Shawn Werdt

Shawn Werdt of Roxborough is entering his fourth season as the Germantown Friends School Boys Varsity Basketball Head Coach. He is also entering his third year as a member of the Germantown Friends Faculty as a Physical Education teacher.

Last year, after graduating four starters, GFS once again made the Friends Schools League playoffs.

In Coach Werdt’s second season at the helm, the Tigers finished with a 21-5 record and a runner-up finish in the Friends League Championship as well as another berth in the PAISAA post-season state tournament. It was the first time since 1997 that a Germantown Friends School team made it to the FSL Championship game. The 2014-15 team achieved the second most wins in the history of the school as well as finishing in the Philadelphia Inquirer Southeastern PA Top 25 for the first time in school history. Four of the graduating student athletes have gone on to play college basketball and three of those players were named to the FSL All League Team. For such a historic season at Germantown Friends School, Coach Werdt was awarded the City of Basketball Love Inter-Ac and Friends League Coach of the Year.

In Coach Werdt’s first season, he led the Varsity team to many new and exciting firsts for the program. They qualified for the Friends Schools League Playoffs for the first time since 2007 and also qualified for the schools first-ever appearance in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) post-season state tournament. The Tigers also doubled their total number of league wins from the previous season.

The past three summers, Coach Werdt has run the highly-successful GFS Community Basketball and Enrichment Camp. The camp is an updated version of the Summer Basketball, Reading and Computer Clinic which has been a mainstay of the school’s community outreach since the 1980s. It is designed to address the recreational, athletic, and academic needs of students entering grades 3 -9. Instruction is given in the areas of basketball, reading, and mathematics.

Werdt has five years of college-level coaching experience at Philadelphia University, and was mentored by the legendary Herb Magee. During his tenure, the Rams earned three NCAA Tournament appearances and reached the NCAA Division II Sweet Sixteen. He was co-director of the Herb Magee Basketball Camps and Clinics, where he specialized in shooting instruction. From there he went on to create his own basketball academy, Shawn Werdt Elite Skills. Werdt was a four-year varsity letter award winner at West Chester University. He is a certified Strength and Conditioning Coach with a Bachelor's Degree in Health and Physical Education as well as a Master's Degree in Exercise Science. Werdt looks forward to continuing to take the basketball program to new heights.

Read the 2013 article about Coach Werdt on the City of Basketball Love website! Read more