The tenth women’s basketball player to be inducted into the Clark University Athletic Hall of Fame, Rebecca Sherer ’79 helped lead the Cougars to an impressive 55-18 overall record over her three-year career (1976-79).
She helped guide Clark to the 1977 Massachusetts Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (MAIAW) championship as a rookie in her sophomore season with the Cougars. Sherer’s efforts on the court rewarded her the tournament’s Most Valuable Player accolades.
The following year, Clark captured the Stonehill College Invitational title, as the junior forward was again named MVP. The 1978-79 season saw the Cougars claim their second MAIAW championship in three years, followed by a berth in the Eastern Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (EAIAW) regional tourney, the precursor to the NCAA tournament. As the team posted a program-best 23-5 mark that season, Sherer closed her collegiate basketball career as Clark’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder.
“It was immediately apparent to all of us that Becky had superior skills and knowledge of the game,” said fellow Athletic Hall of Fame inductee and former head coach Barbara Stevens. “As our leading scorer, rebounder, and ‘go to player,’ she was one of the elite players in MAIAW Division III. Along with her teammates of the late 1970’s, Becky played a major role in the emergence of Clark University women’s basketball as a state and regional Division III power.”
The Richmond, Mass. native joined various sports leagues after graduation, including the MsKicks Worcester women’s soccer squad and the Northampton Women’s Softball League. She was a two-time UMass-Haigis Hoopla women’s basketball champion (1992, 1993), and she won the 1993 Boston Reebok women’s basketball 3-on-3 title.
Moving from the court to the sidelines, Sherer took over as head coach for the Amherst Recreational junior high girls’ basketball program in 1995. Also an active cyclist in charitable causes, she participated in the 2001 Ride the Rockies fundraiser and the PanMass Challenge for the Jimmy Fund (2003, 2004, 2006). In addition, she has been an avid tennis player.
Sherer, who also played tennis and softball at Clark, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in geography. In 1987, she earned an additional degree in civil engineering from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
