In her 25 years serving as GA’s varsity girls’ basketball coach, Dr. Sherri Retif has built up the program and cemented her status as one of GA’s legendary coaches. After this year’s season, Dr. Retif announced her retirement from coaching, though she will continue to serve as a Middle School faculty member.
Retif grew up playing for the Euchres, a youth basketball program her parents started in her hometown of New Orleans. After winning the AAU national championship when she was fourteen and placing second when she was fifteen, Dr. Retif started coaching younger teams in the program until she was a senior in college.
“After that, I just thought it was time to move on and I thought I’d never coach again,” Dr. Retif said. “I just thought I wanted to do something more altruistic, but it turns out that I think coaching was my calling in life. At that time I didn’t realize that, but over the years it’s become a big part of my heart.”
Following her time playing college basketball at Tulane University, Dr. Retif started coaching professionally at Ursuline Academy in New Orleans where she served for eight years. After leaving Ursuline, Dr. Retif coached at Sun Valley High School. However, it was actually a former player who brought Dr. Retif to GA.
“I coached at Sun Valley for four years, retired from coaching, and a month later a job at GA opened up,” Dr. Retif said. “I had coached Chelsea Kaden [‘00], who was a junior, when she was 12 or 13 as a volunteer. So she called and said, ‘Coach, we’re looking for a coach.’ So I applied, and 25 years later, I’m still here.”
At GA, Dr. Retif has led the Patriots to 20 Inter-Ac championships—including 14 consecutive titles—and four Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) championships. She was inducted into Tulane University’s Hall of Fame in 1998, the Montgomery County Coaches Hall of Fame in 2013, and GA’s Hall of Fame in 2017. However, Dr. Retif attributes her success to her athletes and staff.
“I think it’s, it’s just a winning combination of my passion with my athletes’ passion,” Dr. Retif said. “I’ve always been blessed with just extremely passionate and dedicated athletes and when you leave a practice and the players say ‘Coach, can we come in tomorrow morning at 6:15 and shoot?’ you’re aware of how passionate they are, and you want to be your best self for them.”
Retif’s bond with her players also transcends wins or losses, as she values student leadership and leans on her captains to establish a community within the team.
“I remember at one point we had a 109-game win streak in the Inter-Ac, but it just became heavy with all the pressure,” Dr. Retif said. “When we lost, I remember my captain just took a deep breath and said, ‘I’d rather lose with you than win with anyone else.’ And that was the most winningest moment of all because it was about friendships and relationships and community, and losing the game kind of brought us even closer together.”
Retif’s coaching style is greatly influenced by her unique philosophy of spiritual direction. She emphasizes helping players build resilience by discovering their core values and building courage in adversity instead of focusing on results and extrinsic motivation.
“My spirituality has taught me my core values in life, and whether it’s mutual respect or inclusiveness, all of those have come from my spirituality, and I try to nurture that in my coaching—it’s just how I like to present myself and the values that I’d like to build a program on,” Dr. Retif said.
Retif implements this philosophy by establishing community within the teams she coaches through rituals, as Dr. Retif calls it, such as team meals and team testimonials which feature an athlete, usually a senior, sharing reflections with the team. Retif’s spirituality has also helped her grow as a coach and a person.
”Building and integrating my spirituality in a bigger way has helped guide me through the hard times, and it keeps me grounded through the good times,” Dr. Retif said. “But when there are challenges, you stay grounded in your core values, and it helps you move through any of the struggles to find a solution or better times. So it’s always been a deep part of who I am.”
Though she is stepping down from coaching, Dr. Retif will remain a part of the GA community by continuing to teach Middle School Physical Education. Dr. Retif expresses gratitude for the opportunity to have been able to make an impact not only on the girls’ basketball team but on GA’s female sports teams as a whole.
“I’m just grateful for what Ms. [Dakota] Carroll does here and what Ginny Hoffman did over the years for women’s sports, and I’m glad to have been a part of it,” Dr. Retif said.