In Memoriam: PCC Hall of Fame Softball Coach Sandi Iverson

Retired softball head coach Sandi Iverson, a member of the Pasadena City College Sports Hall of Fame, passed away on Monday due to complications from cancer.

Iverson had a magnificent 27-year career as Lancers softball coach (1979-2006), winning six conference championships and leading her teams to the SoCal Regionals in 15 of her final 16 seasons.

She put together a 562-486-4 overall record, coaching more than 1,000 games. She held the record for most wins ever by a PCC coach in all sports until current women’s basketball coach Joe Peron broke the mark in February of last year.

Iverson was inducted into the PCC Hall of Fame in 2018.

Her teams won Metropolitan Conference titles in 1980-81 and 1985-86, then a third back-to-back championship run in the South Coast Conference in 1990-91. In 10 other years, her teams finished in second place.

Fourteen times she recorded 20-plus win seasons.

In 1985, she was named the William Russell JC National Coach of the Year. Four times she was selected Region Coach of the Year and nine times was a conference Coach of the Year. In 2001, she earned the NCFA Coaching Staff of the Year award.

In her final season in 2006, the Lancers recorded the second most victories (31) in the program’s history. The team nearly made it into the State Championship Tournament, winning a pair of playoff games before losing an elimination contest to eventual state champion Cypress in the Southern California Regionals. During the regular season, Iverson’s Lancers were ranked No. 19 in the state and ran off an exciting 13-game winning streak.

Upon her retirement in 2007, Iverson received the prestigious PCC Risser Outstanding Teacher Award. In 2010, Sandi was inducted into the State’s Fastpitch Coach Association Hall of Fame.

Kim Maxwell, Chris Zboril, Jennifer Fish, Gina Punaro, and Sarah Sherman are all Lancers players who played for Iverson now also enshrined into the PCC Sports Hall of Fame.

“One of the greatest gifts Sandi had was the ability to push a player to greatness,” said Sherman, an All-American and All-State pitcher/hitter from 2004-2005. “She practiced tough love and sharing her intellect of the game, expecting 110 percent from you because she knew you were capable. I really can’t say enough about what she did for me, not only as a player but as a person, a woman for that matter, venturing off into society as a young adult. Using aspects of the sport and how it translates to the real world was something she helped instill in me.”

Iverson was instrumental in continuing the tradition of the Elizabeth Jensen Scholarships (began in 1958 by Jensen, a then long-time women’s athletic director and member of the PCC Court of Champions) that are presented annually to PCC student-athletes.

A resident of Long Beach, Iverson followed PCC softball teams as an occasional fan after her retirement. She threw out the first pitch in one of her last appearances at a PCC softball game at Robinson Park in 2020.

Sandi Iverson threw out the ceremonial first pitch in 2020 and is seen here with another former coach and current Kinesiology, Health & Athletics chair Monica Tantlinger