By John Greenya

The next time you’re motoring in traffic behind a woman driving a car with an ASU license plate that says “SISTA,” check it out. The driver is not only the winningest girls’ high school golf coach in the nation, not just the 2001 National High School Athletic Director of the Year, not just the 1999 National High School golf Coach of the Year, she is the 2004-2005 chairwoman of the ASU Alumni Association. Her name is Sister Lynn Winsor ’65.

Winsor, known by her students, parents, and friends as “Sista,” is a member of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Roman Catholic religious order. She did not enter the order until two years after graduating from ASU with a degree in recreation administration. Always involved with athletics — first playing, then coaching — Winsor returned to work at her high school alma mater, Xavier College Preparatory, an all-girls high school in Phoenix, in 1974 and has remained there since.

Although she has coached basketball and softball, her strong suit is golf and high school athletic administration. In 31 years, the Xavier golf team has won the state title 23 times, 16 of those in a row, and has been state runner-up three times. “This stellar record,” said Diane McCarthy, president of the ASU Alumni Association, “makes Sister Lynn the winningest high school girls’ golf coach in the country.” Additionally, eight of her golfers have gone on to attend ASU on scholarship.

Winsor’s record as an athletic director is no less impressive. She won the Nike Athletic Director of the Year Award in 1999; two years later, Winsor was named Athletic Director of the Year by the National Council of Secondary School Athletic Directors. Winsor said her goal as a coach and educator has always been to advance women in athletics and society, and in 1989 she was named Coach of the Year by the Women’s Sports Foundation.

During her 31-year athletic director career at Xavier, her student athletes and coaches have accumulated more than 70 state titles, 25 state runner-up titles and 111 regional titles in the sports programs that Xavier offers, which include badminton, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track, and volleyball.

To call her energetic barely does justice to the word. Beyond her work at Xavier, Winsor serves on several state, local, and national boards in addition to her service with the alumni association. As this year’s board chairwoman, she has set her goals for her term as fostering “communication, commitment and camaraderie.” Winsor has assumed the chair during a time of changes at the university, and she said she relishes the chance to improve ASU.

Winsor sees no conflict in being a member of a religious order and being the alumni association chair at the fifth largest public university in the country. “I do not plan to proselytize on the job,” she laughs, “I just hope I’ll be a good example as I work to advance the goals of the alumni association. My four years at ASU taught me the importance of volunteering and my twelve years of ASU Alumni Board service are a way to thank ASU for the wonderful, well-rounded education it provided me.”

She may be a religious sister and a board chair, but Winsor’s conversation never drifts far from her love for sports, secondary education, and the student athletes she coaches and teaches. She’s very excited about the potential of her high school athletes, and with good reason.

“ Right now at Xavier we’ve got the number three high school golfer in the nation, Amanda Blumenherst, and then there’s (freshman) Cheyenne Woods — whose uncle just happens to be nicknamed “Tiger,”” she said.

For the record, the “SISTA” license plate was a gift from one of her Xavier golf teams. “Knowing that I’m both a sister and a die hard ASU fan, they found a great way to combine the two,” she said. “I’m proud to be an ASU graduate and, although it sounds funny, even though I’m a religious sister, I can yell ‘Go Devils’as loud as any ASU supporter!”

John Greenya is a Washington, D.C. - based freelance writer.

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Sister Lynn Winsor, middle, coached both current Assistant ASU Women's Golf Coach Missy Farr-Kaye, Xavier ’85, ASU ’90, left, and ASU freshman golfer Brooke Todare, Xavier ’04, right.

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