Cal State Fullerton

Up next in my ongoing look at the history of Big West schools is Cal State Fullerton.

Some of the bad:

Last winning season 1990-91.

Nine, 9, 20 losss seasons, include SEVEN STRAIGHT!!!!!!

Eleven, 11, single digit win seasons.

Two, .500 seasons.

Most wins, 16.

Most losses, 27 in 2000-01.

The first six years of this decade, CSF was following the lines of Sac. St, with no double digit win seasons. Why was that? What led to such a bad start to this decade?


Year Overall Record Conference Record

Maryalyce Jeremiah
2008-09 10-20 5-11
2007-08 11-19 8-8
2006-07 16-16 7-7
2005-06 11-17 7-7
2004-05 8-20 6-12
2003-04 9-20 8-10

Barbara Ehardt
2002-03 7-21 5-11
2001-02 4-24 2-14
2000-01 1-27 1-13

Denise Curry
1999-2000 2-25 1-14

First a little history. Basketball hall of famers, Billie Moore and Nancy Dunkle made CSF a powerhouse through the 1970's. In the early 80's former USC coach Chris Gobrecht lead CSF to some winning seasons.

Maryalyce Jeremiah came to CSF for the 85-86 season. In her seven seasons at CSF, she led CSF to two NCAA tourney appearances and produced All American Genia Miller in 1991.

Jeremiah became the Senior Women's Administrator (SWA) after the 91-92 season. Being the SWA, meant Jeremiah was basically in charge of all the women's program at CSF. Her first duty was to find a replacement, as head coach for herself!

The three finalists came down to:

Mark Trakh, yes that Mark Trakh, who had established Brea High School, into the dominant high school program on the West Coast and maybe the entire nation.

Sue Guevara, who back then was an assistant coach at Michigan.

Debbie Ayres, who was head coach at Solano College where she had to resurrect the program after a ten year absence. Ayres would go 34-24 in her two years at Solano.

1990-91 10-16
1991-92 24-8

Ayres spent one season as an assistant at Iowa St. and was a high school coach for five years.

Even forgetting what a great job Mark Trakh did rebuilding Pepperdine, it would seem pretty clear that Guevara or Trakh were the two best candidates.

But Jeremiah choosed Ayres as the coach. Many people, including me felt it was based solely on the fact that Ayres was a woman. There are many people who believe that Jeremiah would never hire a male head coach.

Anyways right off the bat, Ayres was hurt by the lost of Kisa Hughes, an All BW freshman center, who would transfer to UCLA and All BW freshman PG, Lianne Ishikawa, who would eventually transfer to LMU.

Ayres was also limited by an athletic budget that allowed for only one assistant coach, where other schools had three assistant coaches.

Ayres record at CSF:

92-93 8-19
93-94 5-22
94-95 14-15
95-96 7-20
96-97 10-16

But in her third year, Ayres was able to hire a full staff of assistants, getting Kelley Hall as her recruiting coordinator was a huge deal.

She would take a senior heavey squad and led them to the semi finals of the BWT, where they lost to eventual champions UCI.

Here 95-96 squad she brought in a ton of freshmen who were suppose to be the foundation for the program. Most of those players were recruited by Coach Hall, who left to become an assistant at Auburn.

But injuries, suspensions, and just general bad luck led to a 7-20 record.

Without Coach Hall's recruiting efforts, the next two seasons would produce 10-16 and 10-17 records.

Ayres contract was up and CSF did not give her an extension. Not that Coach Ayres went away quietly. After Denise Curry was hired as her replacement, Ayres made a comment that While I didn't win at CSF, she hasn't coached basketball. Nice and classy Debbie Ayres.

So why wasn't Ayres successful?

Yes the transfers of two All BW freshmen members hurt her.

Yes, the injuries were hanging over the program like a dark cloud.

Yes, the first two seasons with a bare bones coaching staff hurt.

