LA Women's Hoops

2010-11 CCAA Coach's Salaries

2012-01-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

I'm interested in coaches' salaries, not because I'm a noisy busy body, but I want to see the advancement of women's basketball. One huge step to advancing women's basketball is to pay competitive coaches' salaries, not only to other professions-business, education, sales etc, but also to men's basketball. It's really stupid that a third assistant coach on a men's staff makes more than the top assistant coach on the women's staff. Believe me, there are more than a few cases, where this is true.

Another way to bring more attention to this issue is for coaches' salary to become public. This will only make coaches who aren't worth a damn, nervous. For coaches who are good, this can actually help them!! Just look at baseball. Albert Pujols signed a huge deal with the Angels. It's a good bet that Pujols used the contract Mark Texeria signed in 2009 for the basis of his contract! Then a couple months later Prince Fielder signed a bigger contract with the Tigers. Just a guess, but Prince used Pujol's contract as a basis for his contract!

So, I did a story about the 2008-09 CCAA Coaches' Salaries, and I was surprised by the low salaries. I believed it back then, and after meeting some of the great coaches in the CCAA, I believe it more today, the salaries are way too low for some coaches. So I decided to see if there have been any changes in CCAA salaries since the 08-09 season. The latest salary information is for the 2010-11 season.

The salary information is from the State of California Employee Salary date base. The state fiscal year runs from July 1st to June 30th.

For a quick reminder, here are the 2008-09 salaries:

1. Cal St Los Angeles $95,004
2. Cal St. Dominguez Hills $91,744
3. Cal St. San Bernandino $90,749
4. UC San Diego $82,000
5. CP Pomona $80,530
6. Cal St Stanislaus $80,889
7. Sonoma St. $79,912
8. Humbolt St. $76,912
9. Chico St. $70,340
10. San Francisco St. $58,744
11. Cal St East Bay $58,006
12. Cal St Monterey Bay $57,701

2010-11 Salaries

1. Cal St. Dominguez Hills $88,774.41
2. UC San Diego $88,539.90
3. Cal St. San Bernandino $88,370.41
4. Cal St Stanislaus $78,105.99
5. Sonoma St. $77,263.77
6. Humbolt St. $76,117.49
7. Chico St. $69,424.80
8. Cal St Monterey Bay $57,729.30
9. San Francisco St. $55,975.32
10. Cal St Los Angeles $41,677.00
11. Cal St East Bay $36,518.70
12. CP Pomona $26,781.23

A couple things stand out. One should be obvious, with the state of California in a budget crunch, all state employees are forced to take a pay cut and furlough days. That accounts for the roughly 10% cut in pay for the 2010-11 season.

The other thing that stands out is, the three biggest drops in pay at Cal St. LA, Cal St. Easy Bay, and Cal Poly Pomona! Relax, they aren't starting to cut back on women's basketball. Though, with an idiot AD, like Swanson at Cal Poly Pomona, you never know. Nice institutional control there Swanson. Cal Poly Pomona is on NCAA Probation for violations in their women's basketball program. But, that's another story and for another time. Getting back to salaries, it's stupid and naive to think the Cal St. East Bay coach would move from Washington, to an area with a very high cost of living, to earn $36,518.70. It's likely those listed salaries are prorated salaries for those three new coaches.

Remember these listed salaries are being paid by the state of California. Coach's salary can be funded by sources other than state money. That source is the school's foundation entity, which is a private entity, so their records aren't open to the public. But, usually the salaries from a school's foundation are meant as a supplemental pay, not doubling the coach's state salary.

There are some coaches in the CCAA who are clearly underpaid. There are some coaches who are clearly overpaid and are ripping off the taxpayers of California!! There needs to be and should be some coaching changes in the CCAA, after this season. Too bad some of them are a couple years too late!! Maybe it's time to do a story on Big West coaches' salaries!!

Black Men Need Not Apply?

2011-08-29T00:37:00.001-07:00

There are over 340 D-1 women's basketball programs in the country. If you exclude the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, who are mostly in the SWAC and MEAC conferences, there are just 12 African-American males who are head coaches in D-1. There are 13 minority males who are head coaches, Jose Fernandez at South Florida, being Latino. Here is the list of African-American male head coaches in D-1, for the 2011-12 season.

Michael Cooper-USC
Phil Seymore-Providence
Quentin Hillsman- Syracuse
Jason Flowers-CS Northridge
Oties Epps-Evansville
Greg McCall- CS Bakersfield
Wendell Hudson- Alabama
Edgar Farmer- Wofford
Mike Bozeman-George Washington
Jeff Williams- La Salle
Errol Rogers- Louisiana-Lafayette
Kenny Brooks (AKA-The JERK) -JMU

Two African-American males were hired just this past summer; Oties Epps-Evansville and
Greg McCall- CS Bakersfield.

*****If I have forgotten to list any African-American male coaches, from NON HBCU's, please let me know. I will make the corrections. But, I would bet that figure doesn't get to 25.*********

So, for this topic let's say there are about 325 D-1 women's basketball programs. Of those 325 schools only 12 have an African-American male head coach. That is a staggering figure and something that needs to be changed. Even FBS football has a higher percentage of black head coaches than D-1 women's basketball!! So, let's look at this situation and see what can be done to fix it.

Now, why aren't there more African-American male head coaches in D1 women's basketball?

Before I go on, I want to say this: If you're a part of WBB that thinks there shouldn't be any male coaches, please click the X at the upper right hand corner and STOP following women's basketball NOW. It's people like YOU, who are hurting the advancement of the great game of women's basketball.

Killing two birds with one stone: I firmly believe that athletic directors would rather hire a female African-American instead of a male African-American as head coach, because that fills an athletic department's minority hiring in two categories, race: African-American, and gender: female. That's fine, as long as the African-American female is qualified. But, a school is doing the players and the sport of women's basketball a disservice, when they don't hire the best candidate, regardless of race or gender. Some of the hirings clearly shows schools have not hired the best candidate.

Candidate Pool: But, how big is the candidate pool of African-American male coaches? Who are the leading candidates of African-American male assistant coaches, to become head coaches? Hell, ARE, there any?

The usual way to become a head coach is to be an assistant coach. So how many African-American male assistant coaches are there in D1? I can't find that figure online online. Why? Maybe when I did my Hottest Female Coaches, I should have counted the number of African-American assistant coaches. I go to a lot of women's games and I will look at a school's website, including the coaching staff, and I just don't see a large number of African-American males assistant coaches in women's basketball. Off the top of my head, without doing much research I can name seven African-American male assistant coaches; Brandon Manning at Arizona, Kevin Morrison at Washington, Michael Cooper II at USC, Derek Wynn and Jeff Cammon at Cal St. Long Beach, and Carrick Dehart at UCR. Why aren't African-American males getting into college coaching? There is a large number of African-American males who coach at the club level. Do they apply for college jobs? Would coaches hire them?

Former NBA player, Tariq Abdul–Wahad, wanted to get into coaching women's college basketball. His only experience was coaching his daughter's club team. So, he wasn't expecting to be a first assistant. He was willing to pay his dues; break down film, film exchange etc. He applied for several jobs, but was turned down for every one!! Until this summer when Renee Jimenez hired Tariq Abdul–Wahad, as an assistant at D-2, Cal St. Monterey Bay. Why did Tariq get turned down for jobs, even as a third assistant? Maybe they didn't like his French accent? Are/were coaches threatened by his NBA pedigree? Or, are some coaches discriminating based upon gender?

There are many female head coaches who have NEVER hired a male assistant coach. If somebody like Rene Portland was forced out because of her stupid homophobic discrimination, why are female head coaches, who practice gender discrimination, allowed to continue coaching? This will only stop when a male assistant coach, sues a head coach for gender discrimination.

Role models: A young white female can look up to Pat Summitt, Tara VanDerveer, Kim Mulkey-Robertson, and Muffet McGraw. All are successful female white head coaches. A young African-American female can look up to C. Vivian Stringer, Teresa Weatherspoon, and Dawn Staley. All are successful female African-American head coaches. A young white male can aspire to become a Geno Auriemma, Gary Blair, Joe McKeown and Kevin McGuff. All are successful male white head coaches.

Who does a young African-American male have to look up? The most accomplished African-American male head coach is that jerk, Kenny Brooks at JMU. He paid his dues, working up from an assistant to becoming the head coach, then taking JMU to multiple NCAA appearances, and becoming the school in Virginia. That's saying a lot, because that meant taking overtaking UVa and Old Dominion, two traditional women's basketball powers. Why wasn't he a candidate for the Virginia head coach job? But, maybe it is a good thing he didn't get the UVa job; he would be more of an insufferable jerk, if he did!! But, damn, if Kenny Brooks is the standard bearer, it's a pretty low standard!

Only somebody with their head buried in the ground, would think there isn't a problem with the lack of African-American male head coaches. What can be done about this problem? Does the Women's Basketball Coaches' Association, even think this is an issue? Will they take the time to look at this issue? If they do, what can the WBCA do about this? What about the Black Coaches Association?

As with anything, I want to see the game of women's basketball advance. Women's basketball doesn't get the respect it deserves and everybody involved in women's basketball needs to work toward getting that respect. There are many qualified coaches, both black and white, and male and female. But the numbers just don't add up for an African-American male coach in women's basketball.

Twitter 101

2011-06-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

I'll admit, when Twitter first came out, I didn't give a damn. What do I need that, for? But, then it seemed like everybody was on Twitter. So I signed up for a Twitter account and started tweeting. Then all of a sudden people followed me. Then I followed more and more people.

I like Twitter, because I get a behind the scenes account of what coaches have to go through putting a team together. I love seeing the passion of so many coaches to improve kids lives. As I have tweeted often, assistant coaches are the unsung heroes of college programs. Believe it or not, that passion showed me, I need to quit a job I hate and find what I really want to do!! Oh, the best time to be on Twitter, in my opinion, is during the July recruiting period. You see the passion, hard work, stress, and logistical nightmare of recruiting in July!

But, as we have seen recently, there is a dark side to Twitter, tweets can come back to haunt you. So, everybody, whether a coach or professional athlete, needs to be careful what they tweet.

Twitter needs to:

1. Set up a way so that people can approve followers, BUT not make their tweets private. This would prevent those spammers from following you. Right now, you have to make your Twitter account private.

2. When somebody sends a direct message to another person, the person who received that direct message, should be able to reply in a direct message. The way Twitter works now, if I follow somebody, they can send me a direct message. But, I can't send them a direct message, even if they sent me a direct message first.

Nobody asked, but here is my guide to Twitter for women's basketball programs:

1. I can't say this enough, but put a damn link to your school's athletic website or your WBB homepage, on your Twitter account. Yes, it's easy to google and find a school's website, but why should followers, go to another page and type in the search words; when with one click from your Twitter account, followers will get to the same place? Remember, a Twitter account without a link to your school's website, is like a business card without an address or phone number.

2. I don't care if a coach drinks. They are adults, who are legally able to drink, and as long as it doesn't become a problem and/or they don't get busted for a DUI, it's not a big deal. But, pictures of a college coach drinking or tweets saying they are drinking, just isn't a good idea.

3. Don't be a panhandler. What is a panhandler? A coach who rarely tweets, but when they do, they ask for something. "Come to the game tonight." "Camp sign ups, start now." I mean, throw your followers a bone or two, by tweeting something about your program, before asking them for something.

4. God Squad. Everybody has the right to practice whatever religion, he or she chooses. But, my personal feeling is that, your relationship with God, is a private matter. If you feel the need to tweet about your relationship with God, you are too insecure about your relationship with God. Are you a coach or a preacher? But, to each his or her own. I follow many coaches who belong to the God Squad, and if it becomes overbearing, I will stop following them.

5. Place to vent? I'll admit, I use Twitter as a place to vent. But, should a coach, use Twitter as a place to vent? I think it depends on how the coach vents. Calling out a player shouldn't be done. But, a coach could tweet; "Practice was a struggle today. We need to do better tomorrow."

6. Power of Positive Thinkers: Judging by the tweets of some coaches, you would think everything is going great. They always tweet, great practice or great works. I understand, this PC world we live in now, but give me a break. We are talking about 17-22 year old kids. They aren't great everyday. They have their bad moments, practices, workouts, etc. Again coaches can use Twitter anyway they want, but these always positive coaches, quickly get deleted from my follow list.

7. I'm a foodie who hates the chains!! I love seeing Tweets about foods. While I understand, feeding the chains, maybe necessary when feeding the entire team, I hate seeing coaches feed the chains, when they are out on the road. Be like Cal State Northridge head coach, Jason Flowers, who frequents the mom and pop restaurants!!

8. I love seeing new trends on Twitter: When Lindsay Gottlieb, became the new head coach at Cal, she did a "Twitter Tour" She took pictures of places around Cal. I thought that was awesome!!

9. Develop thick skin and don't be a jerk like Kenny Brooks, the JMU head coach. That jerk is such a no class loser. I just tweeted a comment about karma; The jerk misspelled Hofstra, and his JMU team lost to Hofstra. I'm not a spell checker and it wasn't that big of a deal. But, that was proof, of karma. Anyways that loser coach, started bragging about winning back to back CAA championships and I called him out on that. Instead of being humble, he was a no class jerk, taking a cheap shot at me. Anyways, I stopped following that jerk and what little respect I had for that loser, is now totally gone.

10. If you're a young assistant coach or somebody wanting to get into college coaching, don't come off like a resident genius. That means don't criticize other coaches on Twitter. I've seen tweets by young assistant coaches, just ripping the game plan or adjustments of well established coaches. Those well established coaches, have lots and lots of friends in the coaching ranks. If you're just starting out as an assistant coach, it would be in your best interest, not to tweet critical comments about other coaches.

I fully expect the NCAA, to regulate Twitter, soon. I bet they will make a stupid rule, like, recruits can't follow coaches on Twitter. Just what women's college basketball needs; more NCAA involvement!!

2010-11 Hottest Female Coaches in WBB

2011-03-06T09:45:00.001-08:00

Who are the hottest female coaches in college women's basketball, for the 2010-11 season? After months of research, LA Women's Hoops, has complied a list, conference by conference, of the hottest female coaches in college women's basketball.

Some comments about this list:

I originally was going to have two lists; Mandy Close, and the next 50 hottest female coaches. So, I started to pick the hottest coaches by conference, and that list came up to 93 coaches. Then, I didn't really want to cut that list down to the Top 50. So, I decided it would just be better to list the hottest coaches by conference.

Of course, Mandy Close of Montana St. still tops the list of Hottest female coaches in WBB. She is by far the hottest female coach in WBB. Nobody and I mean, nobody comes close. No pun intended.

D-1 coaches only.

Lists are in alphabetical order, by school. Not, who is the hottest in that conference.

Some coaches I have met and seen firsthand how beautiful they are, but most are based on their photos in their online bios.

I picked at least one coach from each conference.

I had a limit of four coaches per conference.

A memo to all photographers, take more pictures of coaches, including assistant coaches.

If this type of lists offends you, please develop thicker skin.

Everybody has different opinions about beauty. Be respectful when commenting about why a coach is on this list.

America East (4)

Hartford: Jennifer Rizzotti

Maine: Caren Fiorillo

New Hamshire: Maureen Magarity

New Hamshire: Margaret Carey

ACC (2)

NC. ST: Kellie Harper

Wake Forest: Candice Jackson

Atlantic Sun: (4)

Campbell: Megan Hall

FGCU: Abby Scharlow

Jacksonville: Ginny Boggess

Stetson: Lynn Bria

A-10 (4)

Dayton: Angie Russell

Duquesne: Carmen Bruce

La Salle: Jayme Callahan

Temple: Waynetta Veney

Big East (4)

UConn: Shea Ralph

Pitt: Mallorie Winn

Rutgers: Carlene Mitchell

St. John’s: Megan Duffy

Big Sky (3)

Montana St.: Mandy Close The most gorgeous female coach in women's college basketball. You will never meet a nicer, more friendly, more down to earth person than Mandy. I honestly believe, she has no idea how gorgeous she really is.

Portland St.: Sherri Murrell

Sac. St.: Jourdan Willard

Big South (2)

Gardner Webb: Brooke Wilkinson

Winthrop: Chris Vozab

Big 10 (3)

Michigan: Tianna Kirkland

Minnestoa: Kelly Roysland

Northwestern: Caroline McCombs Very tough for me, being a BALTIMORE RAVENS fan, to put a coach who is a fan of the steelers AND yankees on this list. But, there is no denying she is a very beautiful woman.

Big 12 (2)

CU: Jennie Baranczyk

Oklahoma: Stacy Hansmeyer

Big West (3)

Long Beach St.: Laura Freimuth

Long Beach St.: Jody Wynn

UCR: Seyram Gbewonyo

CAA (3)

Drexel: Amy Mallon

Northeastern: Victoria Wancel

Towson: Stacy Alexander

CUSA (3)

SMU: Lisa Dark

Southern Miss: Cara Hyatt

Tulane: Doshia Woods

Horizon League (4)

Cleveland St.: Kate Peterson Abiad

Detroit: Emily Samuelson

Valpo: Christy Smith

Wright St.: Katrina Merriweather

Indy (2)

NJIT: Margaret McKeon She was very beautiful as a blonde, now as a brunette, she is every bit as beautiful, if not more so.

Seattle: Kristen O'Neill Those beautiful eyes, one look into those eyes and you know you're looking into the eyes of a very beautiful woman. Also, one of the nicest people you ever want to meet.

Ivy (3)

Columbia: Shanna Cook

Harvard: Kelly Finley

Princeton: Courtney Banghart

MAAC (3)

Canisius: Beth O'Boyle

Manhattan: Caitlin Flood

Marist: Alisa Kresge

MAC (3)

Ball St.: Kelly Packard

Buffalo: Cara Pearson

WMU: Kristin Koetsier-Miller

MEAC (1)

Hampton: Ashlee Finley

MVC (3)

Bradley: Kari Kerkhoff

Illinois St.: Sheila Roux If you saw her Twitter profile picture, where she is wearing a pink dress, was she ever HOT!! She could have melted all that snow that covered Bloomington, IL.

WSU: Kristy Guffey

MWC (1)

TCU: Tonya Haut

Northeast (3)

LIU: Colleen Mullen

Mt. St. Mary's: Brianna Gauthier

St. Francis (NY): Brenda Milano

OVC (2)

Austin Peay: Carrie Daniels

Murray St.: Ashley Hayes

Pac-10 (4)

Cal: Joanne Boyle

UCLA: Nikki Caldwell

UCLA: Stacie Terry

USC: Laura Beeman

Patriot (2)

Army: Erin Mills

Bucknell: Brenna Rollie

SEC (2)

Florida: Amanda Butler

Georgia: Kim Hairston

Southern (4)

ASU: Andrea Gross

Elon: Rachel Stockdale

Samford: Andrea Ward

Chattanooga: Nikki Blassingame

Southland (3)

Nicholls St.: Catherine Blanchard

SFA: Jodi Greve

Texas St.: Holly Sartor

SWAC (3)

Alabama A & M: Altherias Warmley

Alabama St.: Freda Freeman-Jackson

Jackson St.: Taneisha Rogers

Summit (4)

IPFW: Courtney Nicley

UMKC: Candace Whitaker

Oakland: Anne Noja

South Dakota St.: Emilee Gusso

Sun Belt (3)

ULL: Lori Morris

MT: Kim Clark

WKU: Latasha Dorsey

WCC (4)

St. Mary's: Tracy Johnston

USD: Cindy Fisher

USF: Blair Hardiek

Santa Clara: Marissa White

WAC (2)

La. Tech: Ebony Felder

Utah St.: Hanna Howard

Only in Women's College Basketball, Pt. 2.

