Sherry called to Cal

PU graduate brings lacrosse experience West

By: Justin Feil
   Sometimes you can’t fight a calling.
   So it seems for Princeton University graduate Theresa Sherry. Growing up in Baltimore as an All-Metro selection in soccer, basketball and lacrosse, coaching was something she saw as beneath a person of her intellect.
   "I wanted to use my other talents and go into business or something," Sherry said. "When I got to Princeton, I gained great respect for what college coaches do and how they work. You realize there’s more than what goes on on the field. I like the idea that my coaches were like parents, therapists, teachers. That’s what I’m excited to be for other women. I get to use the business person side of me and the salesman. It’s a well-rounded job."
   Sherry gave business a try, but last month she officially was named head coach of the University of California women’s lacrosse team. The 2004 PU graduate had been coaching barely two years when she was invited to take over for Jill Malko, who retired after a 7-10 season in the spring. Sherry had finished her first year as an assistant with the Bears.
   "I think it was good to become familiar with the girls and the school, the way the administration works," Sherry said. "Being familiar with the league was an advantage for me when applying for the head coaching job. I had a familiarity with the group and systems there. It’s good to see where the program is coming from. I know what we’ll keep and what I want to change. I want to infuse a lot of energy into our current players and also into the recruits.
   "It was good to have the background knowledge. I can kind of build on the foundation the previous coach built on the last eight years."
   Sherry’s own coaching resume started to build even as she tried her hand in the business world. She helped her roommate as a volunteer coach for Smith College while she was working in wholesale grocery administration.
   "I learned what business was like," Sherry said. "It was definitely interesting, but my passion is more for coaching and the sports side. I was doing volunteer coaching, and I realized I liked it better."
   In 2006, she served as an assistant at Amherst College. She attended practice every day and got to see the day-to-day operations of a lacrosse program. The next year, she was at Cal as an assistant, a long way from her hometown of Baltimore and her college roots in Princeton.
   "My parents grew up in Marin County and I had gone out there every summer of my life," she said. "I applied there and applied to a couple places back East. It came down to Stanford and Cal. I felt more comfortable at Cal. I was able to live with family while working there so it wasn’t as big a move as people that don’t have much attachment would have. I was born near Tahoe. I’ve gone out to California every summer of my life. It was not unnatural."
   Neither was coaching. Her father, Paul, was a one-time television sportscaster who was a beloved volunteer coach for the Towson Recreation Council and Sherry’s Under-13 AAU basketball team before he succumbed to cancer in 1999. Today, the Paul Sherry Shootout is held in his honor. Theresa Sherry didn’t take long to figure out that coaching is in her blood, and it didn’t take Cal long to realize it had a potential gem in the former three-time All-America lacrosse player.
   "I know that I am young age-wise, but I think I’m ready," Sherry said. "I will be saying, I always have more to learn, whether I’m 25 or 60. It is unusual thing for me to go right to being a head coach after just a couple years in it. It has been done before when programs were first starting. Chris Sailer was a grad assistant at Penn and got the job at Princeton. It has been done, just not as much recently. I’m aware I’m young and looking forward to drawing on all my mentors. I’ve been coached by lot of great coaches."
   Sherry was one of the best players to ever suit up for Sailer. She was a finalist for the Tewaaraton Trophy, given to the country’s top player. She led the Tigers to a pair of national championships and exited as the program’s fourth all-time goal scorer. She will pull from her own experiences, though the game has changed even in the short time since she suited up for the Tigers.
   "The Princeton team now compared to the team I was on is very different," said Sherry, who also played for the U.S. Developmental Team in 2004 and 2005. "The way I coach will be influenced very much by the system I played in and the way Chris coached us. I don’t think the team will look much like the team I played on. Attack and defense has changed. There still was that more position-specific player when I played. Everyone nowadays has to be a midfielder. It’s mostly athletes and they look to run and gun. The people at Princeton are more polished and refined in their talents. We’ll have more of the raw types."
   There are similarities and differences in her setting at Cal. At Cal, she will be coaching at the U.S. News & World Report’s highest-ranked public school, and that part is similar to Princeton. On the lacrosse field, however, there is no confusing the two right now.
   "Princeton has a tradition of excellence they can draw on for strength and confidence with their current players," Sherry said. "When they come in, they haven’t done anything, but right away they have a sense of excellence. We have to build that at Cal. We have the athletes, they just don’t have the skill yet of some of the Princeton players. We have to build their lacrosse IQ."
   Sherry aims to work on it. She has been involved in coaching lacrosse in the developmental leagues in California as the sport of lacrosse expands westward. Only six of her players are from the West Coast, but that could change in coming years. Sherry, though, also plans to use her ties to the Baltimore and Princeton areas.
   "I’m hoping to help the high school level improve out here so we can use that," she said. "I think we’ll continue to recruit from the East Coast. I’m excited about my ties to the East. Denver is good for us. If they don’t want to go all the way to the East, they don’t mind going to California. That’s become a hotbed. That’s where we’ll see a lot of players coming from as well."
   Wherever they come from, the players at Cal will be playing for a coach who knows about winning. Overlooked by her grandiose lacrosse accomplishments are her soccer skills. At Princeton, she was a four-year member of the team, the team’s leading scorer as a freshman and a part of three Ivy League championships for Julie Shackford’s side in the fall seasons.
   Sherry knows how to win, regardless of the sport, and will get an early test of just where Cal lacrosse stands this spring. The Bears open their season by hosting defending national champion Northwestern. Not on the schedule — Princeton.
   "We’re trying to work that out," Sherry said. "I’m hoping we can work it out one of these days. It’s a big trip. Right now, they do their spring-break trip to Duke. It’s a matter of arranging schedules. We come back East to play a team and then they typically come out to play us. We like to have teams that reciprocate. I’d love to play Princeton. Maybe in the next couple years."
   Theresa Sherry sounds excited about the prospects. She looks forward to the challenge from a program she brought two national crowns. Now she’s trying to do the same at Cal, as a coach. It was her calling.