Melinda "Mendy" Childress ('79) ranks among JMU's top 10 basketball players on eight career lists, including second in blocked shots (80) and rebounding average (8.2), third in total rebounds (762), scoring average (13.8) and field goals (536), seventh in scoring (1,281 points) and ninth in free throws (209). She was only the second player in JMU women's basketball history to score more than 1,000 career points.
The JMU center was a Virginia AIAW all-state selection in 1978 and 1979 and a VAIAW all-tournament choice in 1977 and 1979. She was named to the National Scouting Association All-Region Team in 1979.
She was a member of the first JMU team to win 20 games (1979), was drafted by the Women's Professional Basketball League in 1979 and played in a semi-professional league in Venezuela in the summer of 1979.
Her 1978-79 season totals in scoring (473), scoring average (17.5), field goals (193), free throws (87), rebounds (236) and rebounding average (8.7) rank among the best season totals in JMU history.
She holds the school single-game scoring record of 35 points (set on two occasions) and has a total of five of the top 20 scoring games in school history, more than any other JMU player. Her single-game records for field goals made (15) and attempted (25, in two games) and blocked shots (5) still stand.
She led the Dukes in scoring, field goal accuracy and blocked shots in 1978 and 1979.
A native of Lynchburg, Va., she is a graduate of Seven Hills School.
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