So fast he won the Southwest Conference 100-yard championship in 1921 and 1922 and on another occassion un officially tied Charlie Paddock's then world record of 9 3/5ths....so strong he won the SWC championship in the shotput in 1920 and 1921...so agile and talented he was a star halfback on the fine Rice football team of 1917 even though he never seen a football game before....the late MARION LEE "PREACHER" LINDSEY (Class of 1922) is believed by many old-timers to be the greatest natural athlete Rice ever has had.  He might have had an even greater record.  A knee injury kept him from playing but one year of football.  It must have handicapped him in track-field.  Son of a Methodist minster, "Preacher" came from Timpson High.  There he had won the state high shcool track and field championship as a one-man team.  On August 24, 1928, Lloyd Gregory in his "Looking 'Em Over" column in The Houston Post-Dispatch wrote:  "It matters not how brilliant Rice athletes of the future may be, "Preacher " Lindsey, who died Wednesday, always will be listed in rice annals as one of the mightest adn worthest athletes ever to don the Blue and the Gray"

(Note from Ralph Corry-the date of death is wrong on the inscription.  He died in 1927 according to his headstone)

Not a whole lot is known about Marion "Preacher" Lindsey.  His father was a Methodist minster so he moved aroung a lot.  He was borned in 1899.  He must to have attended Center High School in spring of in sping of 1915 as he listed as having won the state championship in the 100 yard dash for Center HS in 1915.  He would have been in the 9th grade since the schools only had 11 grades back in those days.  At some point he started attending Timpson High School.  In the spring of 1917 at the state track meet,he won four gold medals and silver. He won the 50 yard dash, 100 yard dash, 220 yard dash and shot put. He placed second in another event.  He scord every point for Timpson and won the state meet!  He had a younger brother by the name of Eugene that won state in the discus and shot put in 1920.

Marion attended Rice University and played football in the fall of 1917.  Timpson did not have a football team until 1920.  Apparently at Rice his freshman year he was quite good.  He was a start halfback on a Rice team that only lost one game.  This despite the fact he never played football in high school.  Apparently he hurt his knee.  We do not know if it was playing football or running track.  He tried to play football in later in his years at Rice but could not due apparently to his knee.

However he did run track later at Rice we know.  In 1920 he strained a kneee ligament which kept him from running the conference meet.  In 1921 and 1922 he won the either the 100 yard dash and shot put. He tied the conference record in the 100 yard dash and was fourth in the nation in the shot put....sadly at the age of 27 he died of lukenmia according to his dauther.