Hall of Fame
Frank Parisi, women's bowling coach (2000-13)
Frank Parisi founded the NJCU women’s bowling program in 2000 and working alongside assistant coach Rusty Thomsen, took NJCU women’s bowling to unimaginable heights that no other Gothic Knight women’s program has ever reached. Parisi, who coached for 13 years until retiring in 2013, returned to campus this summer in a new role as associate head coach. Three of his former All-American standouts have already been enshrined in the NJCU Athletics Hall of Fame—Jennifer Viens, Eryn Cully and Vicki Spratford—and his 2003-04 Final Four team will also be inducted this year. More of his former players and teams are all but certain to follow him into the Hall of Fame in future classes.
Parisi, with Thomsen by his side, formed one of the most illustrious coaching combinations in the history of NCAA women’s bowling, leading the Division III Gothic Knights to seven consecutive NCAA Bowling National Collegiate championships and four Final Fours, including a game shy of the 2008 national championship final. He retired as the second winningest coach in NCAA history with 758 victories—a mark of 758-371. Remarkably, eight of his former bowlers and four of his teams, were nominees for this year’s Hall of Fame.
Parisi was a four-time National Tenpin Coaches Association (NTCA) National Coach of the Year, winning NTCA Division II/III National Coach of the Year in 2005-06 and NTCA Division III National Coach of the Year in three consecutive years during 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09.
“It is an honor to be selected,” Parisi stated. “It is the culmination of the success of the program and all the hard work every student athlete and fellow coach Rusty Thomsen put in to make it so successful. They are what made this program so successful and achieve so much for so long—not just on the lanes but in the classroom as well. I am proud to represent all these outstanding individuals.”
NJCU won 60 or more matches in 10 consecutive seasons and 80 or more matches twice including 89 wins in the 2007-08 campaign. During his tenure, NJCU was a mainstay in the NTCA Division I, II and III Top 20 poll, reaching as high as No. 2 in the country in 2004-05 and received the first No. 1 vote in a national poll in any sport in 2007.
NJCU qualified for the first seven consecutive NCAA Championships from 2004-10, reaching the Final Four in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010; the Gothic Knights finished third in the country in 2004 and 2008 and fourth in 2006 and 2010.
Parisi was the former member of the NCAA National Collegiate Women’s Bowling Committee, eventually serving as national chair. That year—the 2009-10 season—NJCU also served as the host for the NCAA tournament event in North Brunswick, N.J., becoming the first institution to host the championship.
He coached 15 different women become All-Americans a combined 23 times including four National Players of the Year—Spratford in back-to-back years in 2006-07 and 2007-08, Amanda Small in 2008-09 and Nicole Djerewski in 2009-10. He also recruited and coached three NTCA Division III National Rookies of the Year.
The success on the lanes were punctuated by the success of NJCU’s bowlers in the classroom. In 2003, NJCU launched the Presidential Team Academic Achievement Award for the program with the highest overall grade point average, and NJCU women’s bowling easily earned the distinction in each of the first nine years it was bestowed. Three bowlers claimed the Thomas M. Gerrity Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Two women earned CoSIDA Academic All-District At-Large recognition. More NJCU women’s bowlers have attended NJCU on a full or partial academic scholarship than any athletic team.