2010-11-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

There are over 300 D-1 women's basketball programs. A women's coaching staff is allowed three assistants and the head coach; though not all schools have the money to hire three assistant coaches. But let's say, there are 3.5 coaching positions available in D-1, that's, at least, over 1,000 coaching jobs. And that's only in D-1. It does not include the coaches in D-2, D-3, and the JC levels.

So can somebody please explain to me, why any damn school would hire, as a head coach, a coach who has NEVER coached women's or girls basketball before?

Head Coaches, who never coached women's basketball before becoming head WBB coach.

Current:
South Alabama-Rick Petri; 169-128 in 10 seasons:. Entering his 11th season10-11.
Canisius-Terry Zeh; 104-81 in six seasons. Entering his 7th season in 10-11.

Past:
San Diego St.-Jim Tomey- 25-58 in three seasons.

Social Media and WBB

2010-10-16T02:16:00.000-07:00

LA Women's Hoops found Twitter about a year ago, and since then, I've hooked. I'm on Twitter a lot; I tweet alot, I check for new tweets, I'll watch a game and tweet. If I had a smartphone, I would be on Twitter all the time. Good thing I don't have a smartphone!!

I follow a ton of coaches, almost all from mid major programs. The only schools from BCS conferences I follow are: Northwestern-big fan of
Head Coach Joe McKeown, UCLA-big fan of Nikki Caldwell, and Maryland-where I grew up.

I think Twitter can provide great insight to the day to day life of a coach. But I think tweets should be real; not putting on a "good face" to impress recruits. Tell it like it is. If the team had a bad practice, tell us. Don't hide and not post anything for a few days, until another "great" day comes along.

While I do enjoy following all coaches, but there are somethings that I don't like about Twitter. Some coaches need to take off the rose colored glasses and stop being a cheerleader. They always post "Great practice" or "Great workout" and that is such BS. I mean, these are 17-22 year old kids, we are talking about. They don't ALWAYS have great practices and workouts. If a coach is always tweeting about how "great" their team is, they need to have a higher standards for greatness. Coach Brooks of JMU is a prime example of a coach, who needs to take off the rose colored glasses or have a higher standard for greatness. He's always tweeting about how "great" his team's practice was. So much, in fact that when reading his tweets you would think, JMU can beat UConn. But then he'll go a few days without tweeting. To me, that means those days his team wasn't practicing so good and he wants to sugar coat his program. Such BS!!!

But with that said, I don't expect Twitter to become a place where a coach rips a player. But a coach could tweet "Practice wasn't good today. We need to pick it up, tomorrow." That is perfectly acceptable. The coach isn't calling out or picking on a certain player. The coach isn't being overly negative. The coach is telling followers, the truth about the program.

The other thing I hate, is coaches who do not include a link to either, their school's athletic website or the WBB page, of that athletic website. Twitter is a marketing tool, so create a link, that followers can click onto, when they are on your Twitter.

Some Big West programs that have a Twitter account; some of the accounts are general WBB and other's are the head coach, and some even have two Twitter accounts.

CSN Head Coach Flowers

UCSB Head Coach Gottlieb

LB Head Coach Wynn

UCR WBB

UCI WBB

UCI Head Coach Molly Goodenbour

Pacific WBB

UOP Head Coach Roberts

Women's Basketball Sites

2010-10-16T02:10:00.001-07:00

If you're a women's basketball fan, Hoopfeed.com is a site that needs to be in your bookmarks. Hoopfeed.com provides, daily, links to women's basketball stories online.

If you have any other women's basketball sites, please Email LA Women's Hoops.

Only in Women's College Basketball!!

2010-09-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

Women's college basketball, still gets NO respect. Today, is another slap in the face to women's basketball and to the coaches who work, just as hard as men's basketball coaches.

IUPUI, hired the MEN'S assistant coach, who has NEVER coached women's or girls basketball before, as their head WOMEN'S basketball coach. It appears this was not an an interim head coach hiring, but the hiring of the permanent head coach. IUPUI fired their head coach, Shann Hart, after player's complaints about harsh treatment, were found to be true and possible NCAA violations.

The hiring of a men's assistant coach, also happened at San Jose St. in 2006-07. The head coach at the time, Janice Richard, went on medical leave, while undergoing breast cancer treatments, and San Jose St. named Greg Lockridge, as interim head coach. After some run-in with players, Lockridge was let go and San Jose St. hired Derek Allen, who was the MEN'S assistant coach at the time.

At San Jose St., Allen was hired after five games. So they didn't have a lot of time or options. I can, to a certain extent, understand why San Jose St. hired Allen. But Allen was only a stop gap and never considered for the permanent head coach position, after the 06-07 season.

I understand that IUPUI promoting the top assistant from the old staff, may not be a good idea. But at IUPUI, the season hasn't started yet, and they have enough time to find a coach.

Hell, why didn't they hire current assistant coaches, Brittany Korth, or Jarietta Benton? Both were hired this past summer, so she didn't have anything to do with the mistreatment of players. So what, if Benton's only experience is four years as director of basketball operations. Benton learned under a very good coach, Shimmy Gray-Miller, at St. Louis. But shhh, don't tell Coach Shimmy, I said that. :) Or Korth's only expeience is two years as an student assistant at Cleveland St.

I can't imagine, in the same situation, a men's program hiring a women's assistant coach. So why does it happen and why is it accepted in women's college basketball??

These are real issues in women's college basketball, issues writers like Michelle Voepel don't bother covering. She is too busy telling us, how great UConn and other BCS schools are.

When Punishment Drills Go Too Far

2010-09-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

How stupid can any coach, in today's environment, be? How can any coach run a punishment drill for a player, see that player vomit three times and NOT stop it, after the first time that player vomited?

Sound crazy? Sound Impossible? Well it happened at the North Carolina Wilmington. UNCW Punish Drill Goes Too Far. Head Coach Cythina Cooper-Dyke and assistant coach Johnetta Hayes, who supervised the drill are stupid and both should face some disciplinary action. I don't give a damn that Cooper-Dykes apologized to the player.

How stupid must a coach be, when after seeing a player vomit ONCE, maybe they get a clue and stupid the drill? But no, this stupid coach Johnetta Hayes, continues the drill, until the player vomits again, TWICE.

This reminds me, back to my senior year in high school. I graduated from high school in 1986, a much different time, where coaches and teachers got respect and nobody really questioned their methods.

I used to chew tobacco, about a pouch a day of Apple Jack or Red Man, and one day, during class, my teacher caught me chewing tobacco. She told me to swallow it. I told her; if I swallow it, I'll vomit and I won't clean up. She said, go spit it out and I don't want to see it in my class again. I followed her directions and the situation was done. Ok, ok, I did chew tobacco in her class, a few more times. But I was never caught. :)

My teacher could have really taken a small situation and turned it into a major issue; chewing tobacco is slightly above getting caught chewing gum in class. But no, she wasn't stubborn, she found another solution.

But this coach, Johnetta Hayes, is either too stupid or stubborn or both.

If a player got kicked out of practice, yes, there should be some punishment drills. If she is leg or foot injuries, how about some drills in the pool, assuming she knows how to swim? How about some drills on a stationary bike? But when those punishment drills lead to a player vomiting, just once, those drills need stop, right away.

Now, what should the punishment be for the head coach and assistant? I think the head coach should be suspended without pay for a week. The assistant coach should be suspended without pay for two weeks. She deserves a tougher penalty because she allowed the punishment drill to continue. Of course, a reevaluation of their handling of discipline issues, has to be done.

2010-11 Coaches on Hot Seat

2010-09-16T23:56:00.000-07:00

With the 2010-11 season just about ready to start, here is my list of D1 coaches who should be on the hot seat. To be on this list, a coach must have been at the school for at least three years and have a bad record. As a general rule, I feel, after three years there should be major signs of progress in any program. What do I mean by major progress? If a coach is coming into a rebuilding situation, the team should be winning 10-12 games against a tough schedule. If a coach is winning five or six games a year, after three years, it's pretty clear that coach isn't doing a good job.

Believe it or not, I don't get a kick out of calling out bad coaches. I really don't. I just want to see programs successful, because it improves women's basketball, and that won't happen if schools keep bad coaches.

Lynne Roberts- Pacific. 5th season:

Roberts has a 42-76 overall record. I understand she was suppose to be entering the last year of her contract. But I heard that she got a five year contract extension. Of course, UOP, has not issued any press release about her extension.

Honestly, I thought Roberts was going to turn things around at UOP. But, I didn't like how she got her former players to transfer from Chico St. to Pacific. She hasn't done the job at all.

Now, I have heard she got a five year contract extension. If that is true, this is Faith Mimnaugh all over again.

Raegan Pebley- Utah St. 8th season:

Pebley started the Utah St. program and still hasn't had a winning record, after sevens seasons. Her overall record 71-113. Her contract ends at the end of the 2010-11 season.

My prediction: Hire a real estate agent.

Pam DeCosta- San Jose St. 4th season:

DeCosta has a 11-79 overall record. She is entering the last year of her contract. Her win totals have gone from 1 to 1 to 6. At that rate, San Jose St. will have a winning record by 2020.

Why she was selected over former, Santa Clara and Colorado St. head coach, Chris Denker, is something I'm still trying to figure out.

My prediction: Hire a real estate agent.

How Not to Do a Search for a Head Coach.

2010-07-19T02:28:00.000-07:00

Cal Poly Pomona's athletic director, Brian Swanson, just showed the world, how not to do a search for a head coach.

First a timeline:

June 2, 2010: Head Coach Scott Davis Resigns

June 24, 2010. Cal Poly Pomona releases the names of the Two Finalists. There was another finalist but the third finalist turned down the chance to interview on campus.

July 13, 2010: Story about how Swanson tried to save face, after being turned down by the finalists. Swanson CYA

There were two huge errors made in this coaching search. Both errors fall on the shoulders of AD Brian Swanson.

First mistake: releasing the names of the finalists on Cal Poly Pomona's athletic website. At no time should an athletic director, release the names of finalists, on their school's athletics website, unless he is 100% one of the finalists will accept the job. If inside information is leaked to the press, that's fine. If the press is wrong, it's the press that looks bad. But when a school releases information on their website, they will look bad, if something goes wrong.

Also, Swanson put the finalists in a tough position by releasing their names. Why? How would you feel if you were looking for another job and that company said you were a finalist? Think your boss would be happy? While the two finalists were upfront with their current schools and players, about looking into the Cal Poly Pomona job, other coaches have not been as honest.

Every coach needs to look into any opportunity for advancement- whether it means better pay, better facility, better support, or personal reasons. I understand that is part of the coaching business. At the same time coaches need to be up front with their current schools and players. They need to tell their players and recruits they are looking. If they do move on, the coach needs to tell the players in person, at a team meeting. Not a text message or press release or TV announcement, as some weasel coaches have done. Also, don't be a weasel like Cheating Petey Carroll and run when the NCAA is about to lower the boom on USC.

Second mistake: Never try to save face. Just man up and admit you made a mistake. There have been plenty of times I've been wrong about a coach or player. I admit I was wrong. I thought Mary Hegarty would turn things around at Long Beach St. Instead she was terrible.

Swanson should have handled the situation this way: Tell the press: we are moving forward in our search for a new women's basketball head coach. Simple, PC, doesn't look like you're making excuses for screwing up. Instead Swanson looks like a damn fool. Nice job Mr. Swanson, and California taxpayers are paying your six figure salary?????

I know what happened during this search. Swanson made his decision and offered the job to one of the finalist. That finalist turned down the job. I know why that finalist turned down the job, but I'll keep that to myself for now. Swanson then offered the job, on an interim basis, to another coach and was turned down.

So here we are, July 19, 2010 and Cal Poly Pomona still doesn't have a head coach.

Who does this affect the most? The kids at Cal Poly who are coming back!!! They still don't know who their coach is going to be for the 2010-11 season. No kid should have to go through this. An adult who is making stupid decisions, trying to CYA (cover your __, you can figure out the last word) and hurting the college experience of their student-athletes.

If I had a kid playing at Cal Poly Pomona, I would tell my kid to walk into Mr. Swanson's office, and demand quick action on naming a new head coach. Hey, a kid in college, has to learn how to handle situations on their own. Mommy and Daddy can't fight their battles for them.

If I am the President of Cal Poly Pomona, I would tell Brian Swanson, he is on notice for his poor handling of this search. But really, Mr. Swanson should have been on notice, because in his six years as athletic director, Cal Poly Pomona will have their FIFTH head coach for women's basketball. Paul Thomas, Kevein Kiernan, Michelle, Fortier, Scott Davis, and whoever they hire for 2010-11 season. Only one coach, Paul Thomas, got a promotion. Thomas became head coach at Division 1, St. Mary's. Kevin Kiernan, at the time, a very successful high school coach at Troy High School, was hired but then resigned within two months. I wonder why?

Summer/Club Basketball

2010-07-08T13:29:00.001-07:00

Personally I hate the summer basketball circuit, that has exploded because of stupid NCAA rules. The NCAA restricts the number of days a coach can see a player play, in person. During the summer months, all those days are in July. Thus, because of this rule, the NCAA indirectly created this summer basketball circuit; which has created a terrible cycle, teenaged girls, played lots of basketball, far away from home.

Kids join club teams, looking for a chance to get a college scholarship. But club teams aren't free. They cost a lot of money, some parents have told me they spend up to $3,000 a year, for their kid's club team. That doesn't include the cost of travel to these summer tournaments. Kids play a ton of games, over a short period of time, with little recovery or rest time. I really believe that is one reason, why there are so many injuries in women's basketball.

The majority of club teams are coached by well meaning people. But, just like in other walk of life, there are the scum, who prey on young kids. There have been many stories about club coaches who sexually assault or molested, one of his players.

The worst part is, unlike high school, which require any adult to go through a background check, there is no governing body for club teams.

What can parents do to prevent this?

Background check:

Before even signing your kid up on any team, do a background check of that coach. All you have to do is go to your local police department and they will help you. If the coach isn't willing to give a parent his background information, you as a parent should not allow your daughter to play for that coach.

No unsupervised overnight trips:

In summer, club teams travel to cities like Portland, actually Oregon City, OR, Memphis, Chicago, and Atlanta to play in tournaments. Where they are staying in hotels with the coaches and maybe a few other parents. So my question is; What kind of parent would allow their young daughter to go to a city, far away from home, to stay in a hotel with only a few adults?

If I had a kid, I would not allow my child to stay overnight, in any city, alone, with a stranger. I don't give a damn, how well you know a coach. I would go on the trips with the kid and I would make sure my kid is staying in the same hotel room, as me.

Trust but don't be too trusting:

Watch your kid, carefully. Do you notice any personality changes? Does your daughter hate going to practice or games?

You are the parent, act like it. Protect your kid from being subjected to the scumbags.

Jason Flowers and Cal St. Northridge

2010-07-02T16:03:00.001-07:00

After, almost 80 days without a head coach, Cal St. Northridge, finally replaced Head Coach Staci Schulz, with former UC Riverside, assistant coach, Jason Flowers, on May 27, 2010. This is Flower's first head coaching job. There is nothing I hate more about WBB, than recycled terrible coaches. How many chances does a coach get, before athletic directors get a clue and figure out, that a coach just isn't head coaching material? So it is great to see somebody like Jason Flowers, getting his first chance to be a head coach.

Earlier I did a story about CSN's lack of success with their women's basketball program. Two of the biggest issues that I brought up in that story, apply with Jason's hire, so I will address each issue.

Lack of head coaching experience and Local Ties:

First I want to say, when hiring a head coach, it's the entire package that gets the coach hired. Can a lack of head coaching experience, be overcome? No question. But the coach has to have other qualities, that will overcome the lack of experience.

Take a look at all the qualities that Jason brings to CSN; his knowledge of the conference, ties to local high school and club basketball teams, and his success as an assistant coach, it's pretty clear to see, CSN made a damn good hire.

CSN also showed some guts, hiring Jason. CSN hired who they felt was the best candidate for the job, not the best female candidate. CSN has male coaches for the following female sports; soccer, volleyball, and track and field. Most schools would have hired a female coach to make things politically correct. So I give CSN, praise for hiring, who they felt was the best candidate.

Jason, played high school basketball at Bellflower High School, played college basketball at UCI and UCLA, coached at Valley High School in Santa Ana, Long Beach St. and UC Riverside. So he is a local product with a diverse range of coaching experience. He knows the area, the conference, and what it takes to win. This wasn't true about Tammy Holder, who saw an ad for the CSN job and had to look up, where Northridge was located. Also Jason, won't leave CSN after three years, to move back closer to home, like Holder did.

Jason is a person of great character and values. Every high school and club coach, that I have talked to, always have great things to say about Jason.

Assistant coaches

Assistant coaches are the backbone and unsung heros of college basketball. Show me a great team and you will see a great set of assistant coaches. Every head coach needs a good staff of assistant coaches to be successful. Flowers hired Bryan Camacho, Lindsey Foster and Christine Collins-Kiernan, as assistant coaches. Between the three assistants, there is a total of seven years of college coaching experience, all by Foster at UC Riverside.

The staff's lack of college coaching experience has to be a concern. Two assistants, Bryan Camacho and Christine Collins-Kiernan, are coming directly from high school. Yes, they come from very successful high schools and sent many players to D-1 schools. But it is a big jump to college coaching and recruiting. Some coaches are very successful, others struggle.

But, the great thing about Camacho and Collins-Kiernan, is that they are successful, local coaches. In the past CSN hired assistant coaches with little to no ties to the LA area. CSN has four players from out of state, on their 2010-11 roster and the old staff seemed to love going to Hawaii for players. An out of state player costs more, in terms of scholarship dollars, than an in state player, about double. Why did the other staff go out of state so much? There are plenty of players in the LA area, that can help a team win. Hopefully both Camacho and Collins-Kiernan, will be able to get those kids to stay close to home.

While the other staffs have limited college coaching experience, Jason's first staff, has a huge advantage, they already know the high school and club basketball scene. They can go to a game or talk to a coach, and more than likely, it's will be a coach they already know or coaches against. The other staffs were unknown in the LA area and had to work to make inroads with high school and club coaches.

