By Dennis Clark
TERRE HAUTE — Donna Marsh can certainly play basketball.
After all, the 6-foot-1 junior post player just recently established a Rose-Hulman women’s career record in blocked shots — 172 and still counting — heading into Wednesday’s road game at Anderson University.
Despite all her basketball talents, academics was first and foremost in the decision-making process for the Mobile, Ala., resident in where to attend college.
Her decision to attend Rose-Hulman has been the best of both worlds, as she is enjoying herself immensely both in the classroom and on the basketball court.
But what made all this process more intriguing and quite unique is that basketball is deeply embedded in the Marsh family genes.
Donna’s older sister, Dionne, graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2008 as the school’s career scoring leader (1,913 points).
Dionne — also 6-1 — was a four-time All-Mountain West Conference selection. She participated in the 2008 training camp of the WNBA’s Sacramento team, before playing professionally last year in Greece.
While having a talented sister such as Dionne might be a daunting challenge to younger sister Donna, that was not the case.
“My sister is definitely a role model for me. She did so well in college, not only in her athletics but also in her academics. [Dionne’s] about three years older than me, she graduated from college last summer. She went overseas to play in Greece and she’s about to go back to Spain, but she just got married so I don’t know how her husband is going to feel about that,” Marsh laughed.
“Having her as a sister opened a lot of doors me. They’re like, ‘You’re Dionne’s sister, you’re at least some kind of good.’ But they let you in and then you get to show your own skills, to see what kind of player you are. So, it’s helped me a lot. It’s made me a little more competitive, like ‘I can’t let her win.’ ”
How did someone from Mobile, Ala., wind up at Rose-Hulman?
“My dad is a human resources manager at a chemical plant and he knew I wanted to be an engineer,” Marsh explained. “He asked the chemical engineers around his work where the best engineering school was and he said I’d heard from Rose-Hulman. They went like, oh yeah, Rose-Hulman is the best engineering school in the country. So I applied and I got in.”
It might be safe to assume that Marsh is one of a select few women’s basketball players of her skill level around the country majoring in biomedical engineering.
“There’s a lot of tracts in biomedical engineering, but I’m looking more toward the tissue engineering side, to make artificial organs like hearts and things of that nature,” Marsh said.
On the basketball side of the equation, no one is more happy to have Marsh on campus than Rose-Hulman women’s basketball coach Jon Prevo.
“It kind of came down to ‘Do I go to Indiana to fulfill what I want to do education-wise, or do I stay back in Alabama where my friends are, but not get the kind of education that might put me in a position later in life to set me up to have a lot of success?’” Prevo described Marsh’s college decision. “She had to make some sacrifices.
“Donna’s made great strides for us. She’s blessed with a lot of athleticism and God-given talent. She goes through periods where can be a dominant force on the floor, offensively and defensively. She can put up some tremendous numbers.”
Marsh has stepped up her production this season, leading the team in four statistical categories — averaging 12.4 points, 10.5 rebounds, with 38 blocks and 20 steals. As you can see, the points and rebounds is easily a double-double average.
“My role definitely has changed,” Marsh said of her junior year. “Coach Prevo talked to me before the season started that I would have more responsibility on my shoulders — which is something you grow to accept, me being on the team for three years. It’s my turn to step up.”
Marsh is best known for her uncanny ability to block shots — a real crowd-pleaser at Rose games.
“I don’t really work on blocked shots,” Marsh admitted. “To me, a blocked shot is just another missed shot and another opportunity to get a rebound. A lot of people tell me they come to games to watch me block shots, but I just play the game to win.”
In Marsh’s first two years, Rose was 11-15, then 8-16. This year, the Engineers have struggled through a 1-12 campaign so far, but Marsh remains genuinely optimistic that things will get better.
“We’ve had a little trouble with numbers, but we have a good team,” Marsh stated. “All the talent is there. We need to give it the extra step to get more wins”.
Prevo noted that Marsh will be able to get back closer to her Alabama roots, as the women’s team opens next season — Marsh’s senior year — in a tournament at Birmingham-Southern.
