It was the last practice of the year. The Harvard women's basketball team was winding down yet and her successful and emotional season. One that saw the Crimson fall a game short of a tie for the league championship.

The drills were over. And the sweat was beginning to dry. But the emotions were still running high.

One freshman did not let the moment escape her. It would be the last time she would play with one of the best players ever to wear the crimson and white.

She walked over to the senior, put her arm around her and voiced the same feelings that much of the team felt but didn't think to say.

"Erin, you are my hero," said the rookie with the sort of respect that can only come from a freshman in awe of a teammate and leader.

"Erin" is senior co-captain Erin Maher.

Hero may be a strong word, but if any Harvard athlete is worthy of such high praise, a good case could be made for the lowa native. Just one look at her achievements tells the story.

Maher is Harvard women's basketball's all time leading scorer. She ends her career with the best three-point shooting percentage in NCAA history.

And she is a two-time first-team All-Ivy selection who won the Ancient Eight's Most Valuable Player award her junior year.

But as with most great athletes, the statistics cannot adequately capture Maher's career.

"Erin has been invaluable both on and off the floor," Harvard coach Kathy Delaney Smith says. "Her stats speak for themselves. But what has impressed me most about Erin is her work ethic."

Maher is not your typical dominant basketball player. At 5'8", she's not especially tall. Nor is she lightning quick. But when it comes to shooting a basketball she is simply the best, better than all those who have called Briggs Cage their home.

Her skills date back to childhood, during which Maher honed her shooting in front of her house in Davenport, lowa.

"I used to shoot in the driveway with my brother, sister and father while growing up," Maher says. "I learned a lot from them."

When she wasn't playing with her family, she traveled to Illinois to play in a boys' league.

"I started playing competitively in the third grade," Maher said. "But in lowa, there was only six on six for women. So I travelled to Illinois to play five on five with the guys."

Playing against top competition at a young age simply advanced Maher's understanding of the game.

When she got to Harvard, Maher's superior knowledge of basketball allowed to remain a play or two ahead of her college competition.

She knows when to shoot, when to bang the ball down low, and when to make the back door cut for an easy lay-up. Maher, quite simply, knows the game of basketball at its most basic level.

But besides her ability, Maher possesses an insatiable desire for victory--and she proved that at Harvard. In her four years at Harvard, from promising freshman to senior superstar, the Crimson won one league title (her sophomore year) and finished second twice (her junior and senior seasons).

"She is a winner in the true sense of the word," Delaney Smith says. "Because of her work ethic she's impressive at everything she does, on and off the court."

And as one career ends, Maher's work ethic has enabled her to embark on a new one. She'll attend John Hopkins medical school in Baltimore, Maryland, in the fall.

In the future, Maher hopes to be a doctor and a mother. She wants to involve herself in her children's sports careers the same way her parents--her father as a coach, and her mother as a score keeper--did for her.

And knowing Maher, she'll be a great success at both. After all, for many, she is a modern-day hero.