Personally, I think CSN made a great hire. I think Jason will turn this program around. Yes, it will take time. CSN screwed up by taking so damn long to hire Jason; Schulz was let go in mid March and Jason, gets hired in late May. What took so damn long?

The 2010-11 season, maybe a long tough season for the Jason and the team. The team only won 5 games the year before, lacks depth and talent, and with Jason bring hired so late, signing players who can help this season will be tough. But Jason and his staff will be laying the foundation to future success, during the 2010-11 season.

The fact that the Big West is so weak right now, is a huge advantage. Why? Because, a good coach can take a program to the top quickly. Once Jason was hired, he automatically, became tied for the 5th best coach in the conference, with Marcia Foster. I have little doubt he will move up to the level of Sandy Simpson and John Margaritis. Jodi Anton, at Long Beach St. and Lindsey Gottlieb at UCSB, round out the top four coaches in the conference. Molly Goodenbour, Lynn Roberts and Faith Mimnaugh, are the three worst coaches in the Big West. If Pacific gave Lynn Roberts a five year contract extension, they are stupid. Oh, wait, she's white, now I understand, it's Faith Mimnaugh all over again!!

Cal St. Northridge is a tough job. Facilities, fan support, and university support, are poor. But a great coach, can overcome these barriers and win. I believe Jason Flowers is the right coach for this job.

One other thing I like about Coach Flowers, is his use of the current social networking formats, Twitter and Facebook. You can follow Coach Flowers on Twitter and the Cal St. Northridge Women's Basketball program on Facebook.

2008-09 CCAA Coach's Salaries

2010-06-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

The CCAA, California Collegiate Athletic Association, is the best Division 2 women’s basketball conference, in the nation. If you haven’t seen all the talented players and coaches in the CCAA, do yourself a favor and go to a game.

LA Women’s Hoops has always been harping about the low salaries for coaches in California. When a friend emailed a list of the salaries for CCAA head coaches, I was very surprised. Some coaches are making a decent salary; notice I said decent, not great salary. Others are stealing money because they are terrible. And others are so underpaid, it’s not even funny.

School Salary 2009-10 Finish

1. Cal St Los Angeles $95,004: 11th place

2. Cal St. Dominguez Hills $91,744: 10th place

3. Cal St. San Bernandino $90,749: 7th place

4. UC San Diego $82,000: 1st place

5. CP Pomona $80,530: 2nd place

6. Cal St Stanislaus $80,889: 9th place

7. Sonoma St. $79,912: 8th place

8. Humbolt St. $76,912: 5th place

9. Chico St. $70,340: 3rd place

10. San Francisco St. $58,744: 6th place

11. Cal St East Bay $58,006: 12th place

12. Cal St Monterey Bay $57,701: 4th place

This list is just base salary for coaching and was from the 08-09 season. So it may not be fair to list the 09-10 season finishes, but I highly doubt there would be much change in the next year. Other sources of income-teaching, camp, booster club, fundraising monies are not included. But, no CCAA coach is adding, even half, their salary from other sources.

This list clearly shows, that CS Monterey Bay's coach, Renee Jimenez, is doing a great job and is so underpaid, it's not even funny. She is the lowest paid head coach in the CCAA and still leads her team to a 4th place finish!!! She deserves a raise.

Cal State LA was not satisfied with the performance of their other coach and fired her, but CSULA never bothered to issue a release about the firing. Why? Some BS university policy!! Anyways, they just hired a new coach; Janell Jones. Jones has a good record, but she is a carpetbagger. She has had three jobs within the past five years-UC San Diego, Mercer, and now CSULA, but has never been fired. How long is she going to stay at CSULA? Personally, I think CSULA should have hired the other finalist. Not only would the other finalist, turn around the program, she wouldn't leave after a few years.

Cal Poly Pomona's head coach resigned. So they are looking for a new coach.

Cal State East Bay, fired their coach, they also didn't bother to issue a release, and recently hired Suzy Barcomb, from Puget Sound. Of course CSU East Bay fired their black female head coach and replaced her with a white head coach. Hmmm But I also know that CSU East Bay will pay their new head coach about $70,000 a year.

But the coach at Cal St. Dominguez Hills has been there forever and he has a .500 record. Where are the high expectations?

San Bernandino has the best facilities in the CCAA and he is the third highest paid coach but he can only finish 7th? He has won about a 55% of his games while at CSUSB but shouldn't they expect more from him, considering the high salary and the great facilities?

The point of this story isn't to point out coach's salaries, but to point out how LOW paying, head coach's positions are in California. I feel any head coach in California needs to start at $150,000. Of course that means more pressure on the coaches to win. But any coach worth a damn, would welcome that kind of pressure.

A higher starting salary will attract a better pool of candidates and more importantly, keep a good coach. For example, will Cal St. Monterey Bay be able to keep their head coach? She had done such a great job in two short years, I have no doubt other schools will be calling!!

RDB 2010

2010-04-13T00:54:00.001-07:00

RDB means Rent Don't Buy. There are many coaches that should be on the hot seat, during the 2010-11 season. They have either reached their ceiling or are just bad coaches. The fact that AD's put up with losing coaches, is hurting the growth and development of women's basketball.

All of these coaches have been at their school for at least three years or longer. Three years is plenty of time to see if the coach is taking the program in the right direction.

So my list of RDB coaches for 2010-11:

Lynn Roberts-Pacific
Julie Wilhoit-LMU
Pam DeCosta-San Jose St.
Raegan Pebley- Utah St.

2010 March Madness

2010-03-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

It is March Madness, the time of year when college basketball dominates. But March Madness also means coaching changes.

March 29, 2010:

Sacramento St. has removed the interim tag from Head Coach Jamie Craighead. Craighead was the youngest D-1 head coach last year, at 29 years old. Craighead received a three year contract.

Craighead led Sac. St. to a 15-15 record. The highest win total, for Sac. St, since the 1992-93 season.

March 26, 2010:

USF fired Tanya Haave. Haave had a 36-86 overall record in four years at USF.

Mark Trakh, former Pepperdine and USC head coach, has been contacted about becoming the next coach at USF.

Certainly a good idea but Pacific keeps the terrible Lynne Roberts, who has a 42-76 record in four years. Why? Any wonder that the Big West is rated so low?

March, 12, 2010

Cal State Northridge has fired head coach Staci Schulz. Schulz had a 36-109 in five years at CSN.

I hope CSN doesn't do the easy thing, and promotes one of their assistants. If CSN was smart, which is debatable, they would look at the following coaches to be their next head coach:

Tim LaKose, current head coach at Cal State Bakersfield.
Jason Flowers, currently an assistant at UC Riverside.
Greg Adams, former CSN assistant coach and current head coach at Western New Mexico.

But, how about this for thinking out of the box; Joan Bonvicini, current Seattle University coach, to be the next coach at CSN.

Other News & Notes:

Sherri Murrell, head coach at Portland St. and former head coach at Pacific, is one of the very few coaches who has come out.

What is really stupid is, this should be a non issue.

Conference Tournament Time

2010-03-07T23:08:00.000-08:00

It's conference tournament time in women's college basketball.

West Coast Conference:

LMU was the 6th seed in the WCC tourney. The Lions beat USF in the first round but lost to Pepperdine in the second round. If Bill Husack, LMU AD, was smart, he would make that game Julie Wilhoit's last game as head coach.

Pepperdine, 3rd seed, beat LMU, then beat St. Mary's, and are now in the WCC Championship game vs Gonzaga. Good luck to the Wave.

Big West:

Long Beach St. enjoyed a great turnaround season, going from 9th place in the BW to 4th place.

Cal State Fullerton is the 6th seed.

UC Irvine is the 7th seed.

Cal State Northridge missed the BWT and hopefully that will be enough for CSN to get rid of Coach Schultz.

Random thoughts:

After the 2008-09 season, Long Beach on the women's side and Cal Poly on the men's side, both let go of their coaches, after they missed the BWT. The Big West has 9 teams and only 8 teams make the BWT. BW coaches have tried to pass the CYA rule, cover your ass, so all 9 teams make the BWT.

The Mountain West Conference also has 9 teams and an interesting format.

First round:

Seeds: 5 vs 8 & 4 vs 9. With the winners playing each other in the second round.

Seeds 6 vs 7. With the winners playing 3rd seed in the second round.

Second Round:

Winner of 5 vs 8 & 4 vs 9 play each other.

3rd seed, who had earned a 1st round bye, plays winner of 6 vs 7 game.

Third round:

1st and 2nd seeds get two byes and play the second round winners.

The Big West will move the BWT to The Honda Center, for the 2011 tournament. I hope they don't have this CYA format. If a team isn't good enough to finish in the top 8, they shouldn't be in the BWT.

Degree Required?

I thought a college degree was required to be a college coach. But it appears that San Diego St.'s Coach Fred Chmiel doesn't have a college degree.

2010 Coaching Carousel

2010-02-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

It is never too early to start the Coaching Carousel.

In the LA area, we have nine D-1 schools.

The following coaches are safe from being let go from their schools. I also think all of the schools will not be affected by the turning of the coaching carousel.

USC, UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach St., UC Riverside, UC Irvine, Pepperdine.

The following two programs need to make a change.

Cal State Northridge- Staci Schulz

LMU- Julie Wilhoit. This is the tough choice an athletic director has to make. Do you get rid of a coach who has won but hasn't won enough? Most schools seem happy if their women's basketball team wins 15-17 games a year, have their players gradudate, and not get in trouble. That is exactly the attitude that is preventing women's basketball from improving. Yes, having players graduate and stay out of trouble is very important. But coaches need to be held to a higher standard. Winning 17 games isn't enough, if you have the talent to win 20 games and go to the NCAA tournament.

Julie Wilhoit, long ago reached her ceiling at LMU. In 2004 she lead the Lions to the NCAA tournament. Sadly she has been living off that NCAA run six years later. Wilhoit has won, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 wins in the five seasons since the 2004 NCAA team. For the 2009-10 season Julie Wilhoit has been struggling. Currently LMU is 12-14, 5-7 in the WCC. But a closer look at her record shows four of the five WCC wins include sweeps of USF and Santa Clara, two teams combined who have won, 2 games in the WCC and 7 games TOTAL!!

Then the fact that Wilhoit hasn't beaten a team with a pulse, that's all an AD needs to let Wilhoit go. In non conference, the team with the highest RPI, that LMU beat is Cal Poly, with a RPI of 161. The rest of their 11 wins have been against teams with RPI's of 200 or lower!! Portland, who LMU beat over the weekend, had a RPI of 159.

It is time for a coaching change at LMU.

Possible Conference Expansion.

2010-02-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

College athletics is always changing. The last twenty years have seen many schools left conferences, chasing the almighty dollar. So let's take a look at possible expansion for the Big West and West Coast conferences.

Big West:

Currently the Big West has nine schools, all in California. The Big West thinks small, so they will only admit schools in California. In terms of scheduling, a nine team conference is a nightmare, with one team always having the night off, from BW competition. Also some schools have to make two trips up north, to Pacific and Davis, instead of one trip. That means schools are spending more money than they need to.

I will list schools the Big West may look to add, as their 10th member. But a few things to keep in mind. Schools will be in CA. Schools must sponsor all seven BW priority sports, M & W soccer and basketball, baseball, softball, women's volleyball. Schools need to make some sort of geographic sense. The Big West has five LA area schools. Travel partners should be UOP-Davis, SB-CP, then a rotation of the five LA area schools.

Cal State Bakersfield-Bake will be a full D-1 member on July 1, 2010. They would be a perfect geographic fit; travel partners with Northridge. Nice facilities. The only game in town, no competition with other schools, like in the LA area.

In strictly a women's basketball point of view, they would be a very strong contender for the BW championship.

But Bake made the move up to D-1 about five years ago and they still haven't gotten an invitation from the Big West. Why? Bake's men's basketball is terrible. They would be a RPI drain on the BW. While they play in a nice off campus arena, they don't draw jack. 2,000 fans in a 10,000 seat arena is nothing. 2009 was Bake's first year for baseball. They of course struggled, so they would be an RPI drain. They barely have a baseball facility; they have the field, dugouts, and some bleachers. Otherwise, they have a long way to go before calling it a stadium.

My prediction: Bakersfield is the BW's last resort option for a 10th member.

Sac. St.:

They have all the BW priority sports. But terrible facilities. Basketball plays in a 1,500 seat high school gym. Both teams are terrible. In WBB, Sac St hasn't finished a season with double digits wins in over a decade. Though they may reach that level this year.

Students voted for an arena but Sac St president did a bait and switch, instead spending the money on building a football field house, instead of an arena.

The only way Sac St would come into the Big West is, they either drop football or decide to go independent in football, like Cal Poly and UC Davis. Ok, both CP and Davis are in the Great West for football. But the Great West won't be a conference, after a couple schools move to other conferences.

Sac St would only come into the BW, if they can no longer afford all the travel cost of being in the Big Sky. Even though there is a budget crunch in CA, Sac St is staying on course with the Big Sky.

In terms of travel partners, Sac St. doesn't make sense with any school. Adding Sac. St to the BW, means three teams in Northern California. The likely travel partner would be Northridge.

My prediction: Sac. St. has football fantasies and they won't drop out of the Big Sky.

San Jose St.- Former BW member, now a member of the WAC. They would have to drop football in order to come back to the BW. But they seem to be focused on making their football program as strong as possible. The money from Boise St BCS team, will help.

Good facilities. But both basketball teams have struggled of late. Though their men's team is having a turn around season, this year. But the women's program is terrible. They maybe looking for a new coach soon.

As with Sac St., adding San Jose St. would mean three Northern California teams in the Big West.

My prediction- Not happening. San Jose St. won't drop football within the next 5-7 years. So they won't be come members of the Big West.

WCC:

The WCC will only add small private schools. I also believe they will add two schools to make ten. Since nine schools makes for tough scheduling. The WCC currently has eight schools, all schools are on the West Coast, meaning all schools are in states that touch the Pacific Ocean. I know Cal Stat Long Beach alums and fans are too stupid to understand that point.

Seattle and Denver are two private schools. Seattle is making the move back up to D1. They are Washington so, geographically they make sense.

Denver will be kicked out of the Sun Belt Conference because they don't sponsor enough sports. While Denver is a western school, they aren't on the West Coast. I doubt Denver will be invited.

My prediction:

This may seem like a very long shot, but I could see this happening:

Seattle will be admitted into the WCC, it is only a matter of when.

UOP will be the other team admitted to the WCC. Why? UOP has a very good men's program and a good arena. Travel partners in the WCC will be LMU-Pepperdine, UOP-St. Mary's, USF-Santa Clara, Seattle-Gonzaga and Portland-USD.

If UOP does get into the WCC, then what school would the BW add?

Mid Season Comments

2010-01-29T13:52:00.000-08:00

Some mid season comments for women's college basketball in 2009-10.

Big West- Only two teams with a winning record, Cal Poly and UC Davis. Five teams that will lose 20 games or come damn close to it. Northridge, Pacific, and Irvine are locks for 20 losses. This would continue the Big West's streak of, at least two teams with 20 or more losses. The streak is currently at eight seasons. In 8 out of the last 9 seasons, the BW has had THREE teams with 20 or more losses. I'm betting it will be 9 out of 10 seasons, after this year.

Cal State Fullerton- Marcia Foster has Fullerton playing with more discipline and accountability. Team isn't that talented but has some good players. They just need more talent.

Long Beach St.- New coach, Jody Wynn, who is getting the most out of the limited talent. Have already match win total from last year, with basically the same team. Wynn will have to show she can recruit more talent. I know she can and she will.

Cal State Northridge- This better be Staci Schultz's last year at CSN. They are terrible, 1-6 in the Big West, 3-14 overall.

UCI-Maly-Karros is a dominant player in the BW. Jada Smith-Williams is another good player. But UCI struggled through non conference and is under .500 in the BW.

UCR-struggled like crazy in non conference. But has turned things around in conference. Not tough since the BW sucks.

LMU- Julie Wilhoit needs to be fired. She reached her ceiling five years ago. A Wilhoit team will win between 15-17 games, lose some games they should have won, and play a weak schedule. She has been running on fumes. Time for a change at LMU.

Arrogance or Delusional?

2009-09-06T00:25:00.000-07:00

I read a story about Kari Duperron in the Daily Breeze. The story from the Daily Breeze on Feb. 15, 2008. The story was mainly about a female coaching a sophomore high school basketball team. But the arrogance or is it delusionals of grandeur, of the story is what really got me upset. This link is the archive section of
The Daily Breeze.

Before I go on, this isn't a rip job on Kari Duperron but a comment to any recent college graduate, who is entering college coaching. You have to pay your dues as an assistant coach before thinking of getting any type of head coaching interest. I mean if former Stanford and Tenn players paid their dues before becoming head coaches, even at smaller schools; why shouldn't somebody from a smaller school like Cal Poly, pay their dues too.

The story mentions that after the 2006-2007 season, Kari, at 26 years old, with only half a season experience as a D-1 assistant coach, was suprised she didn't get a job as a head coach at smaller colleges. The story didn't mention exactly what schools I'm guessing schools like Hope International.

Kari didn't get any jobs she was applying for and felt politics was the reason she didn't get the job.

Now let's look at Kari's resume.

She played at Cal Poly, NEVER having a winning season as a college player.

She spent four seasons as the director of basketball operations at UCLA. Do you know what director of basketball operations does? That is a glorified gopher job. They make tapes, they get things ready for practice, they get what the coaches need. This isn't a coaching job. It is an administration job.

Then in her last season as operations director, she was an assistant coach for half the season.

That's it!! No coaching experience, no recruiting experience, nothing. And she thinks somebody with that resume deserves to be a head coach?

But instead of putting the blame on herself and her lack of expereince she blames it on her lack of connections!!! She worked for Kathy Olivier at UCLA, who is very well connected. I'm sure Olivier gave Kari good reviews, because Kari is currently an assistant coach at UNLV under; Kathy Olivier.

This is a quote from the story. "From what I've learned in the coaching business, you never know what will happen," she said. "I feel like it's based so much more on connections than qualifications. It was fun to be at the pure stage of the game again and to be around boys who, even as sophomores, know basketball is what they want. I can't really tell what my next step will be because I'm enjoying this level. I couldn't tell you what is next, to be honest."

Kari, I'll tell you what to do next, be a part of a winning season as an assistant coach. Get more experience as a coach. There are assistant coaches who paid their dues and never get a chance to become a head coach. What makes Kari think she deserves to be a head coach. For somebody barely five years out of college, to think she deserves to be a head coach, even at a small school, is just delusional.

As I mentioned earlier, Kari is starting her second year, as an assistant coach at UNLV for Kathy Olivier. She maybe she has learned that to become a head coach, you need to pay your dues.

Again, this isn't meant to be a rip job on Kari Duperron but a comment on any recent college graduate, who is entering college coaching.

Cal State Fullerton

2009-08-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

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.

