Sherry Levin Interview

Great article and well written - Sherry is a very worthy recipient of the honor

If you round out the top three with Lauren Manis, they all came to HC from Massachusetts high schools, two from Catholic high schools. Our current NJ/PA recruiting grounds are not delivering the same impact players as those three.

Holy Cross to honor all-time scoring leader Sherry Levin, one proud Crusader
School to name women's basketball players lounge after 1984 graduate, who is longtime coach at Worcester Academy
Jennifer Toland
Telegram & Gazette

At speaking engagements through the years, or during motivational talks or discussions while coaching at the World Maccabiah Games, Holy Cross great Sherry Levin’s captive audiences often had the same query.
“First hand up, first question, ‘What’s a Jewish girl doing at Holy Cross?’ ” Levin said during an interview Tuesday morning. “I got used to the question. The answer stays the same.”
For Levin, the all-time leading scorer in Holy Cross women’s basketball history, the journey to New England’s oldest Catholic college began at a Bentley all-star camp her sophomore year at Newton North High School.
Levin sat cross-legged, in the front row under the basket, and listened intently to guest lecturer Togo Palazzi, the Holy Cross legend.
“He mesmerized me,” Levin said. “I remember going home and telling my parents, ‘I met this guy Togo Palazzi. That’s the kind of coach someday I would like to play for.’ ”
Two years later, in 1980, during a playoff game when Levin was a senior, her dad, Haskell, overheard in the crowd that Palazzi would be HC women’s coach for the upcoming season.
Levin had offers from Boston University and Boston College, and she had drawn interest from several Ivy League schools, “but with each one,” she said, “something was missing for me.”
Becoming a Crusader
Levin connected with Palazzi, and she and her mom, Leona, visited the Holy Cross campus and met Ron Perry, who was then director of athletics, as well as Ronnie Perry, who just finished his outstanding HC basketball career.
After the campus tour, Levin, her mom and Palazzi sat in his small office, located in the Hart Center ice rink and, Levin recalled, had a little space heater in the corner.
“He said, ‘I would love for you to come and be the cornerstone of the next level of the program,’ ” Levin recalled.
At the time, the women’s program was in its infancy.
Levin and her mom headed into the gym and stood on the court, and after a chat between Palazzi and Perry, Palazzi, thrilled to be adding “the best guard in the state” to his team, came in and offered her a scholarship.
Levin went to the bookstore and bought a Holy Cross T-shirt. On the ride home, they stopped at the Natick rest area on the Mass. Pike, and Levin went to the pay phone to call her dad at work.
“‘I’m going to Holy Cross,’ I told him,” Levin said. “I remember it as if it was yesterday. It set my life on a course.”

During her four outstanding years at Holy Cross, Levin etched her name in the record book. She still holds the program marks for points (2,253, without the 3-point line), scoring average (21.8 ppg), field goals made (842) and free throws made (569).
“She is the hardest working player I ever coached,” Palazzi said. “She wanted to be great. She is one of our great athletes.”

Levin, who is in her 13th season (over two stints) as the Worcester Academy girls’ basketball coach, was an honor student and a great representative of the college, Palazzi said. She became the first (and only) Jewish member of the Holy Cross Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 1989.
Five years ago, Levin’s Holy Cross classmate, Ted Lynch, read the news about Levin returning to Worcester Academy to coach. It sparked his curiosity, and he researched the HC women’s basketball record book and Levin’s place in it.
“I was blown away by the numbers,” Lynch said, “and how they stood the test of time.
“I talked to my classmates,” Lynch said, “and we agreed we should do something to make sure Sherry was properly recognized.”

'Overwhelmed by honor'

Since the Luth Athletic Complex opened in 2018, many areas of the building have been named in honor of prominent alumni. Lynch went to HC’s development and alumni relations offices with the idea to do the same for Levin. He spearheaded the fundraising, and there was a great outpouring of support from the Class of 1984, Lynch said, eager to recognize Levin’s pioneering status and importance not only in Holy Cross athletics, but the HC community.
On Friday, before the HC women’s game against UMass at the Hart Center, The Sherry Levin Players’ Lounge, adjacent to the women’s locker room, will be dedicated to one of the program’s best.
“My heart fills up with gratitude and appreciation for the Holy Cross community,” said Levin, who added that she was “overwhelmed” by the honor.

