Judy Sherman Hon. ’26 has a long list of accomplishments from her five-decade career at Pacific University.
“Do you want the whole list?” she asks before starting through a long list of the many players and coaches she has worked with over the years. Sherman calls them her top accomplishments because nothing else that she has achieved happens without them.
“That is my biggest success,” Sherman said. “The student-athletes are what put me where I am today, especially in softball. Their hard work, their dedication, the way that they worked together as a team, I could not have asked for more than that.”
Those student-athletes, and her many colleagues in the Boxer athletic department over the years, have given Sherman a long list of honors, including an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree that Pacific conferred in May 2026 at the university’s undergraduate commencement ceremony. The degree recognized Sherman’s 53 years of service to Pacific as a coach, professor and athletic administrator, including 11 years as athletic director.
“I never thought something like this would happen,” Sherman said of receiving the honorary degree. “I was ecstatic to be able to tell my siblings about it, and to think that a place that I’ve given my heart to would appreciate me in this way.”
While Sherman began her Pacific career in 1967, the university has been part of her entire life. She remembers future colleagues Dan French ’56, MS ’64 and Varina French ‘56 ’65 babysitting her. Sherman’s father, Ellerd Larkins, often hired Pacific students for summer jobs at the lumber mill he operated south of town. And the family was a regular attendee of Pacific football games and other athletic events.
Those influences whetted Sherman’s passion for sports, which Larkins actively encouraged. He built a softball field at what is now the Lincoln Park Athletic Complex so that his daughter and other women could play. Sherman joined her first traveling softball team at age 11. She has loved the game ever since.
“I was lucky that my dad was ahead of his time, that he wanted something for his daughter that was the same or equal to his sons,” Sherman said.
It was one of those Pacific friendships, with physical education instructor Jean Horner ’52, that resulted in her first coaching job — leading the Boxers’ women’s basketball team for the salary of $50 for the season.
In a short time, Sherman added volleyball, softball, field hockey and track and field to her coaching duties. Success quickly followed. Her basketball team won the first Women’s Conference of Independent Colleges championship in 1969. Her volleyball teams won titles in 1981 and 1982.
However, it was in softball where Sherman experienced the most success. She amassed 418 wins and a .714 win percentage in 26 years as head coach (including four years as co-head coach with Schuppert). She led the Boxers to seven national tournament appearances, led by a third-place finish at the 1985 NAIA National Championship and a fifth-place finish at the 1981 AIAW National Championship. In six tournament appearances, the Boxers finished no worse than ninth in the 16-team bracket. Additionally, Pacific won six straight conference titles between 1980 and 1985.
Along the way, Sherman coached 11 All-Americans, six NAIA District II Players of the Year and 70 all-conference selections, all members of her list of accomplishments.
