Women’s Golf Coach Sticks to Her Mission

Sammie Chergo, head women’s golf coach for the University of Denver, has written a mission statement for her team. She’s fairly certain that there aren’t many college golf teams with a mission, but she’s convinced that hers helps keep the team focused on its priorities.

It reads: “Our mission is to grow future leaders through competitive golf and competitive academics.”

“That captures the reason we’re here,” Chergo said. “Well, we’re here to win, of course, but underneath all that, we are here to grow students into leaders for our community and leaders in their families.”

Chergo joined the DU coaching staff in 1997 when there was no women’s golf program. Since her first season in 1998, she has led the Pioneers to seven Sun Belt Conference championships and nine consecutive trips to the NCAA regional tournament. The last three years have been filled with triumphs, with the team finishing sixth in the nation in 2008, fifth in 2009 and 11th in 2010. For the past four years, the Pioneers have never been ranked outside the top 20.

What’s more, Chergo has been named Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year five times and, in 2006, was honored as the All-Time Sun Belt Conference Women’s Golf Coach.

This from a woman who only took up golf her senior year of high school and never toured, which is uncommon among college golf coaches. She does, however, possess a rich athletics background.

“I grew up ski racing and was on the Junior Olympic team traveling around the world,” she said. “I played a lot of high school sports, but I came to golf kind of late. It quickly became a passion of mine.”

Chergo said she has been “incredibly lucky” to build a Division I golf team from scratch and that her success comes back to the priorities established in her mission.

“The game of golf represents so much of what it takes to be successful in life,” she said. “Honesty, integrity, hard work. You need all of those things to be successful in golf and in day-to-day living. To have the opportunity to teach that to young women in the college setting … it keeps me going every day.”