Where Are They Now: McCormick Racked Up Achievements with Shorewood

A four-year letterwinner in basketball, soccer, and track, Nanda Sturm (maiden name, McCormick) may be one of the most decorated athletes in Shorewood High School history.

Sturm’s accomplishments at the high school level were staggering. As a Thunderbird, Sturm was a three-time All-Wesco first team selection in both basketball and soccer, a Seattle Times Fab Five Female Athlete of the Year finalist her junior and senior year, and was the only Wesco player nominated for the McDonald’s All-American Team her senior year. While racking up the individual accomplishments, winning the 4A state soccer title in 1999, Sturm’s freshman year, tops the list of her Shorewood memories.

“Lea John and I were the only freshman on the varsity squad and we scored the two goals in the game!” said Sturm. In fact, it was Sturm’s goal in the 75th minute that would ice the game and give Shorewood its first, and only girls soccer title.  That year, Shorewood had been picked to finish seventh in the 11-team Western 4A Conference, making the victory all the more improbable.

After a senior year in which Sturm would average 17 points and 6.5 rebounds a game on the hardwood, Sturm would spurn soccer, and head to Gonzaga University on a basketball scholarship. However, after redshirting her freshman year, Sturm would reverse course.

“Red-shirting in basketball was tough my first year at Gonzaga and I was really missing playing soccer,” said Sturm. “I was not happy playing basketball and I decided to take a risk and try-out for the soccer team. Through a lot of hard work I made the team in 2004 and earned a scholarship. I had the best experience of my life playing soccer. It was just a “meant to be” moment.”

Having not played soccer since her senior year at Shorewood, Sturm knew the transition would be difficult. But, in her first varsity game, a 2005 match against Utah State, she would make her impact known, heading in the go-ahead goal in the 79th minute in an eventual 2-1 Gonzaga victory. Things would only get better from there, as her sophomore season would see Sturm lead the team in scoring with nine goals (good enough for fourth on the Bulldogs single-season goals scored list), along with two other match-winning goals against UC Riverside and Washington. That year would also see the Bulldogs get their first NCAA Women's Soccer Championship berth. Sturm would tally seven more goals her junior year (five of them being game deciders) and three more her senior year. 

After graduating from Gonzaga, Sturm worked for a time, before spending several months in Cusco, Peru, teaching at a small school and starting a soccer program with a friend. After she returned, she attended grad school at the University of Portland, getting her MBA. Sturm is married, and currently lives in Eugene, Oregon, serving as Executive Director of the local Muscular Dystrophy Association.