Indiana University of Pennsylvania Athletics

To be inducted into the IUP Athletic Hall of Fame as a former student-athlete, you must be gone from your alma mater at least 10 years before initial consideration can be extended. Even then, there is no assurance the election will be immediate.
Tammy Donnelly-Slusser required no waiting period though, as her stellar running resume both as an IUP two-sport competitor before graduating in 1987 and as a winner of numerous races across the country and abroad leaves no doubt of her standing.

As an undergrad, Donnelly earned seven All-American awards, four consecutive seasons in track and field, one in cross country, and as a first-team member of the GTE/College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-American roster at the close of her junior and senior years.

No doubt her high point came in the spring of her junior year (in 1986) when she won the NCAA Division II national championship in the 10,000 meter run at Olympic Stadium in Los Angeles. In the race she bettered the preceding fall’s NCAA II national cross country individual champion to win by 200 yards.

This brought her the privilege of entering that season’s Division I title meet in Indianapolis, where she finished less than two minutes off the national-meet-record winning time. No other runner in Crimson and Gray history, man or woman, has ever done so well.

IUP team records she set in 3000, 5000, and 10,000 meter and two-mile runs still stand. She won Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference titles in the 3000 and 5000 twice each and was the PSAC individual champ in cross country once.

Since 1987 when she married Don Slusser (inducted into the Hall of Fame last fall and now a member of its Board of Directors; but who of course abstained from voting for Tammy in regard to today's honor). Donnelly-Slusser has been a professional runner part-time, while working full time for Dollar Savings Bank at Monroeville Mall and since 1990 for PNC Bank.

Western Pennsylvania racing enthusiasts are most familiar with her win in the Pittsburgh Marathon in 1994, when she posted her personal best time of two hours, 37 minutes and 14 seconds, to become the first local runner to win the event.
Eight other firsts have come at such location as Marrakesh (in Morocco), Bermuda, Sydney (Australia), Wisconsin, Virginia Beach, and Jamaica (in both '96 and '97). Running has taken her to every continent but Antarctica.

Donnelly-Slusser's current sponsor is ASICS international, an athletic apparel and shoe company. This summer she and Don took a break from their at-home regimen of running together seven miles a day for a two-month journey highlighted by five races that included the San Francisco Marathon. In a Vermont marathon late this spring, Tammy finished a runner-up.