained in school, eventually earning her history degree in 1967, she never stepped foot in a swimming pool again for the rest of her life. She taught school in West Virginia for a short time, was briefly married, then moved to New Jersey to operate a small business and to raise her daughter, Mattie, who died of cancer in 2011 at age 43.
According to her younger sister, Marianne Ly, writing in her self-published tribute “Remembering Bette,” Hushla was “a gifted musician, voracious reader, dedicated co-worker, a friend to those in despair, a five-time cancer survivor and a lover of cats and all animals.”
She succumbed to complications from COVID-19 on April 28, 2020, in Trenton, New Jersey.
Hushla is survived by her younger sister, Marianne, and one nephew, Alex.
Mark Landers
Mark Landers, one of the top first basemen to ever play at WVU from 1991-94, earned All-American honors and was the 1994 Atlantic 10 Player of the Year.
In his senior year, Landers batted .416 with 91 hits, 19 home runs and 81 RBI. He ranked 11th nationally in RBI and slugging percentage and 20th in batting average. Landers had three five-hit performances, the most by any Mountaineer. As a junior, he led WVU in batting average (.376), hits (68), home runs (10) and RBI (59).
In 1994, he earned All-America second team honors by the ABCA and All-America third team honors by the NCBWA and Collegiate Baseball. Landers was the Atlantic 10 Tournament MVP, All-Atlantic 10 First Team Selection, All-East Region First Team and All-ECAC First Team. At the time, he was one of only five Mountaineers all-time to be named National Player of the Week (Collegiate Baseball: May 16, 1994).
Landers led the way in 1994 with a then-school and Atlantic 10 record 40-win season and guided three WVU teams to Atlantic 10 postseason tournaments and one NCAA Tournament.
Landers still holds the school record for home runs (19) in a season (along with Jedd Gyorko). At the end of his career, he held the school record for most hits (91) in a season, doubles (57) in a career, RBI (81) in a season, RBI (167) in a career, total bases (170) in a season and extra base hits (89). He had 61 career multiple-hit games in 193 games played and finished with 32 home runs.
The Charleston, West Virginia, native tallied 1,465 career putouts and held the school records for fielding percentage (.997) in a season and in a career (.987) when he left WVU.
Landers had six RBI on four different occasions and had two home runs in games against George Washington and St. Bonaventure (twice).
He finished his career starting 189-of-193 games played with a career .341 batting average.
Landers, who attended Capital High, was drafted in the 28th round by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1994 MLB Draft.
He graduated from WVU with a bachelor’s degree in education and currently lives in Deland, Florida, with his wife of 29 years, Brandy and son Davin (22).
Rasheed Marshall
Rasheed Marshall was a four-year letterwinner and three-year starter at quarterback from 2001-04.
The Pittsburgh native posted 24 victories and helped WVU to four bowl games (2000 Music City, 2002 Continental Tire, 2004 Gator and 2005 Gator Bowls).
Marshall finished his career with a Big East record 2,040 rushing yards (breaking Donovan McNabb’s mark) and 24 touchdowns and passed for 5,558 yards and 44 touchdowns. His 68 touchdowns set the WVU career mark at the time, and he was second in career rushing (2,040) by a quarterback and in total offense (7,598) and fourth in passing yards (5,558).
As a senior, Marshall rushed for 861 yards and four touchdowns and threw for 1,886 yards and 19 touchdowns. For his efforts, he earned Big East Offensive Player of the Year and ECAC Player of the Year honors.
Marshall broke Michael Vick’s Big East quarterback rushing record with 666 yards during his sophomore season.
Marshall ran for a career-best 110 yards and passed for 138 yards against Connecticut in 2004, which was the first double 100-yard performance at WVU since Major Harris in 1987. He had two rushing touchdowns in three games in 2002, threw for a career-best 271 yards against Syracuse in 2003 and recorded four touchdown passes against East Carolina in 2003 and UCF in 2004. Marshall’s longest play from scrimmage was a 93-yard touchdown pass to Travis Garvin against No. 3 Virginia Tech in 2003. For total yards, he had a career-high 324 yards against Boston College in 2004.
He was a fifth-round pick by the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers as a wide receiver in the 2005 NFL Draft. He was a member of the 49ers, Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Rams in addition to the Columbus Destroyers of the Arena Football League.
Marshall graduated from WVU with a bachelor’s degree in physical education with a certificate in strength and conditioning in 2005. He is a member of WVU’s All-Decade team (2000s) and was invited to Villages Gridiron Classic All-Star Game.