Things Could Be Worse

2009-08-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

As bad as I make some Big West teams out to be, it maybe a shocker but there are still some teams that are worse!!! One of those teams resides in California. Sacramento St. The city that The Rock serenades.

Sac St. of the Big Sky Conference.

Year Overall Rec Conf. Rec.
Dan Muscatell
2008-09 9-21 7-9
2007-08 6-22 4-12
2006-07 3-27 1-15
2005-06 9-17 4-10
2004-05 8-20 4-10
2003-04 1-26 1-13

Carolyn Jenkins
2002-03 3-24 1-13
2001-02 0-27 0-14
2000-01 3-23 1-15

Sue Hoffman
1999-00 6-21 4-12

Here are the sad and sorry facts.

The entire decade Sac St. did not reach double digits in victories!!!!

Fives seasons, half the decade, that you can count their win total on one hand and not even use your thumb!!

The most wins for Sac. St this decade? 9 wins last year.

Two seasons where they didn't even win TWO games!!!

They had NINE seaons this decade with 20 losses or more.

FIVE seasons, half the decade, that they won one or less conference games!!!

Sac. St. had three coaches during the decade, Sue Hoffman who guided the program's move from D-2 to D-1. Then Carolyn Jenkins, a former assistant to the Queen at Stanford. Then Dan Muscatell, a former assistant at Oregon. Muscatell left after the 08-09 season and now a 27 year old coach, Jamie Craighead will guide Sac. St into the next decade.

Hoffman had been at Sac. St. for over 20 years as a player and coach. While it is tough for any school moving up to D-1, Sac. St was underfunded and that really hurt Coach Hoffman. Hoffman at times during the D-1 era, had no recruiting budget, had about half the scholarships as other D-1 schools, and of course played ina 1,600 seat high school gym. Hmm, why does this sound like Cal State Northridge? There were also reports that she wore her religious beliefs on her seelve.

Anyways Hoffman resigned and Sac. St. hired former Stanford assistant, Carolyn Jenkins. Even though Sac. St put more money into the program, more scholarship, a recruiting budget, Jenkins destroyed this program. What a terrible coach, she won SIX games during her three year reign of error at Sac. St. Many players hated her and her coaching ways. But unlike Faith Mimnaugh, Jenkins had a clue and did not seek a contract extension.

So Sac. St went up to Oregon and hired Dan Muscatell. Muscatell did a good job during his six years at Sac. St. When he got to Sac. St., the program was like an abandoned, run down house, that was going to be condemned. He did do a good job of building a foundation for the program. The really didn't have much to work with, when he got the job. Whether he could have taken the program is another level remained to be seen.

If there was one thing about his program, Muscatell recruited his players from the area he knew, Oregon and Washington. There weren't that many players from CA. Out of state players cost more in terms of scholarships than CA players. And to me, if you're giving a scholarship to an out of state kid, that kid better be an impact player.

During Muscatell reign, things were looking up on the facilities side too. Sac. St. students passed a fee referendum to build a new arena!!!! But the school President, did a bait and switch and instead of the money going to build a new arena, the money went to build a new football fieldhouse. The spin from the President was that they needed to teardown the old fieldhouse to make room for the new arena and student rec center. The arena now has no funding and in this terrible economy, won't find any funding. Oh well maybe the kids who are starting kindergarden this fall, will have an arena by the time they are old enough to go to Sac. St.

The reason I point out terrible program is that I'm a firm believer in you're only as strong as your weakest link. Women's basketball won't improve until the terrible programs in the women's basketball improve. I find most women's college basketball fans love the UConn's, Tenns etc. They could care less about the other programs. Well until the women's game consistently has a Cinderella at the dance, it won't have a broader appeal. The only way for Cinderella to be invited to the dance is for Cinderella to improve her appearance.

Faith Mimnaugh

2009-08-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

Some readers maybe wondering why I always rip Faith Mimnaugh. In case you missed it, I have included links to three stories that I wrote about Faith and her terrible record at CP.

Faith and her terrible 12 year record at Cal Poly.

Faith and her ACC schedule during the 08-09 season.

This story includes links to newspapers stories where Faith is making excuses for her sorry record and begging for a contract extension.

So now let me explain to you, why CP keeping Faith just bothers me on so many levels.

The competitive level: How can any program keep a coach around after that coach can't produce ONE winning season after eleven years? A coach should be given at most five years to turn things. If after five years, aren't getting better, a coach should be fired!!! Very, very few exceptions.

To make matters worse, all this happening in a very bad Big West. Where during the last EIGHT straight years, there have been at least TWO Big West teams that have lost 20 games or more. In 7 of those years, there were three or more teams that lost 20 or more games. So even with that Faith can only produce ONE winning season in 12 years?

I already wrote about how much of a fraud her 08-09 record is since she only beat one non conference team, Bakersfield, who had a winning record and she was only 1-4 vs the top 2 BW teams, UCSB and UCR. Even then, she only beat UCR by 2 points on a last second basket. So it was in the BWT semi final game. So what, she lost the next day to UCSB. She lost to #6 seed CSF. She only beat the bottom feeders of the BW, by an average of 8 points, while UCR and UCSB beat the bottom feeders by 12 or more points.

She lost two of her best players to graduation. I highly doubt the 09-10 team will come anywhere close to the 21 wins of last year.

Excuses, excuses, and more excuses: Everything from Faith have been about excuses. if it wasn't injuries, then it was the high academics of CP. I mean come on. Just admit you suck as a coach Faith. I mean every coach suffers injuries. Every coach has their own issues with their university. UCR built a solid program and they have tougher academics and are in the middle of nowhere. CP is in one of the most scenic places on the West Coast.

No self respecting coach who is worth a damn, would think not having a winning record, especially in such a sorry conference, is acceptable.

Denise Curry ruined the program at Cal State Fullerton by going 16-64 overall and 10-35 in the BW. But instead of making excuses and begging for an extension, Curry resigned because she knew she was a clueless head coach. So stop making so many damn excuses Faith and schedule something other than cupcakes, win against that schedule, hell just win baby!!! Since you clearly have proven you can't do that, just resign, instead of begging for an extension.

Welcome back the Soviets:

CP has been so secreative about the contract extensions given to Faith. In this story about Faith, I provided a link to a CP press release from 2007 that Faith got a two year contract extension, that ended after the 08-09 season.

But much to my surprise, after the 08-09 season, it was mentioned that Faith had ANOTHER year left on her contract. A search of the CP's website did not show any press release about Faith receiving an extension. A call and email to the CP athletics media relations office, got nowhere. The guy said, I'm not at my computer, so I can't help you. I never got a reply to my email inquiring about Faith's contract situation. Clueless AD. Comrade Alison Cone never replies to my emails or the emails from CP fans who have written Clueless Comrade Cone about Faith's terrible record.

Why does CP keep almost everything about Faith top secret? Is Clueless Cone's real last name Khrushchev or Brezhnev? Maybe she is afraid of the backlash from CP fans? Here's a toast of vodka Comrade Cone.

Seriously though, CP is a state school that is funded by public tax money. There is no reason for CP to keep things like a contract extension secret. Hell, Faith's salary is public information. So why CP won't release any information about Faith getting a contract extension, is beyond me, especially since we sure as hell don't live in Soviet Russia.

The Race Card: I know people don't like to talk about race. That is why there is and will always be a race problem in the US. Faith is white. Clueless Allison Cone, the AD at CP, is white. CP is in a lily white area. They fired the last head coach, after two terrible seasons. The coach, Karen Booker, was black.

Why was CP so quick to fire Booker but put up with Faith for 11 straight losing seasons? If you don't think it has anything to do with the fact that Faith is white, please stick your head in the sand. While there are some examples of white coaches not getting a fair chance to turnaround a program, see Cal State Fullerton, Barbara Ehardt, nobody can say that Faith didn't get a fair chance to turn CP around. ELEVEN, 11!!!! long, losing seasons before being able to produce a winning record but CP still keeps a white head coach? Would a black head coach get the same chance? If you really believe that, then I have some land to sell you.

There is no way any black head coaches would have been able to survive 11 straight losing seasons. Almost all black head coaches will only get the length of their original contract to produce a winner. In 2003 a wave a black head coaches were fired, didn't get an extension etc. Traci Waites, a former player at Long Beach St. was one of those coaches. Waites went 53-85 (.384) overall record and 20-62 (.244) Big East mark during her five seasons. Ok it was the Big East, one of the best conferences. But anybody can see that type of record isn't good enough.

This is Faith's record in her first five seasons.

2001-02 11-17 7-9
2000-01 12-17 5-9
1999-00 9-19 5-10
98-99 8-18 2-13
97-98 6-20 3-12

Totals 46-91 22-53.

Just looking at the numbers, Waites had a better overall record and only won two less games in conference. Of course comparing the Big East, with UConn, Miami, Notre Dame, Rutgers to the BW is like comparing Phillips BBQ to a national chain that cooks their ribs in an oven and drowns it in BBQ sauce. So Waites record is much more impressive, considering the level of competition she played, compared to the Hostess schedule Faith always plays.

So tell me why Faith got six more years at CP but Waites was let go by Pitt? No, it has nothing to do with Faith being white and Waites being black, right?

Coming and Going of Coaches

2009-08-29T02:03:00.000-07:00

There has been many chances to BW coaching staffs since the end of the 08-09 season.

Cal Poly.

Of coure, Clueless AD, Alison Cone allowed Faith Mimnaugh to stay on as head coach. Even after Faith already produced excuses for possible failure for the 09-10 season.

I love this part of the story: Mimnaugh said she doesn’t expect to have to duplicate the results of this past season — when her team tied the program record for wins and advanced to the finals of the Big West Conference Tournament — in order to be rewarded with a contract extension.

Here is another story where Faith makes more excuses about why it took so long for her to have a winning season.

Love this excuse by Faith: "Cal Poly, because of the integrity of the university and the academic excellence, it's taken longer to build this house," Mimnaugh said, "but we've done it the right way. We haven't brought in trash people, we graduate all of our kids and we play team basketball. "It's a nice strong house, and it's just taken longer."

Um, Clueless Faith, UCR has higher academic standards than CP and it didn't take John Margaritis 11 years before having a winning record. None of his kids got into trouble. He also didn't have a Hostess non conference schedule.

Great to see Cal Poly setting the bar high for the BW.

Shandrika Lee left to become an assistant at Army.

Faith hired former Cal player, Kristin Iwanaga as Lee's replacement.

Cal State Fullerton:

Marica Foster hired former UCR standout, Crystal Harris as assistant coach to complete her first coaching staff at CSF.

Cal State Northridge:

Of course CSN AD, Rick Mazzuto kept Staci Schulz, spinning her 08-09 record as one of the best turnaround seasons in the NCAA. Well, hell, when you win ONE damn game, you can only go up.

Abby Vaughn left CSN for Loyola of Maryland.

Staci Schulz hired former Hawaii and Long Beach St. assistant Pat Charity to replace Coach Vaughn. Charity was also head coach at Western Michigan. Charity is the only former D-1 head coach, working as an assistant coach in the Big West. This is a very good hire, as CSN gets a coach with over 25 years of D-1 experience.

An interesting note: Pat Charity was an assistant at Hawaii last season, when head coach Jim The JERK Bolla, kicked a player in practice!!! Of course the jerk was fired.

Here is the interesting part, Staci Schulz was an assistant at UNLV, when a coach attacked a player during practice. Schulz was NOT the coach who attacked the player. I believe the coach who did attack the player was placed on leave and didn't return to UNLV the year after. I think that coach moved onto San Jose St. How anybody can hire a coach who attacked a player, is beyond me.

What are the chances of two coaches being on the same staff, that witnessed another coach striking a player?

Long Beach St.

Jody Wynn filled out her first coaching staff at Long Beach St., with Derek Wynn, Jeffrey Cammon and Laura Freimuth.

UCI

Audi Spencer left UCI to continue her basketball career overseas. As of today, no replacement has been annouced.

Molly Goodenbour should make something right and hire former UCI assistant Chris Ellis. Ellis was the coach in charge of the program, after former head coach, Molly Tuter, resigned. He kept the team together and how was he rewarded? But not being offered a job with the new coaching staff. If any coaches are looking for a good quality assistant coach, Chris Ellis would be a great choice.

UCSB

Selena Ho a former All BW player at UOP and an Oregon assistant coach, has replaced Evan Unrau, as an assistant coach at UCSB.

For you slow people and Cal State Long Beach graduates, sorry samething, if a BW school wasn't listed that means there was no changes to their coaching staff.

Coaching Carousel

2009-03-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

The annual coaching carousel has begun.

Long Beach St.

On April 4, 2009, Long Beach St. named Jody Wynn, head coach.

Long Beach St fired Mary Hegarty on March 11, 2009. Hegarty started off well, mostly with former coach, Dallas Bolla's players, but recruiting fell off dramatically. Good choice by Long Beach St. to let Hegarty go.

If Mark Trakh is let go at USC, don't be surprised to see Trakh at Long Beach St. Others under consideration include, Meg Sanders, assistant coach at Arizona St., Chris Danker, former head coach at Santa Clara and Colorado St. and Jody Wynn, current USC assistant.

USC:

On May 1, 2009, USC announced the hiring for former LA Laker Micheal Cooper as head coach.

The word around USC is that Mark Trakh will not have his contract renewed. If Mike Garrett does not give Trakh a new contract, he is an idiot. AN IDIOT. Trakh has done a great job recruiting, his classes are in the among the best in the nation. What has hurt Trakh is the injuries suffered by those recruits. If Trakh had those players and had this same record, he would be underachieving. But he has done a great job dealing with the injuries and still winning, 16-18 games.

Cal State Fullerton:

At Cal State Fullerton, Dr. Mary Alice Jeremiah announced that she would retire, after the 08-09 season, on October 28, 2009. Fullerton then announed that Marsha Foster signed a four year contract to replace Dr. Jeremiah.

I strongly feel that Fullerton made a big mistake by not opening up the job and seeing how good the pool of candidates maybe. Fullerton could still have included Foster in that pool. But just giving her the job is a big mistake.

This isn't a reflection of Coach Foster. But as assistant coach and the coach in charge of recruiting, she has to take some of the blame for the lack of success the past six years at CSF.

And if people don't think that Foster being black didn't have anything to do with it, go stick your head in the sand. There will be no protests by the Black Coach's Association, because Fullerton didn't do a search, because the job went to a black woman.

Cal Poly

Faith Mimnaugh, after 11 long, losing seasons, finally had a winning season at Cal Poly, going 21-11, 11-5 in the Big West. But a closer look at that record shows she padded her schedule with cupcakes.

Faith won 8 games in non conference.

New Mexico St.
USD
UM Kansas City
Idaho
USF
Illinois Chicago
Eastern Washington
Bake (a team she went 1-1, against)

Of those teams, only two teams had winning records, San Diego and Bake.

All the teams except Bake are in a conference. Bake beat a lot of other indys that padded their record.

None of those teams made the NCAA or NIT.

Overall record of those eight teams 103-135. Is that a tough schedule?

In the BW she finished 3rd in the conference. Did not beat the top two teams, UC Santa Barbara and UC Riverside, in the regular season. Beat #2 UCR in the BWT.

She lost to the #6 seed CSF.

She beat both #7 seed UCI and #9 seed LB, by a total of 15 points in the four games against those two schools. And beat #8 seed CSN by 16 points in the two games. You're telling that the 3rd seed can only beat the bottom feeders of the BW by an average of only 7-9 points a games?

Just for comparison, #2 UCR beat UCI by 36 in their two games. That is an average of 18 points a game. About TEN more points per game, than Faith was able to beat UCI.

Remember this all happened in a BW, that had four teams, Fullerton, Northridge, Long Beach, and Irvine, finish with 20 or more losses. Five teams, the previous four and Davis, over half the conference, that had 18 or more losses. Only 3 teams, out of 9, finished with a wining record.

Kay Yow

2009-01-24T19:15:00.000-08:00

Today, the game of basketball losts a true champion and legend. Kay Yow, head coach of North Carolina St. passed away after a very long battle with breast cancer. A list of Coach Yow's accomplishments would be so long. She touched the lives of so many people and is one of the true pioneers of the game.

She will be missed.

The Big West Conference- UC Riverside

2009-01-17T00:46:00.000-08:00

On the on going look at Big West schools, www.lawomenshoops.com looks at UC Riverside (UCR).

UCR was a Division 2 program until they made the move to D-1 in the late 90's after students voted to raise their fees to fund the move. UCR became members of the Big West in 2001-02. Jennifer Young was the head coach for UCR when the Highlanders made the move up to D-1. Young was hired for the 1997-98 season.

1997-98 15-11
1998-99 8-19
99-00 11-16
00-01 9-18
01-02 16-13 First year in BW
02-03 8-20
03-04 7-21

Young took her team through the four year provisional years to D-1. In their first year in the Big West, UCR, went 16-13, finishing tied for second in the Big West, with Pacific. They would lose to Pacific in the BW Tournament semi finals. But that team was a senior laden team, lead by Amy Houchens and Julie Shaw. Houchen was 1st team All BW. After that season, Young faced a rebuilding year, with only Cassandra Reeves returning from the year before.

They team would struggle to an 8-20 record. The following season would also be a struggle, 7-21. Athletic Director Stan Morrison decide that Young wasn't the coach to lead UCR to greater heights and decided not to renew her contract.

In one of the best kept secrets ever, UCR did a search and found John Margaritis, an assistant at Northern Arizona, to take over the program. What I mean by best kept secrets is that, UCR never made public the people on the search committee, hell, if there was even a search committee, or any of the finalists for the job.

Hiring a male head coach may upset the old girl network that ruins women's basketball. But unlike some other hirings, San Diego St. hiring Jim Tomey, who had never coach women's or girls basketball before, UCR hired a coach with plenty of experience coaching women's basketball. I never have an issue with a school hiring a male coach, who has coached women's basketball before. But it's not right for any school to hire a male coach, who has never coached women's basketball.

Also for the idiot, female fans who hate the hiring of any male coaches, just shut up. You are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Coach Margaritis was lucky, in that Coach Young signed Kemie Nkele. Nkele would become the cornerstone for the turnaround of UCR. So with Nkele and basically the entire team back, who won jsut 7 games the year before, Margaritis lead them to a winning season, going 16-13, for the 04-05 season. Nkele was Freshmen of the Year and 1st team all BW.

Then Margaritis and his coaching staff signed a group of freshmen who would become great players for the program, Amber Cox and Seyram Gbewonyo. They would go:

16-15 7-7 in the 05-06 season and won the BWT. The Highlanders ended Cal State Santa Barbara's streak of 11 straight BWT championships. UCR would lose to #1 seed North Carolina in their first ever appearance in the NCAA tourney.

In the 06-07 season, UCR improved, going 21-11, 12-2 in the BW and winning their second straight BWT Championship. They would play Arizona St. tough in the first round of the NCAA before losing.

