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Kristen Leslie was one of the driving forces in helping The College of Wooster women’s basketball team take the next step in the early 1980s. The then-junior capped her 1981-82 campaign with first-team Div. III all-state honors, becoming the first student-athlete in program history to earn this prestigious accolade, but that was just a foresight for the following season.
As a senior, Leslie helped Wooster to its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance, and did not disappoint on the big stage, leading the Fighting Scots with a game-high 22 points on 11-of-17 shooting, and helping Wooster stay right there with Kean University in an eventual 68-63 setback. For good measure, Leslie added seven rebounds against a foe that came into the NCAA Tournament with a 23-3 record.
That year, Leslie led the team in scoring with 11 points per game, marking her third time leading the Scots in scoring. In fact, she graduated as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 925 points, while only playing in 82 career games.
Leslie capped her time as a student-athlete at the College with repeat honors on the all-state team. She also doubled up on laurels as a senior, earning a spot on the inaugural all-Centennial Athletic Conference team, a small-college women’s conference that started operation for the 1982-83 season.
As a team, the Scots enjoyed a 19-7 mark, a win total that at the time was the single-season program record.
A two-sport standout, Leslie was a big force at the net in volleyball, also snaring first-team all-CAC honors as a senior, while regularly being lauded by Wooster’s coaching staff for her outstanding play both in attacking and blocking roles throughout her career. Notable, during her junior year, the Scots set a program record with 32 wins, a total only surpassed by the 1984 team’s 41 victories.
Wooster’s academic program and rigorous independent study project drew Leslie to the College, as she knew it would lay the foundation for further academic work.
After graduating from the College in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, Leslie went on to earn a master’s in divinity from the Yale University Divinity School in 1986, and a doctorate in pastoral care and counseling from the Claremont School of Theology in 2000.
Leslie’s research has garnered national attention throughout her career. In 2003, she authored When Violence is No Stranger; Pastoral Counseling with Survivors of Acquaintance Rape, which caught the eye of the leaders at the United States Air Force Academy, which hired her as a consultant on matters related to sexualized violence. A year later, Leslie authored “The Yale Report,” exposing religious proselytizing at the Air Force Academy, and later testified in Congress before the House Armed Services Committee. She also was interviewed on her research by the “CBS Evening News,” and “60 Minutes,” among other well-known programs.
In 1986, Leslie joined the “family business” as she was ordained a United Methodist minister, becoming the 10th in her family spanning six generations of clergy, and the first woman.
Today, Leslie holds the title of professor of pastoral theology care at the Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, where she has worked since 2010. She also spent over a decade as a professor of pastoral care and counseling at Yale.
Personally, Leslie resides in St. Louis with her husband Michael Boddy and enjoys cycling, gardening, and playing the fiddle and hammered dulcimer with her friends.