Judith “Judy” Chapin Saurer was born on November 5, 1938 in Camp Hill, PA. Her longtime and forever playing partner is Donald W. Saurer. The Nittany Lion alums met at Penn State University, and they were married in 1964.

Judy has been involved in sports her entire life. She attended Camp Hill senior high school where she played both basketball and field hockey. After graduation she moved on to Ohio Wesleyan where she received her Liberal Arts degree in 1960. While at OW, Judy was a 4-year standout in field hockey and a 2-time all-star in the national field hockey tournament. The Battling Bishops benefited from Judy’s skills on the court and on the diamond as she also played basketball and softball for OW. She was inducted into the Ohio Wesleyan’s athletic hall of fame in 1987.

Mrs. Saurer earned her master’s degree in education from Penn State University in 1962. For 28 years thereafter, the teacher became a legend as leader and instructor on the hardwoods with head basketball coaching positions at University of Pennsylvania; Edinboro University; University of Pittsburgh; and Gannon University. She won 330 games over her successful career as coach. She also served as Gannon University’s Coordinator of Athletics. In addition to the 1984 Big East Coach of the Year Honor, Coach Saurer’s crowded trophy case includes recognition in 1999 by the Erie Times News as the Coach of the Century as well as hardware from her inductions into the athletic Halls of Fame at Edinboro University’s (1996) and Gannon University (2011).

While she participated in many sports growing up, Judy did not play competitive golf until well into adulthood. However, as a teacher, coach and athletic administrator, Coach Saurer understood the critical value of the work done prior to the event, outside the ropes, before the first shot is fired. Employing the same vigor she used to prepare her student athletes to shine on the court, Judy pursued her ambition to provide the best platform for female golfers to compete at the highest levels and showcase their talents. At the same time, she helped put Erie “on the world’s stage.”

From 1997 through 2000, Judy served as Western Director of the Pennsylvania State Women’s Golf Association (PSWGA). In that role, she successfully co-chaired the 1997 Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur Championships at the Kahkwa Club. Recognizing her skills as a leader, Judy was then invited onto the PSWGA board as Secretary from 2000 to 2004 before she was elevated to President from 2007 through 2009. Judy served as co-chair of the 75^th Anniversary Celebration of the PSWGA at the Country Club of York in 2011.

Coach Saurer understood the importance of protecting “your own turf.” In that regard, while involved with the PSWGA, she also gave her time to her home club, Kahkwa, as a part of the golf committee from 1998 through 2004.

Judy’s design to advance the game for females extended outward to the USGA. She sat on the Regional Associations Committee and served as the Chairperson of Public Relations & Publicity for the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Kahkwa. Later, she worked in several capacities at the 2009 U.S. Women’s Open at Saucon Valley in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and subsequently at the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open at Oakmont in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When the USGA returned to the Kahkwa Club in 2016 for the US Women’s Mid-Am, Mrs. Saurer was selected as chairperson.

While serving the USGA, Coach Saurer was the non-playing captain of the Pennsylvania team in the 2007 USGA State Team Championship in Texas. Two years later, she volunteered as a rules official for the same event in Fort Wayne, Indiana. When the juniors of the AJGA visited Erie for an event, she served as the chairperson for media relations.

It was not “all work and no play” for Judy. Even though her most significant contributions to the advancement of golf for women occurred outside the ropes, her competitive juices forced Judy to find a way to work club, local and state events into her schedule. Not surprisingly, occasionally, the coach found her name at the top of the leaderboard as it was in the Kahkwa Club championship in 2007. While modestly noting her athletic abilities, Judy described golf as “the hardest sport I have ever played.” Nevertheless, on two occasions she mastered holes at Kahkwa and Lely Resort in Marco Island, Florida after a single shot.

Despite all the time Mrs. Saurer spent on the road, traveling to games as a coach and meetings as an administrator and representative of the PSWGA and USGA, she amazingly found time to assist a number of local organizations including Hamot Hospital, the Junior League of Erie, the YMCA, and the Boys and Girls Club of Erie. In 1999 the Boys and Girls Club named her the Woman of the Year.

Judith Saurer was inducted into the PA Sports Hall of Fame (Metropolitan Erie Chapter) in 1990. Four years later, she was enshrined in the Pennsylvania State Sports Hall of Fame. In 2022, on the fifty anniversary of the enactment of Title IX, the Times News listed Judy Saurer as a Pioneer in Female Sports.