LI's Amy Appelt Slade and Lisa Griswold Lindley to be inducted into National Lacrosse Hall of Fame
Amy Appelt at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, on March 12, 2005. Credit: AP for Newsday/Andrew Shurtleff
Some Long Island flair will be present at this year’s National Lacrosse Hall of Fame induction.
Former Garden City High School standout and current UMBC women’s lacrosse coach Amy Appelt Slade, as well as Centerport native and current Darien (Connecticut) High School girls coach Lisa Griswold Lindley join six others as part of the 2020 class, U.S. Lacrosse announced on Thursday.
The newest members, a group which also includes Rob Bordley, Roy Condon, John Desko, Ericka Leslie, Laura Harmon Schuman, and Joe Seivold, will be inducted in a ceremony on Oct. 17 at The Grand Lodge in Hunt Valley, Maryland.
"I’m very shocked," Slade said. "I’m a coach now, so everything we do is centered around our student-athletes. So when something comes back on you, you’re just kind of like, ‘Oh wow, that’s cool.’ It’s a huge honor."
Slade’s jam-packed resume began with the Trojans. A first-team Newsday All-Long Island selection in 2001, she racked up four goals and three assists as Garden City defeated Penn Yan, 17-6, to capture its third straight Division II state championship.
Garden City's Amy Appelt heads toward the goal during a 2000 New York state semifinal lacrosse match against Nyack. Credit: AP FOR NEWSDAY/CHRISTIAN FUCHS
She went on to play at Virginia where she holds program records for points (373), goals (258), and consecutive games scoring (66). In 2004, Slade led the nation in scoring with 90 goals and 121 points, helping UVA capture the national championship. She also won the Tewaaraton Award that year as the most outstanding college player, the first Cavalier to do so.
Slade joined UMBC as an assistant coach in 2010 before taking over the program in 2013 and has since posted a 54-46 record. She’s previously been inducted into the U.S. Lacrosse Long Island Metro Chapter Hall of Fame (2015) and the U.S. Lacrosse Charlottesville Chapter Hall of Fame (2016).
Lindley grew up in Centerport, where she said her older siblings went to Harborfields before the family moved to Simsbury, Connecticut, in 1978. A field hockey standout in high school, Lindley was familiar with lacrosse from watching her brothers but didn’t start playing until college.
After beginning her career at Northwestern, Lindley transferred to UMass and was a three-time All-American in both field hockey and lacrosse. She also played for the U.S. women’s lacrosse team from 1986 to 1992 and was a member of the World Cup squad in 1989.
Since 1994, Lindley has been the head coach at Darien, posting a 448-84 record and a 107-game winning streak against in-state opponents from 2012 to 2018. Under Lindley, Darien has won 17 state championships. She called this latest honor “pretty cool.”
“It’s a little bit overwhelming,” Lindley added. “Very humbled, obviously. You never expect anything like this.”