He currently serves as the Director of Player Relations on the WVU football staff. Previously, Marshall served as a personal trainer at Team Marshall Fitness in Pittsburgh. He was a regional head quarterbacks coach at Sports International Academy and served as an on-air football analyst for ESPN+ and SportsNet Pittsburgh.
Adrian Murrell
Adrian Murrell was a two-year starter at tailback and led the Big East in rushing in his senior season, finishing seventh in WVU career rushing yards from 1989-92.
The Wahiawa, Hawaii, native rushed for 2,097 yards during his career and had a then-second best season rushing total in school history with 1,145 during his senior year. Murrell ranked 14th nationally and 22nd in NCAA all-purpose yards. He was the second Mountaineer to rush for 100 yards in four consecutive games, joining Artie Owens (1974).
In his senior campaign, he rushed for a career-high 157 yards against Virginia Tech (career-long 54-yard run), 154 yards against Penn State, 150 yards against Boston College, 141 yards against Pitt and 115 yards against Maryland. Murrell had two touchdowns against Boston College. He had a career-high 99 yards receiving against Miami, Ohio, and had three total touchdowns against Maryland.
After the season, he was named All-Big East First Team, All-ECAC, Associated Press All-East and was a United Press International Honorable Mention All-American. Murrell played in the Senior Bowl and was voted WVU’s most valuable player for 1992.
As a junior, he had four 100-yard rushing games – 152 against Bowling Green, 141 against Maryland, 116 against Syracuse and 102 against Temple. Murrell had two rushing touchdowns against Virginia Tech. He earned First Team All-ECAC, First Team All-Big East and All-East First Team honors.
Murrell was drafted in the fifth round by the New York Jets in the 1993 NFL Draft and played for the Jets from 1993-97, the Arizona Cardinals from 1998-99 and Washington Redskins in 2000. In 1998, he rushed for 1,042 yards for the Cardinals, ranking ninth in team history at the time. After a two-year break from the NFL, Murrell returned in 2003 to play for the Dallas Cowboys. He is WVU’s all-time leader in NFL career rushing yards.
He is married to Tonia Peck Murrell and they have three children.
Liz Repella
Liz Repella excelled on the court and in the classroom during her four-year women’s basketball career from 2008-11.
The native of Steubenville, Ohio, earned All-Big East First Team Honors and CoSIDA Academic All-America honors in 2010 and 2011, playing in 134 career games and scoring 1,641 points to go with 716 rebounds. She helped lead the Mountaineers to three NCAA Tournaments (2008, 2010, 2011) and a WNIT appearance in 2009.
As a freshman in 2008, Repella saw action in 32 of 33 games, the fourth most by a newcomer at the time, averaging 10.8 minutes per game and cracking a senior-laden lineup.
Her second season was a breakout year. She garnered All-Big East Second Team honors and was named the Big East’s Scholar-Athlete Sports Excellence award for women’s basketball. Repella averaged 16.5 points and 8.1 rebounds per game, becoming one of just four Big East players to rank in the top 10 for scoring and rebounding. She scored a career-high 34 points against USF that season.
Repella became the third All-Big East First Team honoree in Mountaineer history as a junior, in addition to being named to the Big East and Preseason WNIT All-Tournament teams. She averaged 13.9 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, playing a career-best 1,226 minutes. Repella finished the season ranked in the top 10 in the Big East in 3-point field goals made and netted her 1,000th career point against Providence.
She capped her career by earning All-Big East First Team accolades for the second straight season, earning WBCA/State Farm Coaches All-America Honorable Mention honors. Repella scored 500 points her senior season and averaged 14.7 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. She was a finalist for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award and was the Paradise Jam Island Division MVP.
Repella ended her career ranked seventh in single-season scoring (543), 10th in field goals made (578), seventh in scoring (1,641), fifth in 3-point field goals made (215), ninth in total rebounds (716), sixth in offensive rebounds (233), fourth in minutes played (3,917), first in games played (134), seventh in double-doubles (18), fifth in 10-point games (88) and eighth in 20-point games (24).
She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in exercise physiology in 2011 and master’s degrees in sport management and industrial relations from WVU.
Repella played a season of professional basketball for Federacion Espanola de Baloncesto in Ferrol, Spain. She earned All-Spanish LF2 Honorable Mention and All-Bosmans Team Spanish LF2.
She resides in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul. Since 2016, she has worked as a human resources director for PepsiCo.
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Publish date : 2024-08-03 23:29:29
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