But the main reason for Coach Ayres, failures were her inexperience!!! She wasn't a D-1 coach. She hadn't been at any place to establish a long, winning track record. It would be one thing if Ayres had that .586 winning perct. for 20 years at Solano. But she had the same amount of winning seasons as losing seasons at Solano, ONE. I don't think she was the right choice as coach. Now people will say well Trakh was a high school coach who had never coached D-1. Yes, very true. But Trakh had established an elite high school girls basketball program. He produced All Americans, dominant winning seasons, a long track record of success. Yes, he would have gone through some growing pains at CSF, the same growing pains he went through during his early years at Pepperdine. But I still think he would have been a better choice. Plus he was from the area, not more than 10 minutes from the CSF campus. Why they had somebody from Michigan and from Northern California as the finalists, is beyond me.

Another thing about Ayres is the high rate of attrition with her program. Many players did not finish their eligibility at CSF. Some only stayed for a couple years. Now, there are many reasons why kids leave a program, homesick, not getting along with coach, not liking the school or location. But under Ayres players at least 2-3 players each year would leave the program. One the most shocking was Lee Moulin, a highly touted recruit from Brea High School. She didn't even last a year, she left the team right before CSF was going to Hawaii, back then Hawaii's women's sports were in the BW. Since Brea HS is about ten minutes from CSF, do you think any of the players at Brea would want to come to CSF, after what happened with Lee?

Many players I talked to said Ayres played favorites. Usually I would just chalk up that kind of talk to a bitter benchwarmer. But what I found was that players who started and got a lot of playing time, felt that way about Ayres.

Then somebody who I thought would turn the program around, Dennise Curry was hired. Since CSF kept everything quiet, there was no mention of the other finalists. I don't think there was even a search committee.

Curry was an All American at UCLA, won a Gold Medal in 84, and one of the best women's players ever. But she was in over her head at CSF. She spent so much time coaching these national teams, she didn't recruit and the record reflects that. Curry's last team had only 10 players on the team. She lost 4 seniors (Andre Thieme, Ronda Anderson, Natasha Stokely, Heather Cunningham)and two players quit (Ada Lake and Missy Bynon) from the year before. That is SIX scholarships to use. But Curry only brought in four players, all freshmen. Where is the recruiting? Even if she gave out all six scholarships, she still had THREE more scholarships to give out before reaching the NCAA max of 15!!!!! Of course that season, 99-2000 was a disaster.


She also had the attitude she was too good for a program like CSF. Here she is, a gold medalist, All American etc and she wouldn't talk to many fans. She didn't think the facilities were up to D-1 standards. Well no kidding. It's not like the facilities went from good to bad overnight. They were the same facilites when Curry was interviewing for the job as when she was hired. She wouldn't get out to the summer tournaments to find players. She thought kids should know who she is. What kids who played for Curry found out was that she was nothing but an arrogant, out of touch, worthless coach.

Denise Curry
97-98 10-17
98-99 4-22
99-2000 2-25

By the end of Curry's reign of error, she said she wouldn't seek a contract extension. See Faith, learn from Denise Curry. On another side note, it didn't surprise me that Mary Hegarty was a diaster at LB, because she hired Denise Curry as an assistant. Curry is a prime example of a great player who can't coach the game.

In the spring of 2000, CSF actually did a search. Well change that. Jeremiah dictated who CSF was going to hire, under a so called search committtee. The finalists were Curt Miller, an assistant at Colorado St., Tina Krah, who had a 17-146 record in six seasons at San Jose St. and Barbara Ehardt, who helped turn SB into a powerhouse and most recently an assistant at Washington St. and BYU.

Miller, helped Colorado St. to a Sweet 16 appearance, WNIT final four, and a first round NCAA win, during his three seasons at CSU.

Ehardt who didn't coach during the 99-2000 season, was at Washington St. the three seasons prior, but the never made the NCAA or WNIT.

How the hell Krah, was spent the 99-2000 season as an assistant to Curry, got to be a finalist, boggles the mind. Either CSF attracted a bad list of candidates or the people on the search committee didn't have a clue. With CSF, I'm guessing it is the latter.

