May 19, 2003

TCNJ FIELD HOCKEY AND LACROSSE COACH
PFLUGER FEATURED IN BERGEN RECORD

Reprinted with Permission From the May 12 Edition of the Bergen Record
By Gregory Schutta

Sharon Pfluger recently bought a guitar that is still sitting in its box in her closet. Her art supplies have long since been mothballed.

Her running shoes? Used more for chasing her three children than for logging miles on the track.

Someday, the Pompton Lakes native may have a chance to learn how to play that guitar and pick up her love of art. But right now, she's got another national championship to win.

Sharon Pfluger may be the best coach in New Jersey that no one's ever heard of. In 18 years as the field hockey and women's lacrosse coach at the College of New Jersey, Pfluger, who as Sharon Goldbrenner competed in four sports at Pompton Lakes High School in the late 1970s, has amassed a combined 585-51-6 record through May 11 - an incredible .911 winning percentage - and 16 NCAA national titles.

Those exceptional numbers earned her a place in the Locker Room Theater at the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis, smack in between Smith - the NCAA's all-time winningest coach in men's basketball - and legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne and alongside the likes of UCLA basketball legend Wooden; Grambling State football coach Eddie Robinson, the NCAA's career leader in football coaching wins; and Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt.

"I started looking around. I saw John Wooden and Dean Smith. Then I saw Sharon Pfluger," said Sharon Hughes, athletic director at Passaic Tech High School and Pfluger's friend, who visited the Hall soon after it opened when she was in Indianapolis on business. "I had to look again. I couldn't believe it. I had no idea she was in this place."

"I went out there with my two boys the summer after it opened, and I thought, 'Oh my God!'" said Pfluger, the mother of three. "I saw the coaches that I was near and all I could think is 'What am I doing here? They're legends, and I'm just somebody from The College of New Jersey.'"

She is somebody who, with Sunday's 11-5 victory over Mary Washington in the NCAA Division III Regional Championship, has coached the Lions to the NCAA Division III Final Four in each of her 17 seasons as the women's lacrosse coach and all but four of her 18 seasons as the field hockey coach. The Lions (15-0), ranked second in the nation, will be gunning for their 10th women's lacrosse championship and their first since 2000 when they travel to Rochester, N.Y. this weekend for the Division III semifinals at St. John Fisher College.

Pfluger's numbers screamed for inclusion in the Locker Room Theater, a movie auditorium in the Hall of Champions that is built to look like a college locker room, with each locker honoring a different coach. A committee researched NCAA records to find the dozen or so coaches they felt best embodied what it takes to be a champion, the theme of the films shown in the theater.

"We wanted people to sit on the benches in front of these lockers and learn about coaches who have done it right," said Todd Greenwood, spokesman for the Hall of Champions, which opened in March of 2000. "Her name just stuck out immediately. To her credit, hers was one of the few names that didn't require any politicking."

Everything about Pfluger is low-key, except for the numbers she has put up. Even her visit to Indianapolis.

"I didn't even know about it until I got a call from [the Hall] congratulating me," she said. "The school sent me out to take a look. We're walking around shyly taking pictures when somebody comes up and says, 'Sharon, is that you? Why didn't you tell us you were coming down?'"

"You don't realize what she's done until you go down there and see it, read the stats," said Hughes, who coached JV basketball with Pfluger at Paterson Catholic in 1982. "She doesn't coach a men's sport. She doesn't coach a major sport. She coaches field hockey and lacrosse. Those are things that can get overlooked. She's done a lot very quietly."

But her accomplishments speak volumes to those who play for her - and to those who play against her. Ridgewood's Liz O'Connor, who has 50 goals and 25 assists this season and became the school's all-time points leader in Sunday's regional championship, transferred to the College of New Jersey from Delaware before the 2000 season.

"It was the reputation of the program, and the reputation of the coach," O'Connor said. "It's an honor to play for somebody who has been so successful."

"I came down here as a basketball recruit," said goalkeeper Jen Munday. "But I decided to give [lacrosse] a try my sophomore year. It was the chance to play for a national championship team."

Pfluger has never backed down from a challenge. As a sophomore at Pompton Lakes in 1976, she was one of four girls to go out for the boys track team because there was no girls team. At then-Trenton State College, now the College of New Jersey, she went out for the lacrosse team despite never having played the sport and went on to compete for a national championship.

Pfluger was just 24 years old with two years of college coaching experience when she took over the field hockey and women's lacrosse programs, both already national championship programs, at Trenton State.

"It was pretty intimidating at first," said Pfluger, who played both sports and won a national championship on Trenton State's lacrosse team. "I'm thinking, 'Sharon, you've taken over a national program. You have to take these kids to a national championship.' I had to work hard not to get overwhelmed."

Far from overwhelmed, Pfluger led the field hockey team to a national championship in her first year and the lacrosse team to the Division III finals in each of her first four years, winning two championships. She coached the lacrosse team to 102 straight wins from 1991 through 1997, winning six straight championships, and led the field hockey and lacrosse teams to back-to-back titles from the fall of 1990 to the spring of 1992.

"She's all about basics," Munday said. "Everything is fundamentals. She's a great teacher. She makes athletes into great players."

"I want them to do the fundamentals to perfection," Pfluger said. "I know they're going to make mistakes. But I want them to be so crisp that when they do make a mistake, there's somebody to pick them up."

Pfluger has been there for her teams through the births of her three children, Augie (7), Jonah (5), and Kileigh (1), even though many around her thought she was crazy to try to coach two sports.

"After the birth of my second child, I thought maybe they were right," Pfluger said. "I decided maybe I should coach one sport. The administration said 'OK, pick one,' and I had no clue which one to give up. I guess if I was going to give up one, I should have known which one I wanted to give up. But it was like which child do you give up."

She didn't coach women's lacrosse in 1998. But instead of feeling more relaxed, Pfluger felt lost.

"I was like a fish out of water," she said. "After being a mother to these kids for so long, I wasn't the mother anymore. I didn't know my role. I was confused."

The players missed Pfluger's colorful way of making a point.

"It's just the way she talks," Munday said.

"The goalkeepers like to think of the goal as their house. Keep the ball out of the house. Coach wants us to take care of the area in front of the goal also. She says the eight yards in front of the goal is our front lawn, and you don't want dogs making a mess on your front lawn."

Pfluger also is strict when it comes to the athletes representing the school.

"She's got zero tolerance for bad manners," O'Connor said. "No four-letter words, no way. It's always 'yes coach, no coach, excuse me coach.'"

"I hope my players can relate to me," Pfluger said. "I love the interaction between the girls and the coaches and the ability to have a positive effect on their lives as people. As young adults, they can absorb so much. I want them to take failures and build for the future and come out as more confident women. And when they have time to sit back and look at the big picture, they can say 'Wow, that was awesome.'"