UW-Platteville has 11 combined national event titles at the NCAA Division III Track & Field Championships – counting indoors and outdoors – in program history: Marcia Taddy had eight of them during her legendary career for the Pioneers.
Taddy made an immediate impact at UW-Platteville, earning four All-America honors in her first year on the team. After an indoor season that saw her finish third in the 800 meters and sixth in the mile, Taddy topped her first NCAA podium with a victory in the outdoor 800. That wasn’t just an ordinary win: Taddy, a native of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, captured the program’s first NCAA title and broke a three-year-old stadium record set by the legendary Missy Buttry.
“I set my goals before the meet with (assistant coach Tom Antczak) and I was hoping to finish in the top-three in each event (she also competed in the 1500),” Taddy told the Manitowoc (Wis.) Herald-Times in 2005. “After nationals, my coach asked me if I would rather have two thirds, or a first and a sixth (from the 1500). I think I’m a lot happier this way.”
Taddy’s thirst for success only grew stronger once she got a taste.
By the time she graduated in 2008, Taddy added seven more NCAA titles, 11 more All-America medals and two USTFCCCA National Women’s Track Athlete of the Year honors to her trophy case. Six of those national crowns came between 2007 and 2008, years in which she became the first woman in NCAA DIII history to complete the 800-mile sweep indoors (2007) and just the second to sweep the 800 and 1500 outdoors (2008, joining Liz Woodworth).
After graduating, Taddy served as a volunteer cross country and track & field coach at UW-Platteville from 2008 to 2017, was an assistant coach for the UW-La Crosse men’s and women’s cross country and track & field teams from 2018 to 2020, among other roles. Taddy is the first female athlete from UW-Platteville to be inducted into the USTFCCCA NCAA Division III Track & Field Athlete Hall of Fame (Paul Conlin went in as a member of the Class of 2021).