Bertie Landes, a member of the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) Hall of Fame, enters her 18th season as Shippensburg University’s head field hockey coach in 2016.
Landes has more wins than any other active coach at the NCAA Division II level and also leads her active brethren in career winning percentage. She has built and maintained SU’s modern tradition of excellence, having brought the school its first NCAA Division II championship in any sport in school history.
The first SU coach to be inducted into a national coaching hall of fame, Landes enters 2016 with a career record of 466-130-17. Through 36 seasons, her career winning percentage is .774 – which ranks among the Top 11 marks in NCAA history. Landes also ranks third all-time among NCAA Division II coaches and 11th among all divisions for career victories.
Landes became a national champion in 2013, as Shippensburg University claimed a 2-1 overtime victory over LIU Post to win the NCAA Division II Field Hockey Championship. The Raiders, making their 10th NCAA Tournament appearance in 11 years, finished the season with a 20-1 record after defeating the Pioneers in the finals and Millersville in the semifinals.
Her efforts led to being named the 2013 4U Field Hockey/NFHCA Division II National Coach of the Year, marking Landes’ first NFHCA national coach of the year honor. The 2013 season marked her fourth at Shippensburg with 20 or more wins.
While at the helm of the Raiders, Landes has won nearly 80 percent of her games, posting a record of 282-74-1 through 17 seasons. She has been named a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Coach of the Year six times: 1999, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2011 while earning National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) South Region Coach of the Year honors four times: 1999, 2005, 2010 and 2013.
During Landes’ tenure, Shippensburg has won at least 12 games each season and never lost more than eight in one year. Additionally, the field hockey program has had 31 unique All-Americans while under Landes’ direction and 48 total selections since 1999.
Shippensburg has competed in the PSAC Field Hockey Championship 16 times in 17 years under Landes, including the last 15. SU has been in the championship game in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2013. The team has also finished among the top three teams in the regular-season standings in 15 of the last 17 seasons, including three-straight first-place finishes from 2003-05 and PSAC Western Division titles from 2009-12. SU won the PSAC Eastern Division title in 2013.
In SU’s final regular season game of 2011 — a 5-1 win at Seton Hill — Landes achieved her 400th career coaching victory. She became the 11th head coach in NCAA history (all divisions) to reach 400 career field hockey coaching victories and is just the third coach to do so with 10 or more seasons spent at the Division II level.
In 2010, Landes was named the Dita/NFHCA Division South Region Coach of the Year, the 2010 CaptainU Division II Field Hockey Coach of the Year and the PSAC Western Division Coach of the Year after guiding the Raider field hockey program to the Division II national championship game and a school-record 21 victories.
Landes helped Shippensburg achieve its best regular season in school history, with the squad establishing a new school record with 20 consecutive wins. SU finished an undefeated regular season by out-scoring its opponents 92-17 and totaling an impressive 249 penalty corners.
SU played in the Division II national championship game after winning in the NCAA semifinals for the first time in school history. The team had lost all four of its previous semifinal matchups to Bloomsburg entering the season before achieving a 1-0 victory on December 2 in Louisville. The victory was No. 200 for Landes at Shippensburg.
In 2009, Landes’ squad matched the franchise record for victories in a season, a mark that was originally set in 2005. SU reached the national semifinals for the second consecutive season, with the team's only three setbacks coming at the hands of national-champion Bloomsburg.
Landes’ 2009 squad also reached the No. 1 ranking in the nation for the first time in four years and entered the postseason ranked either first or second in nine of the 11 major statistical categories tracked by the NCAA. SU also swept the major PSAC Western Division awards while boasting seven All-PSAC athletes and five NFHCA All-Americans.
In 2008, Landes guided the Raiders to the national semifinals for the third time after earning the program’s first-ever NCAA tournament victory at IUP. The Raiders posted an 18-5 record, their best mark in three seasons, while having three players named to the Longstreth/NFHCA All-America teams.
Landes’ 300th career head coaching victory occurred on Sept. 24, 2006 with a 5-0 shutout over Mercyhurst. She became the 19th coach in NCAA history among Divisions I, II and III to win 300 career games.
In 2005, Landes was named the Dita/National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) Division II South Region Coach of the Year, PSAC Coach of the Year and NCAA Division II Coach of the Year by womensfieldhockey.com after leading the Raiders to a then school-record 20 wins and SU’s first-and-only PSAC Championship.
Not only did Landes coach SU to a conference title and a 20-win season, her team was ranked No. 1 in the NFHCA Division II Coaches’ Poll for the entire season. Shippensburg was a national semifinalist and played host to the 2005 NCAA Division II Field Hockey Championship. SU also set a new school record with 108 goals that season, surpassing the old mark of 100 set by the 2003 team that also advanced to the NCAA semifinals. The Raiders led the nation in scoring all season long and five of Landes’ players earned All-America honors.
In 2004, Landes guided the Raiders to a 16-6 overall record and an 11-3 mark in the PSAC. SU advanced to the NCAA Division II Field Hockey Championships for the second consecutive season before losing to IUP, 2-0, in the quarterfinals. The Raiders advanced to the NCAA Division II Field Hockey Championships for the first time in school history in 2003 but lost to eventual national champion Bloomsburg.
All of Landes’ squads have thrived academically. Last season, eight members of the field hockey team were selected to the NFHCA Division II National Academic Squad and 11 players earned ‘Scholar Athlete’ designation from the PSAC.
Additionally, Landes has coached the South squad in the NFHCA North/South Division II Senior All Star Game three times. She also earned NFHCA South Region Coach of the Year honors in 1999.
Prior to Shippensburg, Landes was the head coach at Philadelphia Biblical (Cairn) University for 19 years. Landes was also an associate professor and chair of the health and physical education department.
In 19 seasons, Landes compiled an impressive record of 184-56-16 (.744). Her teams won 14 Philadelphia Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (PAIAW) championships.
Landes also spent seven seasons (1999-2005) as the head women’s lacrosse coach at Shippensburg, totaling a career record of 40-53-2 overall and a mark of 24-36 in the PSAC. During her final season in 2005, the Raiders went 8-8 and advanced to the PSAC Women’s Lacrosse tournament for the second time in three seasons.
A former member of the United States National Field Hockey Squad, Landes was a defender for seven years on teams that toured Europe, South America, Rhodesia and South Africa before retiring from the squad in 1975.
A standout player at Lock Haven, Landes was instrumental on a defense that allowed just 22 goals in four years, a span of 33 games, while posting 15 shutouts. During her career with the Lady Eagles, the team posted a record of 29-2-2. Landes was also a four-year letter winner in basketball and a two-year letter winner in lacrosse, a program that began during her sophomore year.
After completing her undergraduate degree, Landes taught health and physical education while coaching field hockey and basketball in the East Pennsboro School District from 1970-75. She then spent two years as the head women’s basketball and tennis coach at Swarthmore College, also serving as an instructor in the physical education department.
For almost 20 years, Landes served as a field hockey umpire and a basketball official on both the high school and college level. She has also been active as a women’s lacrosse referee and softball umpire while coaching at numerous summer field hockey camps.
A native of Collegeville, Pennsylvania, Landes earned her bachelor of science in health and physical education from Lock Haven in 1970 and her master of arts in education from Beaver College in 1983.
