Head Coach: Sharon Pfluger
Year of Service: 26th
Trenton State College ’82
Education: BS, Health and Physical Education
Sharon Pfluger is ranks among the elite at any NCAA level as the veteran coach has compiled an impressive 387-36-1 record in 25 seasons. Her lofty winning percentage of .914 is the best in NCAA history at any level and she also ranks in the top five at all levels for career wins.
Under her guidance, TCNJ has earned 11 NCAA Division III Championships, five NCAA Runner-Up titles, and four third-place finishes. Her teams have qualified for the NCAA Tournament in each of her 25 seasons and also captured the inaugural New Jersey Athletic Conference Championship when it was introduced as a conference sport in 2009.
Pfluger has coached 134 All-Americans and has had 16 players recognized as a Division III National ‘Field’ Player of the Year in the last 21 years.
Her contributions to the game of lacrosse throughout the years hasn’t gone unnoticed as she was a member of the 50th class for the United National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, which was approved by the US Lacrosse Board of Directors and inducted in November of 2007.
Pfluger was named the 1987 Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches’ Association
(IWLCA) Division III Coach of the Year and again earned that honor in 2004. She has also been selected as a regional coach of the year in 1995, 1996, and 2008.
The Lions put together one of the most impressive streaks in college sports from April 14, 1991 until May 18, 1997 when Pfluger directed the program to 102 straight victories.
Over the course of her career, Pfluger has been honored several times. During the 1991 NCAA Division I and III Women’s Lacrosse Championships, she was the recipient of the NCAA 10th Anniversary Outstanding Service Award for her accomplishments in women’s lacrosse. Since 1989, Pfluger has served on the NCAA Regional Advisory Committee and assisted in coaching the U.S. Women’s Lacrosse Squad from 1987 to 1989. She received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the March of Dimes in 1990, while the Philadelphia Sportswriters Association cited her with the Outstanding Achievement Award in both 1991 and 1992. On November 15, 1992, Pfluger became the first woman honored by the Trenton Select Committee. In 1995, she was honored with the Bea Marwick Award for outstanding support and service to the sport of women’s lacrosse. In the summer of 1997, Pfluger joined four other women in the New Jersey Lacrosse Foundation Hall of Fame’s charter class.
She is one of just two female coaches (Pat Summitt being the other) featured in the NCAA Hall of Champions’ Legends of the Game display located in Indianapolis, IN.
She authored a chapter for a book edited by Cecile Reynaud, PhD entitled, “She Can Coach: Tools for Success from 20 Top Women Coaches,” which was published by Human Kinetics Publishers in March 2005. Pfluger’s chapter focuses on team cohesion.
Pfluger was an assistant coach at Drew University in 1982 for field hockey and in 1984 for lacrosse, and the head field hockey coach at Kean College in 1983 and at Montclair State College in 1984, prior to her return to the College. A resident of Hopewell
Township, NJ, Pfluger is the proud mother of two sons, Augie and Jonah and a daughter, Kileigh.