The 07-08 season would be a struggle, 14-16, 10-6, because of injuries to Kemie Nkele. UCR would end up losing to UC Davis in the BWT semi finals.

08-09 season brought a healthy Kemie Nkele and a senior laden class. UCR would go 19-12, 14-2, and lost to Cal Poly in the BWT semi finals.

Now some people will consider that a successful 4-5 year run. While I will give UCR credit, it was a good run, I think they underachieved.

UCR did toughen their schedule during that time. They even beat a top 20 team in the 08-09 season, Vandy.

But they didn't win another BW championship after the 06-07 season. They didn't add anymore impact players to their roster after the Amber Cox and Seyram Gbewonyo class. Hell they didn't add an outside shooter who would have really opened things up for Nkele inside. Maybe that outside shooter could have put UCR over the top?

So some questions about UCR's rise and possible fall:

But how did UCR rebuild so quickly? They had to overcome a few drawbacks. It is Riverside, there is nothing to do there. You're in the middle of the desert, hot as hell, not close to LA or the beach. Academics: It is a UC and while people say UCR is the safety school for UC's, UCR still does have a smaller pool of recruits.

So with all those drawbacks, UCR was able to find under the radar type recruits, who came together under a good coaching staff.

Why did their recruiting suffer? IMO the major reason was after assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, Seton Sobolewski, left to become head coach at Idaho St. after the 06-07 season, recruiting suffered. The staff wasn't able to find or get those impact players that Seton brought to UCR.

Now UCR has recruited some D-1 transfers, including a set of twins who played at Arizona, for the 09-10 season. But they are looking a major rebuilding program. How long will this rebuilding take? Only time will tell.

They do have a very good coach who can blend together talent, quickly. He now needs to work on bringing that talent into the program on a consistent basis. Not once every 4-5 years.

The Big West Conference-UC Irvine

2009-01-14T00:16:00.000-08:00

On the on going look at Big West schools, www.lawomenshoops.com looks at UC Irvine (UCI).

First some background. Collen Matsuhara took over as head coach for the 1991-92 season. She replaced Dean Andrea who was the head coach for thirteen seasons. The first three seasons were tough:

1991-92 5-22
1992-93 2-24
1993-94 5-22

But things turned around during the 94-95 season, UCI went 19-11, won the Big West Tournament, and went to the NCAA Tournament, losing to Stanford.

During the 1995-96 season, UCI struggled, going 12-16 but quickly rebounded and went16-13 during the 1996-97 season. Then to the surprise of many Dan Guerrero, did not renew Colleen's contract. Yes, that Dan Guerrero, the current athletic director at UCLA. The AD who hired Tricky Ricky to lead their football program into NCAA probation. There were many theories as to why Dan didn't resign Colleen; he wanted a male coach, he didn't think Colleen could lead UCI to a higher level. Either way he did hire Mark Adams, Colleen's top assistant.

Adams would stay at UCI for seven full seasons and was basically forced to resign seven games into his eighth season.

Adams would continue some of the success of Colleen, early on but then basically went feast or famine, having one winning season, then having a bad season.

1997-98 16-11
1998-99 11-16
99-00 12-15
00-01 16-14
01-02 8-20
02-03 17-12
03-04 6-20

Some of Coach Adams' problems had to do with injuries to players. Many highly touted recruits never played or rarely played due to injuries.

Then after a 0-7 start to the 04-05 season, UCI forced Coach Adams to resign. By this time Bob Chichester was the UCI AD. Molly Tuter was named interim head coach by Chichester. Molly would go 8-14, for the rest of the 04-05 season.

Chichester, again making the mistake that many BW schools have done, didn't do a real search and just gave Molly a four year contract. Tuter had a lot of good ideas of improving UCI. The biggest and most radical difference was recruiting players from overseas. Tuter's first real recruiting class, players who entered UCI for the 06-07 season, included players from the Netherlands and Latvia. But of those four players she signed, only one player remains on the team this season, Rebecca Maessen. The following season, 07-08, she signed a player from New Zealand. But again that player, Kim Barnes left UCI.

Then in a surprise move Molly Tuter resigned in late May of 2008. There were some rumors as to why Tuter resigned, but I have too much respect for Coach Tuter and will not spread those rumors.

To my shock, UCI did do a search, even hiring a search firm, ChampsSearch to help in finding a head coach. Billie Moore, Hall of Fame coach for UCLA and Cal State Fullerton, was in charge of this search. But UCI wasted an entire month looking for a coach between the time of Tuter's official resignation and the annoucement of the hiring of the ChampsSearch.

On August 4, 2008 UCI announced the hiring of former Stanford star, Molly Goodenbour. Goodenbour was an All American at Stanford, won two national championships, being named the Most Outstanding Player for the 1992 Final Four played at the LA Sports Arena. Goodenbour would play overseas, then in the ABL and WNBA.

Goodenbour started her coaching career as an assistant at University of San Francisco, USF for the 1994-95 season. She would then continue her playing career with the ABL and WNBA. After retiring as a player, she was an assistant coach for one season at Santa Rosa JC, then became head coach for three seasons,

2002-03 20-10
03-04 24-6
04-05 25-5

Goodenbour would then return to USF as an assistant for the 2005-06 season. After that season she was named head coach at D-2 Chico St.

06-07 24-5
07-08 28-6

While Goodenbour was successful on the court, her tenture at Chico St, was marred by many players being kicked off the team and some leaving the program, including the star player and hometown favorite, and reports of verbal abuse and intimidation of players. You can read all the details here.

There are always two sides to each story and who knows whether or not the former head coach at Chico St, Lynne Roberts didn't have anything to do with it. One of the players who quit and complained the most, Amber Simmons, transfered to BW rival Pacific. Surprise!!! Pacific just happens to be where Lynne Roberts became head coach.

Now I'll be honest, I've followed Goodenbour's career since she was at Stanford. So while I try to be unbiased, I am on Goodenbour's side in this situation. I would be even if I wasn't a fan of Molly before hand. When playing sports, it's accepted that coaches will just profanity at times. It's accepted that coaches will yell at players. Of course there are limits but I don't think Goodenbour came close to crossing any lines, if in fact those allegations, mentioned in the story, are true.

Kids these days need to grow up and stop being coddled and just take the yelling and stop crying. I think many kids think being mistreated means, they didn't get their way. And they also need to learn that when things go wrong, they can't go crying to mommy and daddy and expect them to make things better. If they have an issue with a coach, go talk to that coach. You're an adult now, mommy and daddy shouldn't be a crutch anymore.

UCI is currently 3-13. Goodenbour of course deserves a chance to be successful.

So why can't UCI be successful? They have good academics, a wonderful, if boring as hell, location, and of course great weather. But some issues I've heard is the lack of commitment to athletics at UCI. This is shown by UCI having funding issues for athletics. Yes, they did add baseball but only because students voted to raise their fees to pay for it.

Facilities: While the Bren Center is a very nice arena, the other support facilities are lacking. They team doesn't have a lockerroom or a team room. Crawford Hall which houses the athletic department offices, is outdated and UCI athletics has outgrown those facilites. Now they did build some portable offices for some sports, baseball for instance to relieve overcrowding in Crawford Hall. But what about improving support facilities for the women's basketball program? Coach's Offices actually inside the Bren Center? A team room inside the Bren Center?

Salary. Molly Tuter didn't make $100,000 as a first year head coach. I do not know Molly Goodenbour's salary but I bet it's not much higher than $110,000. With that kind of salary, how does UCI expect to attract and keep good quality coaches? Factor in the high cost of housing, especially in OC, and that $100,000 doesn't go very far. Assistant coaches don't make much either. One coach actually took a pay cut from his job as a teacher, to become coach at UCI. UCI has to increase salaries for the entire coaching staff.

But dispite all this, I think UCI has made some strides. The fact that the new AD, Mike Izzi, actually did a search was shocking, since the last two coaches, Adams and Tuter, were promoted to head coach. Then Izzi figured out they don't have a clue about how to conduct a search and/or weren't getting enough good candidates, they hired a search firm. Whether that search firm found the best candidate, remains to be seen.

But I think UCI did the right thing hiring a search firm. But now they need to hold Goodenbour to a high standard. If things aren't turning around by the third year, they need to put her on notice and tell her she needs to win or she will not be getting a new contract.

With the sorry state of women's basketball in the BW, there is no reason why a team can't turn things around within three years.

The Big West Conference- Cal State Northridge

2009-01-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

In an ongoing look at schools in the Big West Conference, www.lawomenshoops.com looks at Cal State Northridge(CSN).

First some background Cal State Northridge moved up to Division 1 for the 1990-91 season. They struggled to find funding for all programs, including 1-AA football, and a conference to call home. In the 94-95 season they were members of a four team conference called the America West Conference. Cal Poly, Sac St, Southern Utah were the other teams in the AWC. The NCAA requires six teams for a conference to have an automatic bid to the NCAA basketball tournament, thus with no automatic bid to NCAA championships, the AWC, wasn't really a conference. The America West Conference only lasted two seasons, 94-95 and 95-96. Starting with the 96-97 season: Cal Poly went to the Big West. CSN and Sac. St accepted invitations to the Big Sky Conference. Southern Utah would later accept an invitation to the Mid Con Conference, now call the Summitt League. After the 2000-01 season CSN became members of the Big West Conference because CSN couldn't improve their football facilities to satisfy the Big Sky Conference.

Kim Chandler was CSN's head coach from 1992-93 to 1994-95. Well, she was named interim head coach, nine games into the 1991-92 season and then got job full time after the season.

There is no doubt Chandler had a lot of things to deal with during her time as head coach. Money being a big factor, working with only about eight scholarships, which is half of what the NCAA allows for women's basketball. A limited recruiting budget. No conference and even in the American West, didn't have an automatic bid to the NCAA. Of course, the lack of facilities. Then in 1994, the Northridge earthquake. Things got so bad at CSN that the WBB program was going to be cut, if a student fee referendum in 1995 didn't pass. The referendum was passed thus saving women's basketball.

But the biggest question hanging over Chandler was, whether or not she was qualified too be a D-1 head coach. Chandler was hired as head coach when she was 26 years old. She didn't have much experience prior to be hired. She was an assistant coach at Bowling Green for a season and Florida Souther for one season, before being an assistant at CSN for a year and a half, before being named interim coach. So at best a 26 year old coach with about three years experience as an D1 assistant coach. Sixteen players and six assistant coaches left the CSN program during Chandler's tenture, many because they were unhappy with Chandler. Chandler resigned in March of 1995.

Chandler was replaced by Oregon St assistant coach Micheal Abraham. Abraham was the long time assistant coach at Long Beach St, when LB was a top 5 women's basketball program. Abraham came with some NCAA baggage. The NCAA would place Oregon St on probation for violations that occurred during the time Abraham was on staff at OSU.

Abraham was brash and confident, some would say cocky. He recruited from all over the world!! CSN had players from France, Serbia, and Sweden on the roster during Abraham's tenture. By the third season, Abraham was starting to see the rewards of his recruiting efforts, winning 14 games.

95-96 5-22
96-97 4-23 First year in the Big Sky
97-98 14-14

But in the fall of 1998, things came crashing down on Micheal Abraham. He was arrested for helping broker a drug deal. He would eventually serve time in federal prison. Of course he resigned as head coach at CSN. After his arrest, there were newspaper reports that players suspected drug use by Coach Abraham but the athletic director at the time, Paul Bubb, did nothing about their concerns. This would lead the resignation of Bubb and Judith Brame, Sr. Associate Athletic Director.

Frozena Jerro replaced Abraham as interim coach for the 98-99 season. The 98-99 season would turn out to be the pinnacle for CSN. They went 21-8, winning the Big Sky regular season and post season championships. They lost to Colorado St in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

At the Big Sky Championship game vs Portland St., it was announced that Frozena Jerro was given a contract to be the head coach at CSN. Classic case of both politics and thrill of the moment, getting the better of the athletic director, Sam Jankovich, who was hired to straighten the mess that was CSN's athletic department. Jankovich was the AD at Miami during the rise of the Hurricane football program.

But Jerro had very little experience as a college assistant coach. She was an assistant at Houston for two seasons, 93-94 and 94-95, and one season at King Junior High School in Berkeley. Then one season, 97-98 at CSN. That is not enough experience to hire somebody as a head coach.

But when a coach leads a team to their first NCAA tourney and happens to be black, there is no way you can't hire that coach without some serious badlash. But the next three years Jerro proved she couldn't handle being a head coach at the D1 level. Going from 21 wins, in her first year, to 9 wins in her last full season.

The program was a place where players recruited by Abraham, transfered and/or players not getting along with the head coach and the players recruited by Jerro were not as talented as the players they replaced. Jerro would resign five games into the 01-02 season.

1998-99 21-8
1999-2000 18-10
00-01 9-18
01-02 0-5 First year in the Big West.

Then CSN promoted Ken Turner and Paula Nirschl as interim co coaches for 01-02 season. They would finish the year with a 2-19 record.

But CSN to their credit did a full search. In a surprising move, athletic director Dick Dull, hired Tammy Holder. But unlike Jerro and Chandler, Holder had lots of experience, she was head coach at Richmond and the Seattle Reign of the ABL and was an assistant for eight years. The surprising part was that Holder told me didn't even know where Northridge was, when she saw the head coaching position opening in the NCAA news. As a side note, John Margaritis, the current UCR coach was among the finalists for the job that was given to Holder.

But after two tough seasons, she got things turned around in her third year.

02-03 3-24
03-04 6-20
04-05 18-11

But just when the future for WBB looked bright for CSN, in the summer of 05, Holder left to be an assistant at South Carolina.

Instead of doing a full search to find a replacement, CSN just promoted Staci Schulz to head coach. Schulz had only eight years of college coaching experience, never being a head coach. Her first year was a bit tough since she lost star player Ofa Tulihihifo to a leg injury. But Schulz's second season, 06-07, with Ofa and six other seniors, she again underacheived and won only 13 games. The 07-08 season saw a diaster for CSN, 1-26, sinking to depths they haven't seen since the Kim Chandler era.

05-06 10-20
06-07 13-16
07-08 1-26

So in the past 15 years, CSN has made the mistake of hiring an inexperience head coach, not once, not twice, but three times!!!! Yes, three different AD's did the hiring but they all made the same mistake.

One other thing that should be mentioned is the lack of experience of the assistant coaches at CSN. The third assistant coach is usually a former player who recently graduated, so it's expected that the coach will be inexperienced.

But the other two assistant coaches should not be inexperienced. During the 1998-99 season, Frozena Jerro, Karen Howell and Tara Harrington were the assistant coaches. The combined D-1 experience for the three? THREE years, all by Coach Jerro, who would be named interim head coach after Coach Abraham was arrested. Harrington was the third assistant, just finished her playing career at Stanford.

In the 2001-02 season, Ken Turner, Paula Nirschl, and Denise Woods had a combined, ZERO years of D-1 experience. Woods being the third assistant, after finishing her playing career at USC. Combine that with the inexperience of Coach Jero, six years in D-1, three as head coach, and you have a recipe for failure.

Even the coaching staff for the 08-09 season is inexperienced, Carla Houser has seven years experience as a D-1 assistant coach. All with CSN. Abby Vaughn has been at CSN for two years. Before that, Vaughn only one years worth of D-1 experience, at San Jose St. Cory O'Dell, was the former head coach at Chaminade and an assistant at Alaska-Anchorage, both D-2 schools, but has no D-1 experience before coming to CSN.

So increasing the salaries for both head and assistant coaches will greatly improve the ability to attract coaches with more experience. This is something the school needs to do.

As of today, CSN is 3-12. Will Staci be resigned to a new contract after this season? I believe she signed a four year contract when she was hired. Will the current CSN AD, Rick Mazzuto, make the same mistakes of three other AD's? What standards will Mazzuto use to judge her record? He certainly can't be happy with the direction the program is going. But then again he could be just like every other BW AD and maybe he could care less about the WBB program.

The Big West Conference- Cal Poly

2009-01-05T22:46:00.000-08:00

I prefer to call the Big West conference, the Big Worst conference, because in women's basketball it is a terrible conference. For SEVEN STRAIGHT, that's right, SEVEN STRAIGHT years there have been two or more BW teams that lost 20 or more games.

01-02 season: Fullerton, Northridge, and Irvine.
02-03 season: Fullerton, Northridge, and Riverside.
03-04 season: Fullerton, Northridge, Riverside, and Irvine.
04-05 season: Fullerton, Irvine, Pacific.
05-06 season: Northridge and Pacific.
06-07 season: Long Beach, Irvine, and Pacific.
07-08 season: Northridge, Long Beach, and Irvine. Cal Poly and Fullerton both lost 19 games each.

For the 08-09 season, Long Beach, Irvine, and Northridge have 10,11, and 12 losses already. Anybody dare to say two of those teams WON'T lose 20 games?

So what are the problems? Why are BW schools losing? I will take a school by school look of Big West schools that are struggling. But first some general comments.

The first question should be, what are the expectations for BW Women's Basketball. I'm not expecting any BW school to become the next UConn or Tenn. But the BW can become a good conference with a RPI, as a conference between 12-15, a solid mid major. Not the 25 over below, meaning one of the worst conferences in the nation. So what's preventing the BW from getting to that level?

In my opinions scholarship money is not one of the reasons why BW schools are losing. Yes the BW doesn't have the money of the bigger schools in conferences where football brings in a ton of money. But all Big West schools must provide 80% of NCAA maximum for scholarships. So all BW schools have at least funding for 12 scholarships. The NCAA allows 15 schoalrships for women's basketball. Twelve scholarships are more than enough to win. Plus all BW schools spend about the same amount of money for WBB. It's not like one school spends, $250,000 with another school spends, $5 million. Most BW schools spend about $750,000 a year on women's basketball. So one school doesn't have such a big advantage over the other eight schools.

That's not to say BW schools should put more money into women's basketball. They should try to find more funding for programs.

I do think the relatively low salaries for BW head and assistant coaches, is a factor in the poor quality of play in the BW. It's hard to hire good experienced assistant coaches and if you find a good quality assistant coach, it's hard to keep that coach because other schools come in an offer larger salaries.

So what are the reasons for the sorry state of Big West Women's Basketball?

Apathy towards women's basketball:

I think almost all BW schools could care less about WBB. Their attitude is get good kids, who graduate and don't get into trouble. Also don't lose too much money.

No expectations or standards.

In any business there are certain expectations and standards. If you're in sales and you don't meet you sales quotas, you're not going to be working for that company much longer. If you're a teacher and if your students aren't passing the tests, you're not going to be teaching much longer.

But in the BW, why aren't there any standards for winning in women's basketball?

If a coach has been at the school for twelve years and has never had a winning record, how is that coach still at the school?

I wanted to comment on academics. Yes, it's important for kids to graduate. Yes it's important for kids to go to class. But if you have a 100% graduation rate, but can't finish 500 overall, you shouldn't keep your job as head coach.

