Sherri Stephens leads the Toreros for final season

USD Women’s Tennis’ head coach will retire after 37 years with the program

MARI OLSON / SPORTS EDITOR / THE USD VISTA

Over winter break, the University of San Diego Athletics Department announced that the  head coach of women’s tennis, Sherri Stephens, will be retiring at the end of the spring season after nearly four decades at the helm of the program. 

During her tenure with the tennis team, Stephens won over 400 games and a West Coast Conference (WCC) championship. She also led the team to 13 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournaments. Stephens was integral in building the program at USD from a newly Division I team in 1984 into the serially winning powerhouse that it is today. 

At the beginning of this year’s campaign toward another WCC title, Stephens decided that it would be her final attempt. 

“It is a bittersweet decision for me. I absolutely love what I do, so it’s a tough one,” Stephens said. “But, you know, it’s just time to move over and let someone else take the reins.” 

Summing up her experience with USD Women’s Tennis over the years, Stephens emphasized that leading the program has meant “everything” to her. 

“It has been an absolute dream. I’m so blessed to have had the job that I had,” Stephens said. 

For Stephens, the most important part of her job was in the development of her athletes as people. 

“I feel that I play a very important role in the development of young women student athletes. The changes that happen in these four years, in my opinion, are tremendous and very, very important,” Stephens explained. “So I feel like it’s my job to help them develop the passion for whatever it is they choose that they want to do.”  

Not only does this approach help Stephens build lifelong relationships with her athletes, she has also seen results from this approach manifest in successful teams over the years. 

“That also helps on the court because they become stable, happy, fulfilled individuals. They’re very talented on the tennis court, and they take that to a higher level because they’re happy and well rounded,” Stephens said. “So it’s just been a wonderful thing for me, and to have them come back years later, they’re amazing moms and doctors and lawyers. One of their daughters is playing for me now, it’s just very, very satisfying in my heart.” 

Stephens identified her proudest moments as a coach through the years not necessarily as the biggest titles she won, but in the biggest upset wins she led the team through. 

“The big wins that we got, whether it was a national championship or a win over [University of California] Berkeley when they were [ranked] four[th] in the country, those are for me the icing on the cake,” Stephens said. 

Stephens emphasized those wins as the most satisfying because they required her to get the most out of her athletes, who step up to the plate. 

“We were USD and we worked our butts off to get to where we got to, to be able to win some of these things. So when we won them it was very satisfying because we deserved it and we worked really hard to get it,” Stephens explained. “We did it together, we worked hard, on the court, off the court, personality wise, socially, all of it. When you get that win, it just means that much more.” 

Stephens recognized her athletes as the main thing she will take with her when she exits the program in May. 

“We all stay in touch. Almost all of them I have some sort of relationship with, and I hope to continue that. Maybe in my travels I’ll get to go see them all over the world, keep up with what they’re doing with their families,” Stephens said. “I might have more time to be able to hang out even more with them!” 

Redshirt junior Solymar Colling, who earned multiple All-WCC awards during her four years with the program, as well as a bid to the 2021 NCAA singles tournament, talked about how important Stephens is for her success at USD. 

“I have goals of becoming number 1 in the nation and winning NCAAs,” Colling said. “It [is] reassuring that Sherri [knows] the drill and [knows] how it was competing at the highest level, which made my experience becoming an all-American [in 2019] even more special.”  

Colling noted how Stephens has made an impact on she and her teammates both on and off the court.

“Her legacy will forever stay at USD. She cares so much about growing me and my teammates as people and is always there to remind us that to grow on the tennis court we have to grow as people too because there is always life outside of sport,” Colling said. “She’s the best and has made my college experience thus far the best years of my life.” 

Stephens is still with the program for one final season, and she feels confident that she will exit the program on a high note with the team she has now. 

“I’m extremely fortunate that this team has really pulled together and we’re very close, we’re very accepting of one another. Talent-wise, last year we were top-30 in the nation, and we didn’t lose anybody. We picked up another player that was a world-class junior player, so we feel like we’re even a better squad than last year,” Stephens explained, noting how lucky she feels with this group of athletes. 

As a top-30 nationwide program last season, Stephens emphasized that the team wants to prove that they are even better this year. 

“Our goal is to be in the top-16 so that we can host the first round of the national championships,” Stephens said. 

Unfortunately, the team’s matchup against the University of Southern California (USC), scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 5, was postponed due to COVID-19 precautions within the USC program. 

Other important matches for the Toreros this spring include San Diego State University on Mar. 2 and Saint Mary’s on Mar. 12, although Stephens noted that every match is a big one. 

She also emphasized what this specific group of athletes means to her. 

“I just want to say how proud I am of them,” Stephens said. “Especially after going through COVID and all the things we’ve been through, we’re learning to enjoy one day at a time, whether it’s practice or a match or running sprints or lifting weights, that we do it together and we feel grateful that we have the opportunity to be there doing what we do.” 

USD Women’s Tennis plays next against Long Beach State University on Saturday, Feb. 12 at the Skip and Cindy Hogan Tennis Center on the west end of campus.