Cabrini's Jackie Neary Joins the 500 Coaching Wins Club

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Jackie Neary has enjoyed a wildly successful ride during her 22 years at Division III Cabrini University in Radnor.

As the head coach for both the women's lacrosse and field hockey teams, she had led the Cavaliers to 20 conference championships. She has been named the Colonial States Athletic Conference Coach of the Year 17 times.

Then this past Saturday, she hit a very special milestone. The field hockey team's 1-0 win over Neumann University was the 500th of Neary's head coaching career with the Cavaliers.

"It is very special," Neary tells KYW Newsradio.

228 of the wins for Neary have come with field hockey, the other 272 with lacrosse. A milestone like 500 wins is a really big deal, but Neary says it kind of caught her by surprise.

"It was actually an opposing fan before the game that sort of tipped the hand, I don't know how that person had heard," she says. "I tried to put that aside because the main interest for me was that game that day. So I had an inkling of it and then when it settled in after the game I was still sort of in shock."

Big moments like a 500th win are extra special when you get to share them with the people close to you.

"Probably the icing on the cake too is I have my daughter [senior Jackie Neary] who actually plays for me [both sports]," Neary says. "That's a pretty neat experience, too, that she was involved this Saturday in my 500th win. All those years she was a little kid on the sidelines and now to have her on the field during that accomplishment, it makes it pretty special."

Neary, a Ridley High School and Temple University product, talks about how she came to call Cabrini home.

"I actually came to Cabrini to start the women's lacrosse team back in the fall of 1995," she says. "They had put an ad in the [Delaware County] Daily Times looking for a lacrosse coach. At that time, I had just left Temple as an assistant. My husband's the one that saw it in the paper. I went in, met with the AD then - it was John Dzik - and immediately sort of fell in love with his philosophy of athletics and also fell in love with the college. So I did the first lacrosse season and then what happened is, during that summer entering the fall, the field hockey coach left. So the AD, John, approached me about doing that and that's sort of what I did as a student athlete was play hockey and lacrosse. So to me it was a no-brainer to jump into it, because I had several girls coming in to play field hockey and lacrosse. So it probably worked to my advantage doing both of them."

Neary and the Cabrini field hockey team return to action on Wednesday when they host Immaculata.