So let's look at each school. First up Cal Poly and head coach Faith Mimnaugh:

How can a school like Cal Poly keep Faith Mimnaugh for 12 long, losing seasons? In eleven years she was 121-185, with ZERO winning overall records and only two winning records in the BW.

This is her record at Cal Poly:
Year: Overall BW
97-98 6-20 3-12
98-99 8-18 2-13
99-00 9-19 5-10
00-01 12-17 5-9
01-02 11-17 7-9
02-03 10-17 6-10
03-04 14-14 10-8
04-05 11-16 5-13
05-06 13-14 7-7
06-07 14-14 9-5
07-08 13-19 8-8

Cal Poly was a D2 school until the 93-94 season. Starting in 94-95 they moved up to D1. Cal Poly students passing a fee referendum to pay for the move to D1. During the 94-95 and 95-96 seasons, Cal Poly was in the four team American West Conference. Then starting with the 96-97 season they became members of the Big West Conference.

Back in 2006 Cal Poly gave Faith a one year contract extension but never bothered to announce it through the Cal Poly's SID office. WHY? What do they have to hide?

Interesting that all three of Faith's assistant coaches from the 04-05 season left the program. Amy Saneholtz going to Montana St, Kristi Baker to Utah St, and Odessa Jenkins going into private business. Anytime all three assistant coaches leave, that should raise red flags. I'm sure all three assistants thought about the possibility that they would have to move on after the 05-06 season, and decided to leave on their own terms.

In June of 2007 Cal Poly did issue a release that Faith got a two year contract extension, with the contract ending of the 08-09 season.

So during the 06-07 season, what great things did Faith do to get that two year extension? 14-14 overall, 9-5 in the BW, mind you, a BW with three teams that lost 20 or more games.

Currently Cal Poly is 8-5 overall and 1-1 in the BW. But her 7 non BW wins, have come to teams with a 31-42 record. Her 4, no BW losses have come to schools with 30-12 record. Meaning she hasn't beaten a team worth a damn. Her best wins are against San Diego and Illinois-Chicago. Not exactly powerhouses.

Faith's contract is up at the end of the year. The real question is by what standards will Cal Poly use to decide whether Faith gets a new contract? If she has a 16-14 overall record will Faith get a new contract? Shouldn't the decision be over her entire career and not just ONE season or even one week's (during the Big West Tournament) of good play?

At the very least Cal Poly should see that Faith has reach her "ceiling" at Cal Poly. You know what you're going to get. Why not try to find somebody else who maybe able to acheive more?

One other thing. Faith is white. The AD at Cal Poly is white. San Luis Obispo is mostly white. The coach, who Cal Poly fired and Faith replaced after two years was black. Karen Booker had a two year record of 9-44. No doubt she should have been fired. But if Cal Poly was so quick to pull the trigger on Booker's firing, why then have they put up with Faith's losing ways, for so long?

If people don't think race plays a factor in the hiring and firing of coaches, you are clueless. Go stick your head in the sand. And it works both ways. Some black coaches should be fired but aren't because of the potential backlash of firing a black coach.

This wasn't meant to be a Faith Mimnaigh bashing. She is a very nice person who does care about her players. But it's clear to see she is not a good head coach and should not be resigned to a new contract, no matter what her 08-09 record maybe.

Next up, Cal State Northridge and Staci Schulz.

Big West Coach’s Salaries

2009-01-05T22:45:00.001-08:00

Big West Coach’s Salaries

Sept 9, 2005.

I read a lot of articles about women’s basketball. The past few months, the salaries of coaches listed in those articles really got my attention. I couldn’t believe how much coaches in conferences like the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conference are being paid. Coaches in those two conferences are making a lot more than coaches in the Big West.

A San Diego paper listed new head coach Beth Burn’s salary at $129,000 per year. The article also listed the salaries of three other Mountain West Conference coaches. All three made much more than Burns’ $129,000. Don Flanagan at New Mexico made $170,000. Regina Miller made $189,000 at UNLV and Ardie McInelly made $144,723. So roughly half of the nine teams in the MWC make over $125,000 a year. (Union-Tribute August 30, 2005)

In the WAC, former Fresno St. head coach, Stacey Johnson-Klein made a base salary of $150,000 and with incentives she could have made over $225,000. (Fresno Bee, March 17, 2005) San Jose St. head coach Janice Richard got a two year contract extension with an increase in salary to $118,000. (Mercury News, April 7, 2005)

As for assistant coaches:

Adrian Wiggins was the first assistant at Fresno St for three seasons. He made $83,000. (Fresno Bee, March 17, 2005)

Selena Ho was an assistant at UCI for two seasons. She left UCI for Oregon and her base salary at Oregon is $50,000 as the third assistant. (Register-Guard June 1, 2005)

So this got me wondering about the salary structure in the Big West. Before I go on, I am not trying to say or imply that any of the coaches in the BW are not qualified. I am not trying to say or imply that BW coaches do not work hard. I have seen these coaches spend long hours at summer tournaments. I know they spend long days and nights preparing their teams. I have spent time interviewing and/or talking to these coaches. They know a lot about the game of basketball and how to teach that knowledge to players. All I’m trying to point out is that these coaches are underpaid and deserve more money!!!

So I asked each BW coach two simple questions:

Do you make over $100,000?

Do any of your coaches make $50,000 or more?

Of the five coaches who replied, two decided not to answer. Three coaches said they do not make $100,000 and only one said they had an assistant coach who was making $50,000. Also an article in a SLO paper listed Cal Poly’s coach Mimnaugh’s salary as less than $100,000. (The Tribune, March 19, 2005)

I do know from talking to boosters and those close to programs that two other BW coaches who did not reply, do make more than $100,000 and one other assistant coach makes over $50,000. So only two of the nine BW coaches make over $100,000 a year, compared to the MWC where four coaches make over $125,000? Only two assistant coaches make $50,000? A BW coach has been the head coach for nine years and still isn’t making $100,000? There are a lot of coaches in the BW who are being underpaid!!!!!!

Now factor in the high cost of living in California, you have a double edged sword, low pay and high cost of living. Have you seen the housing prices in the areas near BW schools? Think you can buy a house or condo in or around Orange County for less than $500,000? Do you know the cost of a two bedroom apartment in the Valley? An extra $25,000 to $50,000 a year in salary could very well the difference between buying a house and renting an apartment. Or the difference between buying a house within a reasonable commute to the school and having a two hour commute each way.

I don’t want to hear excuses that Fresno St and San Diego St. have football teams and access to more money. Most of the football money goes back into the football program. Both schools are part of Cal State University system. The salary scale at the CSU’s do not vary that much and even if they do vary, it’s certainly not $50,000 more at San Diego St than the four BW schools that are members of the CSU system.

Higher salaries allow for schools to attract, hire, and keep quality coaches. But more than that, I believe higher salaries show a commitment not only to the women’s basketball program but to the overall success of the athletic department. That may mean boosters at each school need to step up and supplement the salaries schools can pay, just like Fresno St. Or shifting resources from other sports that do not get the media attention, after all women’s basketball is a Big West priority sport and should be treated as such.

If schools can’t afford to pay the higher salaries or the booster money isn’t there, then BW schools need to get creative. Maybe the schools could buy houses in the area and then allow the coaches to live in those houses for free or at greatly reduced rent. Or at least work out some deal with home and/or apartment owners so that the coaches get a greatly reduced rate. Saving say $1,500 a month on rent can go a long way for a coach making less than $50,000 a year.

So if the BW is serious about becoming a strong women’s basketball conference they need to start paying their coaches at rates that are equal to those of schools in other conferences.

Ed. Note: I do not think comparing salaries of BW schools and WCC schools is fair. The WCC has eight private schools. Private schools practice non-disclosure when it comes to salaries.

Interview with Staci Schulz

2009-01-05T22:44:00.001-08:00

Interview with Staci Schulz: August 26, 2005

Staci Schulz will be starting her first season as head coach at Cal State Northridge. A native of South Dakota, Schulz has was an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Northridge for the last three seasons. Schulz has also coached at Western Illinois and UNLV.

LA Women’s Hoops had the chance to talk with Coach Schulz. Find out about her love of motorcycles (After all Sturgis is held in South Dakota) and what it will take to Northridge to continue their great turn around.

Tell us about yourself.

I played at a small school, Mount Marty College in South Dakota. It was about one hour from my home town in South Dakota. Back then in South Dakota, I didn’t know AAU basketball, travel teams. I didn’t all that stuff I know now.

I went to graduate school at Western Illinois. There I had a graduate assistantship in the PE department. I was teaching graduate level classes but at the whole time I knew I wanted something to do with basketball. So I volunteered with the women’s team with Regina Miller. Then Regina Miller got the job at UNLV and I started an entry level position at UNLV and after four years I was leading the recruiting efforts.

What brought you to Northridge three years ago?

I was looking to make a change from UNLV, since I had been there for four years. Like Northridge, UNLV at the time was it was in need of a change and was a rebuilding process. After four years at UNLV we made it to the NCAA tournament.

So the Northridge job came up and at the time before Tammy Holder got the job, I had applied here. I have family here so I wanted to be closer to my sister and her family. So I moved into the area and got the assistant’s job with Tammy.

Ed. Note: Former Northridge head coach Frozena Jerro is an assistant at UNLV, under Regina Miller. What a small world?

Talk about how you found out about Tammy resigning and going to South Carolina. Did you have any idea she was going to South Carolina.

No, I didn’t have any idea she was leaving. It was pretty abrupt. I knew she missed home. She’s from the East and is really an East Coast person. But I didn’t know that the job at South Carolina was in the works.

Tammy sat us down and told us that she was going back home. We were like WOW!!! We didn’t know but the decision was already made. It’s not like we knew before the decision was made. But she also played a key role with the administration here to make sure they communicated with us and the team to at least give us a shot at the keeping the staff here.

We were a little nervous for us. But it took a little while during the search process and we were out recruiting almost the whole month of July before we knew anything.

When did you decide to go after the head coaching job at Northridge?

Immediately, I knew I wanted to stay here for the same reasons I moved here. I have my sister here and the rest of the staff have family here too. None of us wanted to go anywhere. Really if I didn’t have the job, I don’t think any of us would still here. Just because that’s really how it goes. When they bring in a new head coach, a lot of times the new head coach wants to bring in his or her own staff. That’s just how it goes in the business. So we were all pulling together and we all wanted to stay. Everyone had the chance to speak to the administration about what they wanted to see happen. The team has their chance to talk to the administration.

The first reports after Tammy left, was that they would hire somebody as an interim coach. Do you know when they changed their minds and offered the permanent position?

Immediately when I talked to administers they told me they wanted to look into it and see where things were. They took into consideration the continuity of the current team and the continuity of the recruiting efforts. We have a good sized class, an impact type class with Ofa, to replace this year.

If they were going to put somebody in as an interim coach, that would have affected recruiting. You can’t go out and recruit someone and say “Come play for us and we’ll let you know who your coach is, in a year.” That was a huge consideration for them.

Also the current team, we had some rebuilding success. We were returning every single player and gaining two more players. I think a major change in the staff could have change the continuity of the direction of the program.

The other two assistants, Carla Houser and Margo Clark are going to stay. Are you going to have a chance to find the third assistant?

As a matter of fact the job listing just got posted today on the NCAA website. That will be a little bit of a process too. We are going to be a bit behind but we’re all been working pretty hard around here. We don’t even have time to decorate our office. (laughing) , recruiting and getting ready for the school year.

Can you talk about Carla Houser and Margo Clark?

The team loves both assistant coaches.

Carla will be taking over my position as recruiting coordinator. As far as I can tell she will do a better job than I did. (laughing) She’s pumped up about it. In the past she done some scheduling.

The new trend in recruiting is that high school junior are committing earlier so that’s been Carla’s focus. Not only are we recruiting our current class but she’s sending letters to high school juniors to get more attention to our school.

Coach Mo is like a big sister in a way. They look up to them. Coach Mo has done film exchange and she’s also our academic liaison. Our team has taken a great jump academically the last year, so she’s done a great job.

A lot of roles can change depending on who the third assistant will be. But all four coaches will be very involved with recruiting.

After you got hired did you have a chance to talk to the whole team?

Not as a whole team. Most of them were around all summer. At the time about half the team was here. So we got them together and Janet Lucas, Interim Athletic Director at Northridge, wanted to talk to them and make a presentation about the hire. They were excited. There was a shout out in the room at that moment. It was a goose bumpy moment for everybody.

Talk about your philosophy on scheduling?

Every year we want to challenge our team. I really think anything can happen. We are still challenging them with the Pac-10 and Mountain West. I’m not so worried about the end record as long as the games we are playing early are used as a learning experience.
I won’t take a big loss for money. I don’t think that prepares us either.

There seems to be some schools in the Big West who is willing to take a big loss for money. Does that help the conference?

Not always. But sometimes that out of the coaching control. I know coaches around the country who say they need so many guarantee games to help the program out.

But if you’re going to do something like that, it has to be a winnable game or at least good competition.

What are your expectations for the team?

To continue to do well. To take more steps forward. A transition can go many different ways. It can go poorly. It can go pretty good, keep it at the same level. Or take a step forward. I think with the continuity of what’s going on, I expect at least to maintain our performance from last year but our goals our to take a step forward. Our goals are to win our conference and that means going to the NCAA tournament. That’s our next goal is to increase our wins even more.

Talk about Ofa. Will she be able to play this year?

Ofa was never really an injury. It was a recurring issue. There was never an additional tear or anything. She’s back at 100%.

The thing about Ofa is that she is so unselfish that it adds to her greatness. She will always thank her team. She do not care if she doesn’t have the greatness night because that means someone else on her team did. But then she’ll turn things around and have a wonderful night.

Talk about the two new players. How did they feel about the coaching change? What kind of impact do you think they’ll make.

They didn’t have any concerns. They will contribute. I can’t say to what extent at this point but I think a great deal. I expect them to contribute but at what level it’s up to them. It’s a transition for them just going to college and then there a change with the coaching but it may go smoother for them than the returning players.

Ashley Blake is a combo guard. She handles the ball real well but she can also shoot the 3. Her high school coach Karen White is now an assistant coach at Pacific.

Crystal Hahs is a post player from San Clemente and she will battle for playing time.

With Crystal you have another post player to go with Katie Holloway and Jazelle Burries. Are you happy with your post position?

I expect all our post player to battle for playing time. I think Katie Holloway needs to battle against players like Jazelle. Jazelle has come a long way since her freshmen year. I really expect all of them to make each other better and go against each other really hard each day and share playing time. I don’t think any one post player is going to have so much more playing time than the other. I think they are all right there.

What difference will the player notice between your style of coaching and Coach Holder’s?

I think we are going to come out a little more aggressive. Coach Holder was always energetic but now we are going to take that energy and add a little killer instinct. I don’t want to change the energy this team has. I hope to press and run even more. It should be an exciting brand of basketball.

The difference between the team this year and last year was they were juniors finally. We know each other and we played with each other. It’s not like how close we can get to winning this game. It’s now we are in every game and can beat anybody. I think it’s a natural progression to have this killer instinct. We have this attitude of Respect All but fear none.

How will it be different for the team with you as Head Coach?

The role is certainly different but the one thing about Coach Holder is she always involved the entire staff in practices. She let us implement an offense.

When the three of us were assistants, I wasn’t the “fun” coach and was closer to the head coach side of things. So I think how they look at me will be similar.

What did you learn most from Coach Holder?

Have fun with this. At my previous experience it was a serious matter. My job became all I ever was. Coach Holder really taught us to have fun in what we’re doing. You have a lot of fun by working hard and getting it down.

We still take basketball very serious. But we have fun and enjoy the people around us.

What do you look for when recruiting a player?

Like our current team, they are all good people. We don’t have issues on our team in the three years I’ve been here. That a lot of Coach Holder but she instilled that on the rest of us. We recruit good people and we turn out great people.

I’m pleased to see we have good students. When you have good students, coaches get to coach. Coaches don’t have to worry about academics.

We have three scholarships for sure. We would love to get a post position who is really physical and a point guard who is really quick and can handle the ball.

The success of the program has allowed us to talk to some players we weren’t able to with the six wins. But now with 18 wins, kids are saying yes I’m interested in talking to you.

How tough is it to recruit with Northridge’s sub par facilities?

It can be challenging. But I don’t worry about that. We try to sell the coaching staff, the current team and where this program is going. We try to sell our school.

We talked about your staff and the athletic department getting new offices. How do you think getting new offices will help?

That will help. The offices themselves here are fine. But pulling up outside and walking into the hallway is not that attractive. The new building will help a lot.

Can you talk about Dick Dull resigning as Athletic Director and becoming head of major fundraising? How that affects your program?

Last year he wasn’t the direct supervisor of many sports because he was really trying to improve our athletic department’s image. I think major fundraising is an extension of that.

I think already he’s hire a wonderful administrator in Janet Lucas. (Interim Athletic Director) She has through the first year was handling the functional, day to day duties. I think the transition was smooth.

I expect great things and I expect to see him around, just not in the athletic department building.

How can the administration be more helpful for your program?

More scholarship dollars. Not that we don’t have our numbers. (NCAA max for women’s basketball is 15 scholarships) but it would give us a little more freedom to recruit across the country. Even though it is my goal is to recruit locally as much as possible. There is just too much talent around here.

Last year, what was your biggest weakness?

I would say early in the season we weren’t in top shape. I really want the team to be in the best shape going into game number one. It’s always different going from practicing for a month and your first game, so you’re always going feel that a little bit. But a lot of times we had to push through because we were a little winded.

Toward the end of the season we had a lot of players with nagging injuries, at a lot of practices we didn’t have 10 healthy players. What would happen is that a lot of players had to play a lot of minutes.

I really feel like if we get them in good shape and bring them along, we’ll have healthier people throughout the year. Which means we’ll have more people contributing and the more people that can contribute the better off you’ll be.

Last year Coach Holder wanted to find a true point guard. Have you found a true point guard?

I think Ashley Blake will contribute. I think most of that goal (finding a point guard) was met. We’re still looking for another point guard this year. Not looking to replace the point guard we have, but we’re looking for even more of a true point guard. Someone with serious ball handling skills.

Let’s talk about some issues in the Big West.

What do you think about losing Idaho and Utah State?

It will be nice not to make that trip. Going to both schools on the same weekend made it very challenging. Both programs are competitive. I’m not sure how that will effect our conference’s RPI. Everybody makes the Big West Tournament so it takes a little pressure off in that respect.

I’m pleased about not having to make the trip, even though I would love to continue to play each team but I don’t know if I want to play them there. Maybe we can combine Utah State with another Utah school.

What do you think about UC Davis coming in?

I think it’s great. They have a great friendly coaching staff, very friendly, good competitive type people. I love communicating with them. It’s been great bumping elbows with them on the recruiting trail.

Going there for the first time last year, a very fun crowd, and fun people to be around up there. It’s not that that bad of a trip with Pacific up there already.