So again Jeremiah selected a female head coach and hired Ehardt, who signed a three year contract. Now Ehardt was hired so late, May of 2000, that she was behind in the recruiting game and had to play catch up.

Ehardt's biggest mistake? Hiring an inexperienced coaching staff. I know that the third assistant is usually somebody just out of college or who just finished playing overseas. So the hiring of former SB player Stephanie Shadwell was fine. Actually, it was the best hire she made.

But she hired John Bartleson and kept Trimeka Jackson, from Curry's staff as the other two assistant coaches. Bartleson who played at New Mexico St. was inexperienced and a real jerk according to many people at CSF. He would eventually marry a player on the CSF team. Jackson was just a lazy coach with a bad work ethic.

Ehardt brought in some players who weren't even good JC players. So her first season she would go 1-25. She got a little more talent her second season and but results weren't that much better, 4-24.

Her last season, she hired a player, who just finished playing at CSF, to be her assistant coach. A former player non of the players respected as their teammate, so they sure as hell didn't respect as their coach.

But with some time to recruit and bring in some talent, Ehardt went 7-21.

Since Ehardt's contract was up, Brian Quinn, the AD at CSF told Ehardt she wasn't going to get an extension. I can understand not giving her an extension. But the way Quinn handled that situation, after CSF lost in the BWT, showed no class. Ehart deserved better.

Ehardt had nothing to work with when she was hired. People say the cupboard is bare, well Ehardt didn't even have any walls to hang the damn cupboards.

She built those walls and those walls were just getting strong enough to support the cupboards, when the rug was pulled out from under her.

But Ehardt made her share of mistakes. I already talked about her hiring of assistant coaches. But she lacked game coaching experience. She wanted to be like Mark French, subbing in 3-5 kids at a time. Well it worked for French because French had the talent. But at CSF, she didn't have that kind of talent.

She also lacked the ability to relate to and recruit black players. I am not saying she is racist. Ehardt isn't racist. But she doesn't have much experience going to black areas and recruiting black kids. Check Ehardt's resume. Santa Barbara, BYU and Washington St. Three places with low black student enrollments and black population in the cities, the schools are located at.

During this time many chances were happening in the CSF athletic department. John Easterbrook retired and Jeremiah was a finalist for the job. Brian Quinn got the job, much to Jeremiah's disappointment. From CSF insiders, Jeremiah was a pain in Quinn's side. Quinn was looking for a way to get Jeremiah out of the athletic administration. So when Ehardt's contract came up, this was the perfect chance.

So for the 2003-04 Jeremiah came back to coach CSF.

Jeremiah had been out of coaching for eleven years. So she needed to make recruiting contacts quickly. She hired a great recruiter in Marcia Foster.

But turning around CSF proved tough. Jeremiah found you can't come home again, unlike Beth Burns who came back to San Diego St. and turned them into a budding West Coast power.

Jeremiah wasn't able to produce a winning record. She didn't find a raw player who she could develop, like Genia Miller.

Her best record, 16-16, with many of Ehardt's recruits who were seniors. But she slipped to 11-19 and 10-20 her last two years. In Oct of 2008, Jeremiah said she would retire at the end of the 08-09 season. But as I have stated before, instead of doing a full search, CSF promoted Marcia Foster.

It remains to be seen where Foster can do the job. But why didn't Jeremiah get the job done?

The talent level greatly increased at CSF under Jeremiah. But they couldn't find that program changing impact player.

She didn't recruit that many post players and the post players she did recruit didn't develop into good players.

I think that Jeremiah tried too much to be positive with the players, when at times they needed a strict disciplinarian. I also think the players looked to Jeremiah as a grandmother figure and not as the strong leader type.

The players also lacked basketball IQ. I've saw many games where CSF was up by 10-15 points but they lacked basketball IQ and discipline. When you're up by that many points, you don't take shots, especially 3 pointers, with less than 10 second have gone off on the shot clock. But CSF constantly did this and Jeremiah wouldn't say anything. Where is the discipline and coaching? This isn't the Paul Westhead gun and gun offense.

So the bigger question; why hasn't CSF had a winning record in over 17 years?

