With a win over Ohio Northern in mid January, Baldwin Wallace women’s basketball coach Cheri Harrer got her 500th win as a coach.  With a career that started in 1990, coach Harrer is in the midst of her 25th season as a coach of the Yellow Jackets and in that time she has achieved numerous accomplishments.
In fact, coach Harrer is the second all time winningest coach in OAC women’s history and the fourth all time winningest in the overall history of the OAC.  She has had a career that includes thirteen OAC titles, twelve NCAA division III tournament appearances, as well as three “elite eight” appearances.
This season, Harrer has led her team to a 17-4 overall record with a 12-2 record in the OAC.  The team stands in a tie for first place and have won five straight as well as ten of its last eleven games.
“They’ve had a lot of close games, and most of the time they’ve come through with a win,” coach Harrer said.
With each and every year passing, a coach Harrer led team has the same basic set of goals.  They want to win a conference championship and they want to reach the NCAA tournament.
“Our bigger goal is to get better everyday and this group has really done a good job of getting in and at practice they’ve gone after it and for the most part they’ve gotten better everyday,” Harrer said.
With a team that leads by setting the tone on defense first, they have been able to control games the way they want to.  Although it does not always show up on the scoreboard, because of the defensive intensity this team brings every game they have been able to take control of most games.
Throughout the course of the twenty-five years that she has coached, the players love for their coach is always apparent from the buy-in mentality that her players exhibit to receiving gifts and phone calls from numerous alumni. The love these players have for their coach is apparent, which is a big reason why Harrer’s teams have been able to have continued success throughout her tenure as a coach.
Although 500 wins is way beyond any expectations she could have set for herself as a young coach with her first job back in 1990, it is apparent that she has been preparing for this moment for much longer than these past twenty-five years.
“I actually have notebooks with diagrams in them from when I was in eighth grade, a junior high boys coach actually first talked to me about being a coach,” coach Harrer remarked about how far back her coaching roots actually go.
Harrer possesses all of the traits a team needs in a coach including the desire and will to not only win but to coach and mold athletes-not only into better players but better people.  Her humility is apparent.
When it is all said and done, Harrer wants to be remembered for something more than her accomplishments.
“I would hope they say that I cared about them, and that I helped make them better people for having played here,” Harrer said.
The Baldwin Wallace women’s basketball program has Harrer to thank for the success they’ve enjoyed the past twenty-five years.