What do you think about the 2pm Saturday afternoon games?

It’s a good efficient thing to do. Because it was between 2 and 4pm we wanted as many 4pm games as possible. Just because it’s a little later in the day and turns into evening at least, you get your shot around without getting up at the crack of dawn.

But the way the economy is right now I can understand not paying for a extra night at a hotel. So I understand it though I do not prefer it.

If I talked to you a year from now, what will have to happen for you to consider this year a success?

Number 1 I want to believe no matter what our record is, we competed every single game, every single minute. I know teams go through slumps. But I think the reason our team is a diamond in the rough, is that they have that competitive spirit about them.

Success is have a similar record and respect from the basketball community, that team really did it again.

But our goals about bigger than what I would consider success.

They still need to make a transition. They are pleased to have the current staff they had the past three years. But it’s still a transition, nobody can deny that. I think making it through the transition with a respectable record and the respect of the basketball community and the players have a good college basketball experience is success, enough.

When you want to get away from basketball what do you do?

I love riding motorcycles. I have a Road King. (That’s a Harley Davidson, for you uneducated people out there.) and I have a horse too. So those are my two escapes. It’s a great thing to be able to do for a couple hours.

(It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Coach Schulz likes to ride motorcycles. After all she’s from South Dakota, home of Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Though surprisingly she’s never been to Sturgis which is like a kid in LA never going to Disneyland.)

Interview with Dr. Maryalyce Jeremiah

2009-01-05T22:43:00.001-08:00

Interview with Dr. Maryalyce Jeremiah: August 11, 2005.

Dr. Jeremiah will start her third season back as head coach at Cal State Fullerton. Dr. Jeremiah had a 112-83 record in her first seven seasons as head coach at Fullerton. She then because Senior Women's administrator, a position she held for eleven years. During that time Dr. Jeremiah was chairperson of the Women's Selection Committeee for two years. She served on the committee for an additional two years.

Dr. Jeremiah coached at Cedarville University, Dayton, and Indiana. Where she becames good friend with Bobby Knight. Coach Knight was a guest speaker at a Fullerton fundraiser back in the early 1990's because of his friendship with Dr. Jeremiah.

I had the chance to sit down with Dr. Jeremiah and talk about her team at Cal State Fullerton. I would like to thank Dr. Jeremiah for taking the time for this interview.

What drives you to be a coach?

Since I was a little kid, I’ve loved the game of basketball. If you know something becomes a part of you, you find out who you are. The game has been so good to me. Basketball has been a jumping off point for everything that I have done in my life.

I think the game is such a life lesson thing. It can impact young people in such a positive way. What we want to do is to develop the complete player which are, the physical development, the social development, intellectual development, and their emotional development of a young person. Everything in our program is based on the development of the young person in those four dimensions.

Talk about your coaching staff:

I think I have the most experienced coaching staff west of the Mississippi River. By experience being the number of years in the profession.

Barb Bausch spent tens years as head coach of Division III, Guilford College in North Carolina. They went to the NCAA many years. What’s interesting was she not only went here, (Cal State Fullerton) but she was in my coaching class that I taught. She was my student!!! She’s a tactician of the game. She’s very technical. She’s very smart. A very, very good teacher of the game.

Marcia Foster is one of the best recruiters. Both Marcia and Barb could be head coaches at Division I schools if that’s what they want. And I know that’s what they want. I told them when they came onto our staff, I will help them in any way I can to get them a job anywhere they want to go. Marcia is just great. She’s a tremendous recruiter.

Eugenia Rycraw was a tremendous player her at Fullerton. Maybe the best player ever to come out of here, she still holds five national records. She played overseas for five years and one year with the Sparks. She’s such a great role model for our players.

The thing I like about my staff the most is that they are ethical, highly principled, they wouldn’t cheat, they wouldn’t be mean to people intentionally. They are the heart and soul of this program.

Is it tough recruiting to Fullerton with it’s lack of top notch facilities?

A basketball court is 94’ by 50’. Is Titan Gym, the Pyramid? No. Is it the Bren Center? No. I don’t concentrate on that because I can’t do anything about that. In my lifetime as a coach, we’re not getting an arena. I hope somewhere down the line that there will be an arena. There has to be and I think there will be. But in my lifetime as a coach, we won’t have an arena. I think it hurts a little bit. But look at the WCC, they all play in gyms except the Jenny Craig Center and Gonzaga’s new arena.

Talk about recruiting. What do you look for?

We try to get better players than what we have. Certainly you look for talent. But we’ve passed up talent for other things. I want players who are serious, disciplined and who are committed, as much as they can be when they are 18. Now that’s the caveat. Kids who want to get a college education. Out of all the years I’ve coach, that includes hundreds of players at four different colleges plus a high school, every player, but one, who has completed their eligibility has a college degree. I have four degrees. I grew up in a college president’s home. So education is a tremendous valve and it still is. Basketball is a means to an end.

So one of the thing we have to know is that these kids want to get a degree. I’ve never talked to a kid who doesn’t want a degree. Some are a little better prepared than others. We will not just take those who are 4.0 students, obviously. We have diversity in our team and in out whole university. But we do want kids who have goals. I always ask them “If you can see yourself doing anything you want, ten years from now, what would it be?” I love dreamers. Nothing is ever achieved unless you dream about it first.

So we look for talent, kids with goals, kids who are as well prepared for the rigors of college academics as we can find. We don’t have a lot of kids who are at risk and we work very hard for the ones that are.

While we’re talking about kids who are having academic problems, can you talk about how Andrea Adams is doing?

She’s not too much at risk anymore!! She came in the year before I came back and had academic problems. Her second year she was not eligible to play the first semester. The second semester she still was not eligible. So we decided it was really important for her to get an idea of what she wanted in life and where she wanted to go. We told her, ‘You need to go get yourself prepared.’ She left the program for a year. I really felt she would go to a JC and get everything going. But she didn’t. She went to school here. But she couldn’t play. She wanted to continue to practice but I said “You haven’t proven you want to be a college student.’ She got herself eligible and she wanted to come back and play. So I told her ‘Yes’ Now she’s totally eligible, she didn’t have to go to summer school, she’s got two more years to play.

Do you think it was Andrea maturing?

I think it was a lot of things. Having something she loved taken away from her. When you have something taken away from you, you can do two things; be very bitter and mad or I got that taken away from me for something I did.

I think her parents were very supportive of her. They wanted her to go to college. They were very supportive of me.

When you were hired, they gave you a three year contract. This is the third year. What is the status of your contract?

No, they extended it to a five year contract. So I have three more years left on my contract. I don’t think about that too much. But I think it has significance for recruiting. But I love what I’m doing and if I think I’m making an impact and we’re getting better, I’ll continue doing it.

What is your philosophy about scheduling?

We have to win the conference tournament because until the conference gets stronger we’re only going to get one team into the NCAA’s. That’s why we play the schedule we play. We open with Colorado, we play USC, I hope we get UCLA back on our schedule. We’ve even talked to Texas Tech about playing there. I get to see my friends, Bobby Knight and Marsha Sharp. I want to play good teams. I know we’ll probably have a hard time beating those teams but that improves our RPI.

Our schedule to me is extremely important. I don’t want to put teams on it that we’re not going to win. We need to win. I told my assistants ‘We need to be a lot better this year. This is a big year for us. If we’re not significantly better than we have to look at what we’re doing.

You said Significantly better, can you put a number of win on that?

As far as number of wins for next year, we need to be over 500. We won eight games both years. Last year was a little bit of a disappointment, I really thought we should have won more than eight games. Are players need to learn how to play together and we have to teach them to play together.

31-0 would get us into the NCAA tournament. That will always be my goal. We were in the tournament two times in seven year and there were only 48 teams and we never won the conference. I would really like to get back there. The conference was stronger back then. Long Beach won the conference, Hawaii and Vegas were strong.

Let’s talk about some issues in the Big West:

Do you agree with having the men and women playing the same days and times?

I liked it better Thursday and Saturday instead of Friday and Sunday because of our player. I think that if you can give players one day when they don’t have to do anything it’s a great thing. When you go Friday-Sunday, you give them Monday off of practice but they still have to go to school. If I can give them a day off, I try to make it Sunday so they can do something else.

What do you think of the 2pm Saturday afternoon starts?

Well I have to wait and see what that does to our small fan base. We don’t have a big fan base and hopefully if we win it get bigger. I think the jury is still out on this.

What do you think of Davis coming into the BW?

I like it. I was on the administrative committee that went to do the review of them for three days. They have great facilities. Sandy Simpson is a good friend and good guy.

What do you think about Utah State and Idaho leaving the BW?

I loved watching Idaho play last year. Those two kids, Mitchell and Emily Faurholt were just awesome. It’s not good that we lose the competitiveness of those two schools.

But it’s good it makes us more homogenous as a conference. All schools are state schools except for Pacific.

Do you think some schools in the BW need to take women’s basketball more seriously in order for the conference to improve?

Yeah to some extent. I think everybody has tried to get on board with full staffing (Having three assistant coaches) and salaries would make a difference in the quality of your staff.

I think they need to pay more competitively but in the conference it’s relatively competitive. But when you’re competing against other conferences it might not be as competitive.

I don’t know a school that is not fully funded with scholarships. I think the big thing is quality and experience of the coaches and having a little more of a national vision. I don’t fool myself, we’re not the Pac-10, Big 10 or all those conferences. We need to be as good as the WCC and at one time we were better than the WCC.

I don’t think a lot of the coaches think about the NCAA tournament. That’s all I think about, being one of the top 64. Everything we do in this program is towards that end. I won’t feel I’ve reached the goals we set for this program until we get back to that tournament. I think they need to be a little bit more like that. Mark French (UCSB head coach) and I are about the only ones that talk about the NCAA. We know about and we want to be there. I think they other ones do too but it just seems so unreachable.

The schools need to support women’s basketball more with the promotions and marketing end of it. They also have to allow them to play who they want but make them play better teams. They need to demand excellence from us and hold us accountable if we don’t achieve it. We need to held accountable. If you’re sitting here five years from now and we’re still winning five games, you’re probably going to be interviewing someone else.

Can you talk about the three players you signed. Who do you expect to make the biggest impact?

Toni Thomas from AB Miller HS has only played basketball for three years. She averaged 20 a game both her junior and senior year. She was conference player of the year. We are really excited about her.

I think Thomas will make the biggest impact only because she plays the 4 or 5 position and we don’t a lot of strength in that position. We have go to get some bigger, impact post players.

Jessica Kallar played on Leon Wood’s team, OC Swish. A very good shooter and passer.

Weathersby is 5’2’ and she can jump out of the gym. She’s going to be our point guard of the future. I think she’ll play some, I wouldn’t be surprised if she played quite a bit.

All these kids are excited about coming here.

Talk about Charlee Underwood

One of the former assistants gave me her name. She played at a small private school. She speaks fluent French. She’s improved so much. Big player from the outside, great rebounder. She’s matured a lot in two years. She needs to step up and be a leader.

The one quote I remember from your press conference was, We’re going to be Fit, Focused and Famous. How far along are you in achieving those three things?

This year we better be more fit than we were last year. Amber has lot a lot of weight and she better have lot a lot more. I think as players they don’t know what they can do. I think we’re more fit than we’ve ever been. I’m a real stickler on that. I just don’t want overweight players.

I think we’re much more focused. We’re not famous yet.

Do you notice a change in the kids from the first time you coached?

Yeah I do but I don’t see it as a negative. I see a lot of negative things. I think they see things more as an entitlement than a privilege and we try to change that. I think they are much more willing to question what you do. They are a product of their upbringing. They are not held accountable.

I think I’m better with them than I was before. I think I’m just as hard, maybe hard. But I’m more willing to talk to them. I’m more willing to sit down and say, ‘I want to know what you think.’ I’m going to tell you what I think. Then we’re not going to talk about it after that. But I’m going to hold them accountable after that. We have a rule, if they don’t go to class they don’t practice. They will sit out as many practices as the amount of classes missed. But I don’t check up on them. But everybody on this campus knows me. I tell them, ‘I feel bad for you. You can’t make a mistake on this campus that I won’t know about. You can’t miss class without me knowing about’ The first year I was here we had 17 practices missed by kids because they didn’t go to class. This year 2 practices were missed by our kids.

Your expectations for the 2005-06 season?

I want to finish in the upper half of the conference because I want to be seeded so I can get to the final game in the conference tournament. I think that’s doable. I think it’s going to be hard. I think our players have to believe we can do it. But we have to do it. I would like to be well over .500 going into the conference.

Interview with Molly Tuter

2009-01-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

Interview with Molly Tuter: April 27, 2005

LA Women's Hoops had a chance to sit down with UC Irvine head coach Molly Tuter. We talked about her expectations for UC Irvine, her playing career and people who have influenced her.

I would like to thank, Coach Tuter for taking the time out of her busy schedule to do the interview. I would also like to thank Stacey Shackleford, UCI sports information director for her help, setting up the interview.

Talk about Molly Tuter, give us some background about yourself.

I grew up in a small town in Alaska. The name of the town is Soldotna. I grew up there from the time I was four years old until I went to college. I was recruited by quite a few colleges. Then I had the opportunity to go to Arizona State, played my four years there. My senior season the WNBA popped up and I had the opportunity to play for the Phoenix team. After that season (Summer of 1997) was over, I went over to Luxembourg to play. After that season was over I got my first coaching job at UCLA, as the third assistant over there. That was seven years ago.

What was it like playing with Hall of Famer, Nancy Liberman?

It was great. It was a lot of fun. She’s the toughest competitors and toughest ballplayers I’ve ever been around. She taught me a lot. I played the position behind her and she was pushing me in practice everyday. I was doing my best to keep up with her. I learned a lot from her. Playing against somebody who is in the Hall of Fame and done what she has done and one of the pioneers of women’s basketball, it was a great experience for me.

At ASU did you play for Charlie-Turner Thorne or Jacqueline Hullah?

I played for both. I got recruited by Maura McHugh, then she resigned. Then I played for Jacqueline Hullah for three years. Then my senior year I was able to play for Charlie.

(Coach Tuter is the third leading scorer in ASU history, with 1,374 career points. She was also a two time honorable mention All Pac-10)

Do you still talk to Charlie?

I sure do. I talked to her a couple days ago. She’s an outstanding coach. She’s done a great job at ASU. Who better to take advice from than somebody who took a program that was basically nothing, when I was there, to a very strong program, not a powerhouse but it’s getting there.

When you were at UCLA, that was their Elite Eight season. Talk about that experience and working for Head Coach Kathy Oliver.

It was an amazing experience. It was a lot of fun to be able to work with a school such as UCLA. To be that successful with that coaching staff was a great experience. Being able to learn and thrown into the fire camp-wise, learning how to direct a camp right away. The second day I was over there, I was in charge of camp. So I didn’t have much of a learning curve.

I was a great experience working with Kathy Olivier. It was a lot of fun. I’m very lucky to work with Pam Walker (Current UCLA assistant coach) and Willet White (Current head coach at Northeastern University, in Boston)

How you became the interim head coach?

Right after Christmas is when I found out about Coach Adams resigning. The administration asked me if I was interested in taking over and finishing out the season. At that point I really didn’t think I had much of a shot to get the full time permanent head coach here.

As time went by the team really bought into what I was selling them. They worked their tails off and it was fun.

Why did you feel that you didn’t have much of shot at being the full time head coach?

Well I had been a part of Coach Adams staff for a long time. There were years we were successful and there were years we weren’t successful and I wasn’t sure what direction they were going to go. I just wanted to make sure the players here had a decent experience to finish out the year. Especially players like Ashley Biggins and Courtney Ferguson, who put their hearts and souls into this program for several years, and I wanted to make sure they had a good experience to finish it out.

What happened after the season? How did you get the permanent job?

Bob Chichester (UCI Athletic Director) asked me if I was interested in the job. I told him “Yes” We talked several times about the job. From those talks I got to know Bob pretty well and I believe he has a pretty good feeling for me. Competitive-wise we are on the same page. I want to win and he wants to win. I have a lot of confidence in his ability to lead the whole athletic program and I know he has a lot of confidence in me to lead the basketball program.

What did you mean when you said “Competitive-wise we are on the same page. I want to win and he (Bob Chichester) wants to win.”

The whole point of Division One athletics is, outside of making successful student-athletes, is winning basketball games. I’m not here so we can be mediocre. I’m not here so we can be happy that we finish 500. I’m not here so we can just win a couple game and one game in the Big West tournament and everybody gets excited. I want to win the Big West Championship. If I’m not aiming for that, I’m not sure why people do this.

I know Bob shares that same feeling in regards to this program and he’s going to provide for me and this program way to be able to compete in the conference year in and year out.

What are you going to need from Bob, facilities wise, to compete in the Big West?

Right now, I don’t think we need anything. I need to do my job and do a good job recruiting these guys and build a work ethic and become more disciplined. I need to teach my team to further, how to win basketball games. They were catching on toward the end of the season on how to finish out basketball games.

As far as administration goes, they have showed me a ton of support and I really don’t believe we need anything but to sign any a couple talented kids.

And for those kids to stay injury free too right?

STAY INJURY FREE. Right. We have had a little bit of bad luck. The team right now is down in the weight room, lifting. Mike Nagler, our strength coach is doing an excellent job with injury prevention type stuff. Shayla Penn our trainer is doing all she can to help out. So we all communicate well to figuring out ways to prevent the injuries we’ve had in the past.

Have you hired any new assistant coaches?

I’m hiring three new assistant coaches. Within the next couple of days, a week at most, I should have my whole staff in place.

What are you looking for in an assistant coach?

People who share my same work ethic and they put an importance on this program that is very similar to mine. I think I need people here that, a lot of their strengths are my weaknesses. I had to sit down and be pretty real with myself to know what my weaknesses were. I also need assistant who are going to be able to relate well with my players. They need to be good mentors to them.

Talk about last year and how the team came together.

Being around the many people I’ve been around while playing and coaching, I think success has a lot to do with confidence and work ethic. So the thing our team needed was some confidence and to feel good about themselves. They need to have fun doing what they were doing. So we set up some drills in practice. We cut back on the time we were spending in the gym. Our practices were about an hour and a half. The first couple games all our focus was to have fun and to improve on a couple thing and relax. We set goals for ourselves in practice. As we achieved those goals as a team and individually, we build our confidence and we felt better about ourselves. And it just snowballed from there and at the end of the season, we won four out of our last six games.

What are you expectations for your team next year?

I expect them to work out people, out rebound people, play a very pressure defense. We aren’t going to make a lot of mistakes. We are going to make all our lay-ups. Make our free throws. Limit our turnovers.

We are going to have higher expectations. These guys now know they can do it. I can be harder on them than I was last year. I think if I am not harder on them, they will be disappointed.

Is everybody from last year’s team coming back?

Everybody but Kristee Davidson, she will be going to Abilene Christian in Texas.

Are you going to be able to sign anybody during the late signing period?

