This past weekend the Boston University Athletics Hall of Fame held its annual banquet inducting former Terrier stars into the hall. In light of that I thought it was time to do my David Letterman impersonation as I present my top 10 list of the best athletes to ever play at BU.
This week I will unveil players 10 through six, while next week I’ll continue the countdown and reveal the top five BU greats.
The factors that went into this list were varied, ranging from statistics to what that particular player contributed to their team. This list is just my opinion, so not every fantastic player to grace the fields at BU will be present. There have been thousands of athletes to compete here over the years and every one of them contributed to the athletic tradition at this school, but these players are the ones I feel symbolized the spirit of collegiate athletics the best.
10 Chrissy Lombard A lacrosse midfielder from the class of 2001, Chrissy Lombard is the all-time leading goal scorer with 180 goals, outdistancing her closest competition by 17. On top of that, Lombard holds the career points record with 242, which is a whopping 57 points higher than anyone else to ever play women’s lacrosse at BU.
She was a tenacious midfielder who always found the back of the net and possessed the unique ability to sneak up on opposing players knocking the ball free. Lombard helped bring Terrier lacrosse national recognition as a junior when she spearheaded a team that finished 11th in the country, as they earned the program’s first ever NCAA tournament bid. Their won-loss total that year was a school record, 15-4.
As a senior, Lombard was part of the team that finished 16th in the nation, thus solidifying her spot as a great goal-scorer who brought prestige to her sport and her school.
9 Audrey West Playing for the softball team as a pitcher, Audrey West was perhaps the most dominant fireballer ever to toe the rubber for the Terriers. A member of the class of 1996, West holds just about every career pitching record you can think of. She put together an impressive resume with an overall record of 75-17. With a laundry list of career records, West was not a pitcher you wanted to face as an opposing batter. Her records include 47 shutouts, 637 innings pitched, 910 strikeouts, and an earned run average of 0.65. Her endurance and ability to keep teams guessing helped in 1996 when as a senior, she led BU to its first NCAA tournament bid.
West was a special player who was able to completely shut down opponents. Dominance was her middle name.
8 John Cullen The center for a hockey team is the player who creates scoring opportunities and is a leader on the ice. John Cullen was no exception. As a freshman in 1983 he burst onto the scene leading the Terriers in scoring with 25 goals and 49 assists. The next three seasons he was named the team’s MVP. As a senior in 1987, Cullen was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award and was named the male athlete of the year for BU. In 1986 he was part of the squad that won its first Hockey East Championship.
He left BU holding the career record for points with 241 and assists with 143. Cullen is also second all-time in goals with 98.
Cullen was the quiet leader who was an integral part of those hockey teams in the first few years of Hockey East play.
7 Debbie Miller The history of women’s hoops at BU can be traced back and forth, and the main star that you will see is Debbie Miller, class of 1981. A dominant player who could do everything on the court from shooting and scoring to blocking, stealing and rebounding, Miller holds records in every major statistical category. With 1,869 points, 1,198 rebounds, 477 assists, 428 steals and 260 blocked shots, her stats are the best BU has ever seen.
Miller was named an All-American in 1980 and made the Olympic team that same year. While she was here, the team went 67-30, she averaged 20 points a game, and was a two-time finalist for the Margaret Wade Trophy, an award much like the Heisman in football. Not bad. Not bad at all.
6 Robert Dougherty Oh, where to begin with this gentleman. I don’t know exactly where to start, so I’ll take it from the top. At 5-foot, 10-inches and 175 pounds, Dougherty wasn’t the biggest quarterback around, and that was why he ended up at junior college after the big schools refused to look at him.
Dougherty attended the College of the Sequoias, setting pretty much every record he could while there. In 1993, the BU football program decided to take a chance on this diminutive QB out of Visalia, California. Dougherty was tabbed as the Terriers’ starting quarterback in 1993.
In the season opener against Maine, Dougherty firmly planted himself in the rich athletic history of Boston University. Against Maine he completed 13 of 15 passes for 201 yards and 2 touchdowns. On top of that, he rushed three times, gaining 19 yards and 2 TDs for himself.
OK, you’re probably mildly impressed, but what if I told you he did that in just the first quarter? Yeah, he did that in just the first 15 minutes of the game. From there he led the Terriers to their first undefeated, untied season in school history. It marked the team’s first winning season since 1984, and under the guidance of Dougherty they went 12-1 overall, beating Kurt Warner’s Northern Iowa in the Div. I-AA playoffs before losing to Idaho in the quarterfinals.
Dougherty was the typical run-and-shoot quarterback who was great at the scramble and could always get the ball in the end zone. Because of that, he set career records for passing with 6,471 yards and total offense with 6,938 yards. While at BU, he won every conceivable award from All-American honors all the way to coming in fourth in the balloting for the Walter Payton Award as the best Div. I-AA player. In 1993 and 1994, he led BU to a 21-4 record, 14-2 in conference, and two straight appearances in the I-AA playoffs.
He broke almost every record here and was at BU for only his junior and senior years, making it all the more unbelievable. His two seasons for the Terriers marked the team’s most successful back-to-back campaigns ever. For all his accomplishments, his greatest one is not as well known as the rest.
Dougherty can be credited with prolonging football at Boston University. Before his matriculation, there were some rumblings about cutting the program due to poor records and attendance. But after his sudden revival of the team in 1993, with all the excitement that surrounded the playoff run, that plan was put on hold. So in effect, he gave a couple more years of life to football, giving a valuable potpourri of memories to the students, fans and the university.
In 1994, when asked about his time at BU, Dougherty said, “I can’t say enough for what BU has done for me; it has given me a chance to do what I can do and be what I can be. I’ll never be able to repay them for that.”
Dougherty was a special kind of athlete, with the spark and energy to captivate and motivate us to do great things, and because of him and all the others like him, our love of sport continues.