As is customary at Holy Cross, a priest, in this case and at Levin’s request, Rev. Earle Markey, a former HC basketball star and an associate director in the office of admissions, will bless the space, along with Levin’s family rabbi, Eric Gurvis. A mezuzah will be affixed to the entryway.
“I think that is a true testament to what the Jesuits and what Holy Cross represents,” Levin said, “and so special. I love the Holy Cross community for what it represents, and the fact that it now is welcoming to have one of their own represent another idea of faith is, to me, just wonderful.”
A number of Levin’s Holy Cross classmates and teammates will be in attendance at the private dedication, as well as Palazzi and Perry, Levin’s daughter, Marcia, and her mother. Levin’s dad passed away in 2009.
Levin also will be honored in between quarters of the game, Lynch said.

As coach and mentor

In addition to being a very proud mom herself, Levin has devoted much of her life to coaching and mentoring. She previously served as director of athletics and girls’ basketball coach at Beaver Country Day School. She coached Team USA to two gold medals at the World Maccabiah Games, the third largest sporting event in the world and often referred to as the Jewish Olympics.
Levin guided Worcester Academy to a pair of New England championships and coached three-time Gatorade Massachusetts Player of the Year Aliyah Boston, who is now having an All-America career at South Carolina.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Levin worked as a women’s basketball TV analyst.
Levin cherishes notes she received from former Holy Cross president Rev. John Brooks after big wins or attaining milestones. Her parents never missed a game, and she can still picture her dad sitting in his usual seat, a few rows behind the visiting bench, chin on his hand and giving his daughter an encouraging head nod if she needed it.
Whenever Levin enters the Hart Center, she flashes back to the day she stood on the court with her mom and Palazzi offered her the scholarship.
“It’s palpable,” Levin said.
“I tell my players (when they’re looking at colleges),” Levin said, ‘“You’ll feel something. You’ll feel a connection to the campus, to the coach, to the people. I felt Holy Cross was the place for me.”
—Contact Jennifer Toland at jennifer.toland@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @jentandg.

I just looked at the all time results for the Levin era. Before she arrived, the team had losing records playing mostly D2 and D3 schools. Her first year, they went 20-4 still playing a weak schedule. As a soph, they went 23-4 adding a few more D1 opponents. By her junior year, they went 19-6 against mostly D1 opponents. They lost to UConn by 3 at the Field House in Storrs. When she was a senior, they went 20-7 against a full D1 schedule beating, among others, UConn and BC. Obviously, they added lots of other scholarship players over those years, but it is fair to say that she was the player who made it happen.

goholycross.com/documents/2020/8/17//ALL_TIME_RESULTS.pdf?id=6914

Great article. I did not know the history. As for Togo, he is one of the greatest of all time. We need another statue!

The article mentions the 45-1 home record during Levin's career. What a difference a few decades make.

I didn't realize that Sherry was the first women to receive a full scholarship

Sherry is clearly made of sterner stuff than today's folk.

I would not get a "sense of deep satisfaction." Many I know would not be satisfied either.
The nickname was indeed Crusaders, it still is. That is nothing that needs to be "overcome" so no points for that. IMHO, this line of logic only serves to diminish all that Sherry and others have accomplished as HC Crusaders.

Well said.

So, you just went to the reunion and heard Dr. Fauci talk about what his Jesuit education meant to him as a scholar, as a scientist, as a physician who treats patients, as a human being and as an alumnus.  He spoke about the beauty of the campus.  He didn't mention nicknames or logos at all.  I have no idea whether that issue is important to him or not, but it certainly did not make his remarks. Then you came home from the reunion and decided that the College should have a litmus test for students and faculty that has nothing to do with what one of our greatest alums identified as our college's strengths.

None of us gets to tell others what is important about their college experience.  We all know that we live in an imperfect world and that we have to make compromises.  There are students and faculty who are part of that community who disagree with the Catholic teaching on the rights of immigrants and others who want women to be priests and same sex couples to marry in the Church.  Nevertheless, they find enough right about the College to choose to attend. 

We all see lots of opinion polling on issues and then are puzzled why people don't vote accordingly.  What we know is that while people have opinions about things, sometimes those opinions don't affect the ultimate decision.   That fact explains how people who say they want gun control still vote for candidates who won't support it and why an atheist who wants to major in Classics or chemistry might come to HC.  

It certainly does not diminish what she accomplished, but it certainly distracts from it. How a post about Ms. Levin receiving the first women's scholarship morphed into this discussion is unfortunate.