MSU Athletics Hall of Fame
AMY RUSSELL MCNEW
Volleyball, 190-93
Inducted 2010
Amy Russell was a four-year volleyball standout from 1990 to 1993 for coach Linda Dollar, playing for teams that rolled up 24-win campaigns in Russell's freshman and junior years and won 22 matches when she was a senior. The Bears finished second to Northern Iowa in the Missouri Valley Conference in Russell's first year before winning regular-season league co-championships her last three seasons. MSU won the conference tournament and advanced to NCAA Tournament play in Russell's freshman and senior seasons, lost in the tourney finals when she was a junior and competed in the national invitational meet in her junior campaign. The 1990 Bears' team lost at the University of Hawaii in an NCAA first-round match while the 1993 Bears lost to the University of Illinois in the first round of the national meet in what is still the only NCAA volleyball match the Bears have hosted at MSU. In 1992, the Bears split four matches in the national invitational meet, beating Murray State and George Washington while falling to Loyola Marymount and Northern Illinois. A native of Branson, Mo., Russell was on the all-Valley second team her junior year and landed a spot on the all-conference first team as a senior while also making the Valley all-tournament team. She led the Bears in kills as a junior with 367, in service aces as a senior with 54 and in blocks twice, with 163 as a junior and 140 her senior season. Russell became the eighth Missouri State player to register 1,000 career kills, finishing with 1,003. She shared the Bears' honor as Volleyball Player of the Year in her senior season while also serving as a team co-captain, and she earned all-region second team selection in 1993 from the American Volleyball Coaches Association. After graduating from Missouri State, Russell spent seven years coaching volleyball and basketball at Licking (Mo.) High School and is now an assistant volleyball coach and teacher at Houston (Mo.) High.
