Page 25 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2017- Online Magazine
P. 25
HONORING SENIORS
MARSHA From Courtside to
SHARP Lubbock’s Pride
by Lindsay Grannan
ike most to say, I myself
West did not become a
LTexans, Lady Raider.
I learned the
name Marsha Still, my respect
Photo Credit: Neal Hinkle Sharp at an for Coach Sharp
early age. I fell and admiration of
in love with basketball while watching the Lady the Lady Raiders
Raiders triumph at the 1993 NCAA Tournament. and Texas Tech
Mesmerized and only nine years old, I dreamed only grew with
of someday becoming a Lady Raider. In 1995, my age. Today,
mom and dad sent me to Texas Tech for basketball Marsha and I sit
camp, prized “Air Swoopes” shoes packed carefully in the same room
in my bag. For the next few days and with fellow once a month for Photo Credit: Design Envy
campers, I met and learned from the greats—Alicia Carillon LifeCare
Thompson, Rene Hanebutt, Crystal Boles and none Community’s board meeting. My nerves have since
other than Coach Marsha Sharp. calmed, but to say it’s an honor seems inadequate.
Our next meeting was in 2000 when Coach Sharp Marsha Sharp was born on Whidbey Island,
attended a girls’ basketball practice at Hale Center Washington State, located about 30 miles North of
High School on a recruiting visit for future Lady Seattle, where her father Charles served at Naval
Raider, Jametra Clark. At point guard, I was so Air Station Whidbey Island. The family (mother
nervous about Coach Sharp’s presence that instead Mary Dell, brother Charles David, and sister Pam)
of passing the ball to Jametra at the post, I threw it moved to parts of New Mexico and Texas before
clear over the backboard and into the cinder-block relocating to Tulia, Texas, one of the few towns in
wall, a good 5 feet or so past the baseline. Suffice the area with a girls’ basketball program, just in
time for Marsha’s seventh-grade year. Under the
leadership of Coach Bud Roberts, Marsha learned to
live and love basketball, developing fundamentals,
work ethic, and teamwork.
She attended college at Wayland Baptist University
in Plainview, Texas, where she played one year with
the Freshmen before coaching the same team as a
Junior. While earning her Master’s in Education
at West Texas State (now West Texas A&M),
Marsha drove back and forth between Canyon and
Plainview, to take classes in the mornings and coach
in the afternoons. Then, she coached the Lockney
Longhorns for six years before accepting a position
Photo Credit: Design Envy as an assistant coach at Texas Tech in 1981. The
Lubbock Senior Link 25