Well as you can see bad hiring choices is clearly an example.

If they hired Mark Trakh in 1992, CSF may have gone to 3-5 NCAA tourneys. It would also have been great to see Trakh vs French. I understand there were some tensions between those two coaches.

If CSF hired Curt Miller in 2000, maybe CSF would have gone 179-73 during that time. 179-73 is Miller's record at Bowling Green, where he was hired a year after he was a finalist for the CSF job.

The only time I have an issue with male coaches being head coaches in women's college basketball, is when a coach has never coached women's or girls, gets a head coaching job for women. San Diego St. did that when they hired Jim Tomey, who was a high school boys head coach and an assistant for the men's program at SDSU.

I think both Trakh and Miller were the top candidates for CSF at the time but they didn't get the job. CSF has never had a male head coach. Even male assistant coaches are rare at CSF. Coach Ehardt had Bartleson and Coach Ayres had Rondre Jackson, Tom Powers and Kelley Hall on their staffs. During Jeremiah's six seasons this decade, she didn't have a male coach on her staff. Marcia Foster hasn't hired a male coach on her first staff. That is four male assistant coaches in 17 years.

Pick the best candidate. Not the candidate that fits your political/social agenda. When Jeremiah was the assistant AD, there was no question she pushed the Title IX agenda.

Facilities.

At the beginning of the decade CSF has among the worst facilites in the Big West. But to their credit they have made facility improvements a priority but the facilities are still lacking.

They fixed up Titan Gym. New floor, new scoreboard, new seats, expanded upper level seating on the southside. But CSF needs an arena but an arena is not in the plans. And CSF lacks the vision and leadership to get an arena.

But there are the facilites most fans don't see. At seperate times, Coach Ayres and Coach Ehardt took me on a tour of the team's lockerrom and was I in for a shock. With Coach Ayres, this was in 94 or 95. The lockerroom was split into two, with the women's volleyball team having their part of the lockerroom and the basketball team having their own. There was a huge cage in the middle of the lockerroom that was being used as a storage room. They were sharing the lockerroom with the volleyball and women's soccer team. So about 65 athletes sharing a very small room. The lockers were metal lockers, like those in high school.

In 2001, Ehardt gave me a tour and the cage was gone, the women's soccer team had their own lockerroom in the football stadium. But the volleyball team was still sharing the lockerroom. There was new carpet, new paint, and while the lockers were still the metal lockers, they had been painted and had name plates. So improvements had been made. Improvements, yes, but still not up to D-1 standards. Most D-1 lockerrooms have nice wooden lockers with TV and couches in the room. Since an arena isn't in the plans, CSF needs to renovate the lockerrooms for the women's program. That room is big enough to be a nice lockerroom for both the women's basketball and volleyball teams. There maybe enough room to have a common "player's louge" with sofas and a TV.

Coach's Offices.

When Debbie Ayres and Denise Curry were the head coach, they had two offices for the coaches!!! That worked when Ayre had only one assistant during her first two years. But since then CSF has had three assistant coaches. In case you're a LB gradudate, that meant the three assistant coaches had to share one small office, while the head coach got her own office.

Until 2000 all three assistant coaches were in one small office, while the head coach had her own office. John Easterbrook got most of the athletic department to move into the Titan House, which freed up the office space for men's and women's basketball. Now the four women's coaches have each have their own office.

The office furniture was upgraded too, thanks to a CSF Alum, who many people saw at games but wouldn't reconize him, since he was the mascot, Titan Tuffy. Coach Ehardt was put into contact with Titan Tuffy by a CSF alum. Gone were the old metal desks and chairs that belonged in classrooms. In their place nice solid wood desks and nice comfortable chairs.

If people don't think a lockerroom or coach's offices aren't important, they have never coached or don't have a clue. Will a kid pick a school just because of a nice lockerroom or office? No. But a kid will NOT pick a school because of them.

It will be interesting to see what is in store for CSF under Marcia Foster. I think her made a mistake hiring such an inexperience staff. Hopefully that can be overcome but we'll just have to wait and see.