Carla Coffey (1981) - Hall of Fame - Murray State University Athletics

Carla Coffey

Induction:
1981

Carla Coffey – Track & Basketball, 1967-1971
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Competed as one of the first student-athletes for Murray State women's Track & Field when the program was launched in 1967 under another MSU hall of famer, Coach Margaret Simmons.
Coffey was the first female inducted into the MSU Hall of Fame in 1981.
She was as the team MVP in two sports, track & field and basketball in three consecutive seasons.
In a time before women's sports were organized in the Ohio Valley Conference and on a national level, Coffey won a women’s national championship in the 110M hurdles.
Her time of 14.6 seconds was tops in the Division for Girls and Women’s Nationals in 1971.
In the same national meet, she placed second in the 200M hurdles and seventh in the long jump.
The Racers placed ninth out of 25 teams with Coffey as the only MSU representative.
As track & field took a foothold in the athletics landscape at Murray State, Coffey established seven MSU indoor records during her career and eight new outdoor marks.
She was the first alternate for the 1972 USA Olympic Team in the 100-meter hurdles and was a member of the first USA Olympic Team Handball squad in the mid-1970s.
A native of Somerset, Ky., Coffey has had a successful coaching career on the collegiate level.
She served as an assistant for one season at MSU in basketball and track and later was head track and cross country coach at Western Kentucky University, California-Davis and later coached at Kansas.
Her final stop on an amazing career was at Smith College where she coached track & field from 1993 to her retirement in 2016.
After MSU, became the first African-American female to be named head coach of an all-male, all-white varsity team in Jefferson County, Kentucky, Iroquois High School.
In 2020, she was named to the Joseph Robichaux Award from USATF for her lasting influence on women's track and field.
Also served on the international rules committee for track with the United States Olympic Committee.