Montana State Northern Lights & Skylights Athletics

Sheila Green Gerding, is the all-time leading scorer in the Skylight’s program. One of the most highly sought after players out of high school, she was an impact player as a freshman and a three-year starter for the most successful women’s basketball program in Frontier Conference history. During her four years at Northern, they won four Frontier Conference Championships and made four trips to the National Tournament with a record of 126 wins and 12 losses. During their 1990 trip to the National Tournament, Green-Gerding finished third in the three-point shootout. An Academic All-Conference player for two years, she was known for her work ethic and her leadership. She was an All-Conference player three of her four years and in 1992, she was the District 12 MVP and the Frontier Conference Co-MVP when the team was ranked #1 in NAIA Division II. She was also named an NAIA II Kodak All-American.

After graduating from Northern, she was a graduate assistant coach at MSU-Billings for three years followed by a year in New Zealand playing semi-professional basketball. She was recognized as a New Zealand Top Five All-Star. She returned to finish her master’s degree in school counseling and took the head women’s basketball coaching position at Minot State where she has coached for the last eight years. In her first season, the team won their first ever conference title and went to the NAIA II National Tournament for the first time in school history. Since then, they have repeated twice and last season, they finished second in the DAC-10, losing in the conference championship game.