A kid that was with us a couple years ago will be coming back. Shayna Stanley transferred to Southwest LA JC and will be getting her AA. So she’ll be back here next year.

UCI signed three players in November. LAWH has already interviewed Lindsay Allen. Are Kirian Ishizaki and Kelly Cochran still coming to UCI?

All three of them are still coming here. I had a big part recruiting them. I’m excited to have them here, playing for me. As far as I’m concerned they are my recruits and people that I signed.

What are your expectations of Kirian and Kelly and how much of an impact do you expect them to make?

I’m really comfortable with the team we have here right now. I think Kelly and Kirian will add to us. They will give us depth at several positions. They are talented enough to battle for starting spots but they are going to have to earn it. I’m excited for them to come here. They will be good players by the time they are done at UCI.

Do you think the UC admissions requirements hinder your recruiting?

Maybe a little bit. But I don’t think so. It helps us because we find kids who want to go to a high academic institution.

How is the academic support for the team?

It’s outstanding. We have a wonderful support services group. They do everything they can to make sure our kids are successful. We haven’t had anybody fail out since I’ve been here and it’s not going to start now.

Talk about Angie Ned. What does she need to improve upon to be a better player?

The thing that makes Angie is her work ethic, her desire to be successful. One of her goals is to play professional basketball. She’s going to be a great leader for this team. Ned’s not going to take no for an answer and she won’t settle for losing.
Ned’s always done what I’ve asked her. She’s worked endless hours on her jump shot. She needs to improve her ball handling.

I have very high expectations for her. She has very high expectations of me and we both have very high expectations of this program.

Who do you expect to improve the most next season?

Kimberly Martin. She hasn’t played in a couple years and she’s working her tail off right now to get in shape. She’s had a complete attitude change from the time she was 17 years old, as a freshmen, now she’s 20, 21. She’s a great kid. She’s an outstanding teammate. She has so much desire to win, even more so than Ned.

Kalee Davidson, Stephanie Duda, I think Miranda Forry is going to improve a lot. I think everybody is going to improve. Everybody wants to improve.

Who is your most competitive player?

Duda. There are probably three players whose button I can push, to send them over the edge. I think Stephanie will do whatever it takes to win. I just know she’s going to figure out a way to get playing time.

Duda is coming back from a knee injury right?

Yes, she’s had two knee surgeries. I’ve seen what she’s gone through with those surgeries.

How do you feel about the point guard position?

I’m comfortable with the point guard situation. Melissa Jacob is not a true point guard but can she step in and do a great job for us, like she did last year? No question. Kirian is a freshmen point guard from San Jose and I expect her to get some minutes at point. I’m sure Annie Mai will get some minutes at the point too.

The point guard position has been kind of a weaker position for us but at the same time, all it is, dribble the ball up the court and learning how to penetrate a little bit. I think it has a lot to do with me and my assistants coaching them and learning how to play as a team.

What did you learn most about yourself last year?

Last year was quite the learning curve for me, getting thrown in the fire. I knew confidence was important, but exactly how it can affect a team. I think I learned more about our team than I did about myself. They learned to pull together when they had to. The easy thing to do last year was to fold. A lot of things I’ve learned growing up, I implemented with these guys and I found myself believing it even more.

Talk about the Big West:

I think it’s getting stronger and stronger every year. Last year was a very solid year for the Big West. I thought Long Beach and Idaho would get into the NIT. Santa Barbara is still the cream of the crop. Northridge had an outstanding year. Mary Hegarty has done a great job at Long Beach State. Jeremiah at Fullerton has picked up that program up. John Margaritis at Riverside has done a great job there. I think across the board, they are taking women’s basketball more seriously, including UC Irvine.

How do you feel about UC Davis coming into the Big West?

I think they will be an excellent addition. Sandy Simpson does an excellent job. They beat us twice last year, so we have to find a way to get that stopped.

How does losing Idaho and Utah State effect the Big West?

It’s a little disappointing. I enjoyed competing against Mike. He’s a very competitive guy. He’s a lot of fun to coach against. Raegan did an excellent job at Utah St the first two year.

It’s a little disappointing but at the same time it allows us to get another non conference game in there.

Will the Big West change travel partners now that each school will play Davis?

Yes, they are going to rotate it. We had a Big West coach’s meeting and they were talking about the rotation system.

Have they finalized the rotation system?

I don’t believe so. But it will be Pacific and Davis as travel partners.

Can you talk about your schedule for next year? Was it already set when you took over as head coach?

95% of it was set. The only game I scheduled was UCLA on November 30th. Other than that, Mark had the entire schedule set.

What is your scheduling philosophy?

I want to build our confidence to start the season. Once we get our confidence built, I want to get some games that challenge us. But I’m not going to schedule the top 10 teams in the country. But schedule games that can improve out RPI and give us a measuring stick of where we are at.

I scheduled UCLA next year because mainly for us it will be a good situation. I think it’s a win, win for us. I want to go back to Pauley Pavilion.

Interview with Sandy Simpson.

2009-01-05T22:40:00.001-08:00

Interview with Sandy Simpson.

June 15, 2004

Sandy Simpson will be entering his eighth season as head coach at UC Davis. UC Davis is making the move up to Division One and will be a full Big West member in 2007-08. UCD finished 16-12 in the 2003-04 season. Coach Simpson took the time to answer questions from LA Women's Hoops.

Much thanks to Coach Simpson and UC Davis SID, Bill Stevens for their time and help with this interview.

Talk about having former UCD player, Jennifer Gross as an assistant coach. What does she bring to your coaching staff? (Gross spent the last two years as an assistant coach at San Diego St)
We are VERY fortunate to have Jen joining us as we transition to Division I and the Big West Conference. Jennifer was an All-Region player for us back in the mid-90's and, as a senior, captained a 29-3 squad that placed third in the NCAA DII Championship Tournament. Her character, leadership qualities, talent, and academic commitment (she was an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship recipient) established her as one of the all-time great players in UC Davis history and in 2003; she was inducted into the UC Davis Hall of Fame. In short, she personifies what UC Davis athletics strives to be: a well-rounded student-athlete who compromises in neither the academic or athletic realm.

How will her experience at SDSU help her at UC Davis?
As we transition to Division I play, Jen's experience at SDSU will be invaluable. From the logistics of recruiting, to familiarity with future West Coast opponents, Jen will offer the perspective of someone with recent experiences at DI. She knows what is necessary in order for us to become successful at the next level and I intend to fully utilize her expertise.
Who will be leaving your coaching staff?

Greg Bruce, who contributed a tremendous amount in his three-years with our program, is pursuing a return to the head coaching ranks, where he has already enjoyed a storied career at the DII, DI, and professional ranks. We were fortunate to have his contributions over the past three seasons and wish him the very best in his future pursuits.
What year will UC Davis come into the BW?We will become full-members of the BWC at the advent of the 2007-08 season. Until then, we will play a modified Big West schedule and will continue with the NCAA provisional-member transition steps toward full Division I certification.
Will UC Davis be eligible for the Big West Tournament right away?
No. As part of the NCAA transition process, we will be ineligible for NCAA championship play, and, thus, Big West Tournament play, until we achieve full certification for the 07-08 season.
Have you had a chance to see many BW teams play in person? What did you think of the BW?
I saw the conference tournament this spring and we played Cal Poly SLO back in December. Obviously UC Santa Barbara has been a power for some time and are the current standard for the Big West. Mark French has done an incredible job and it was nice to see them give UConn such a battle in the NCAA's. Idaho was also strong this year and should have, I believe, received an NIT bid. The rest of the conference is improving. I feel Long Beach State will be an impact team next year. Cal Poly and Cal State Fullerton both made good strides this year and UOP was, once again, a contender. At the BWC Tournament, I was impressed with the level of athleticism on all of the teams and realized that we have some work to do to be physically competitive.
The last D-2 school to make the move up was UC Riverside. In their first year in the BW, they tied for second. And let's face it the BW isn't a strong conference. Do you think your team will be competive in the BW right away?
UC Riverside's first-year showing was impressive, but...and this in no way diminishes that accomplishment...the Big West is better now. I don't think you'll see that same scenario again. It's hard to speculate how we might do in our first year or two. We're like an entering freshman player...that first year's value is in developing an understanding of just what it takes to be successful at the next level of play. It will be an educational year for us.
How has your scholarship and recruiting budget grown since the move to D-1?
With 26 sports here at UC Davis, we're a broad-based program that endeavors to serve the needs of all of our sports programs. As a result, we will phase in resources over the four-year transition period. Our scholarship money and recruiting budget will increase each year. We're excited about moving in a direction where we'll be able to help our student-athletes to a much greater degree financially.

Did you change your recruiting focus knowing that UCD was moving up to D-1? If so, how did you change your focus?
Yes and no. No in the sense that we will continue to focus on character and academic aptitude. We're a team sport and we feel that team sport athletes need to be selfless and capable of understanding the riches to be gained from giving of oneself to the team, to the group. And we are adamant that our academic standards will not suffer. Lots of people view that as a constraint, but I see it as a positive. First, our recruiting pool is narrowed for us and we don't dissipate staff time by pursuing non-qualified students. Second, self-discipline is a character trait, whether it be academically or in terms of athletics. There's usually carryover, so we have an opportunity to pursue young women who are goal-oriented, high achievers in all aspects of their lives. However, we are setting our sights on the level of athlete necessary to compete in the Big West. The increase in scholarship aid available will help tremendously. We've been operating on the equivalent of 1.5-2 full-ride scholarships, so moving toward 12-15 full-rides will definitely help.

What are the best selling points about UCD and UCD basketball?
Where to start? A beautiful campus. Great college-town atmosphere. An education second-to-none and the opportunity to play in a program with a tremendous tradition. We are blessed with great fan support, both from our student-body and from the community (averaged 1,200 in home attendance last year). Our location is centrally located, a great jumping-off point to San Francisco, the Napa Valley, and Lake Tahoe.
Why should a player choose to continue her basketball career at UCD?
Well, for the reasons stated above, plus this: she will have the opportunity to build something special. She will be part of a group that establishes a legacy for generations to come. Anyone can sustain a program; building something is the opportunity of a select few. At UC Davis, a young woman of ambition can have a tremendous athletic experience without compromising on the academic front.

What are your teams goals for your first season in D-1?
To learn. We will enter the season ready to compete. But we will also be assessing ourselves to determine where we are relative to the established DI programs and identifying what steps will be needed to be ready to compete for a Big West title in 2007-08.

I haven't seen your schedule for next season but I assume most of the games will be against D-1 teams. I believe you will play each BW school except Santa Barbara, twice. To fill out the rest of your schedule, was it hard getting D-1 schools to schedule Davis?
Not really. Wouldn't YOU be lining up to play us?! Actually, I believe that there were some programs who didn't realize we would count as a DI program for scheduling and RPI purposes. Once that was cleared up most schools were open to scheduling us. Plus, we are fortunate to have so many DI schools in Northern California that presented natural potential rivalries. Sacramento State, obviously, but also many of the Bay Area schools such as St. Mary's, Santa Clara, USF and San Jose State. I would love to eventually get Cal and Stanford on the docket. How do your returning players feel about their upcoming first season in D-1? I'm not sure they could be more excited. I've never seen our players more motivated for Spring workouts and I'm sure that is largely due to the anticipation of playing Division I level teams. They are all competitors and understand that we face a unique and exciting challenge next year. What do you think will be the toughest part about the move to D-1? Probably the physical nature of play at that level. It's not that Division II has been a namby-pamby experience...far from it. But, with DI, we're talking physical play by generally bigger, stronger, faster athletes. Of those characteristics, the strength, or power, of the DI game will probably be the biggest challenge to us. What style of play can Big West fans expect to see from your team? I believe in applying pressure at both ends of the court. Transition offense and pressure defense. Having said that, I believe you need to be well-rounded and adaptable to be a championship level team. One dimensional teams of any sort eventually succumb to the inherent weaknesses of being so narrow in their focus. Fast break teams have to be able to execute in the half-court. Pressure teams need to be able to adapt to quicker, more athletic opponents. Versatility is a must for championship squads.

Interview with John Margaritis

2009-01-05T21:27:00.000-08:00

Interview with John Margaritis: June 8, 2004

John Margaritis was hired as the UC Riverside coach on April 22nd. He was an assistant coach for the last eight years at Northern Arizona. Coach Margaritis is very familiar with the Big West, as NAU won eight of their last nine games against Big West schools. He also was a finalist for the Cal State Northridge head coaching job that went to current coach, Tammy Holder. He is also familiar with the Riverside/Inland Empire area as he coached at Cal State San Bernardino. Cal State Northridge assistant coach, Eric Fundalewicz, was a student assistant at NAU when Coach Margaritis was coaching there.

I would like to thank, Brian Blank and Ross French of the UCR athletics media relations department, for their help in setting up the interview with Coach Margaritis.

Who is John Margaritis and what motivates him?

I am a product of my parents and where I was born. I was born in Athens, Greece. Then came here and spoke no English. Went through all the struggles, anywhere from learning the language to adjusting to bad neighborhoods.

The motivational part has changed. In the beginning I wanted to show people. Now its because I can help people. So what motivates me? If I can play any part in somebodys life in a positive way. That motivates me.

Talk about your coaching staff: Why did you decide to keep Seton who was with the previous staff?

First some background. I feel that in order for a coach to do well in a new situation, the more familiar they are with the situation the better they''ll do or they'll get to that point quicker. I felt that, if I would have a chance at any school in the country to do well at all, it's somewhere, where I've been there before or at least in the area. Being that I was at Cal State San Bernardino, I know the area. I knew something about UCR. I felt that going in; I felt I wouldn't be spinning my tires as somewhere else. In order for me to secure that, I wanted to have the type of staff that would enable me to progress quickly. So I felt that every position was important to be filled by somebody that would help us progress.

Seton is one of those pieces. He brings continuity from last year's staff to this year's staff. When I came here and I had a question about any of the players, even their names, he would help. If I needed to go down campus, he would tell me how to go there or walk me there. Now why Seton?

Well I knew Seton from before. Seton showed up to my office at Northern Arizona and asked if he could help out. He had just come back from (playing in) college, he had one more year to finish school and he was going to Northern Arizona and wanted to be a part of our basketball program. So he was student manager and he helped develop some of the former players. He was in practice. He broke down practice film. So I knew him, we worked together for a whole year. .. So I've known him for sometime. So having someone that I've known, trust and liked. And then him having the experience he's had here (at UCR) in terms of knowing the players, knowing the (athletic department) staff, and knowing the university, it was a no brainer. I really appreciate the fact they allowed me to hire the people I wanted to hire.

The reason why I hired Cathy Bogh, well she played from me at Cal State San Bernardino. She was a great leader. She took care of all the things that we as coaches aren't allowed to do. If somebody needed to be picked up and taken to the grocery store, as coaches you're not suppose to give them rides. So she was someone that would step up and do things. I found out later about all the things she would do as a leader for the team I thought that what better person than someone who is from this area. Someone who has all these people she knows. She will be able to get us involved with the community. I really feel that it's so important that we get involved with the community.

Lindsey Foster is the third assistant. She was a point guard at Northern Arizona. She really understands what we are going to teach. So if Seton and Cathy are out recruiting, Lindsey and I can run the practice and I'm not going to be worried about the other end of the floor. She's not going to be teaching something wrong. She's been with us for five years. So there's a reason for everybody and I'm glad I had the chance to hire them.

What type of offense and defense will you run?

I just think that this game is the type of game that offenses don't score points and defenses don't stop people from scoring points. People score points and people stop other people from scoring points. To me it's a lot more important, instead of what offense I'm going run or what defense I'm going to run, is how well will I be able to teach our players to understand whats going on around them. My approach to the game is such that instead of teaching somebody or guiding somebody to run an offense or a defense, maybe I can teach them to guide themselves through it. We would run a motion offense and we would run a man to man defense.

What was it like meeting your team for the first time?

I walked in the room. I said Hi to everybody. I knew everybodys name before I met them. I even knew a little bit about them before I met them. What I had done was I had done a scouting report of our team. So I kind of knew a little bit about each one of them. About what they did in the past. How they play. How good they are. A little bit of how they fit into what I'm trying to do. So we sat down put all the chairs in a circle and we talked. It was very comfortable. I did not want to mislead anybody. I did not want to say things; I felt they wanted to hear. I just wanted to be me. And I wanted them to be them. Well find out who we really are later, anyways.

What did you say to the team the first time you met them.

We are all in the same boat. When we are all in the boat, everybody is rowing. Nobody is going for a free ride. The other thing I told and this is straight from Pat Riley: If you fall outside the boat, meaning you have a problem, you have to be a willing participant of your own rescue. We're not going to try to help you out if you're screaming and kicking, saying "Leave me alone" You're not going to screw up and then we are saying We'll give you a chance if you dont want one.

We're not going to bring anyone in either, for next year. The reason why is when I took over about three-four week ago, there is an early date in November and thats long gone. Theres a late signing date starting in April and when I got hired that was half way through. Anybody who is left is not somebody that anybody wants otherwise they would not be left. (unsigned) I want to take a group of people we have here and work as hard as we can and start building from there. I want to build a base.

So when you go out recruiting this summer what are you looking for?

I can go to Chicago and go to the park and find five great basketball players and win games but I don't think I'll be successful. I think winning is part of being successful but its not the whole thing. I want to be able to have something that people can look at and say this is a good program and it's not just because we're winning. I want our young woman out in the community and the community says I want to go back and watch them.

I think we need to get players from this area. I'm looking for quality people. I'm looking for people who have certain abilities in terms of basketball. But also people who demonstrated that they have an interest in academics. I don't believe in tutoring and all this other stuff is how youre going to get people through college. You get somebody who wants to go through college and then demonstrate they are good students and you'll do just fine. The gpa at NAU was 3.5.

Ed. note: Coach Margaritis told me that travel at NAU was very difficult on the players as well as the coaches. NAU is in Flagstaff, AZ. The closest airport is Phoenix, which is about a two hour drive from NAU. So every trip would be four hours roundtrip from campus to the airport. So for the NAU women's basketball team to have a 3.5 GPA is even more impressive with some of the travel/time issues the players had to deal with.

How do you approach discipline?

I think coaches back themselves in a corner by having way too many rules. I think it's real simple approach. Do what is right. If you don't know what is right, ask. There is a right and a wrong and everybody really knows something about it. It's more important they understand I mean what I say, instead of what punishment is going to come. I don't want to play those games. I don't want after ten sprints later, hope that you don't do the same thing again. But I think it's important that I'm consistent with these people. But we're talking about responsibility.

What do you think about the support from the athletic department and the university?

Stan Morrison, what a wonderful person. What a great situation for me as a coach to be at the same university as he is. He has all that knowledge and experience. The other day I told him I'm going to take advantage of that (Morrisons knowledge and experience) I'll go into his office and ask What do you think about this? I can learn from him. I think you can always learn.

As we talked about before, he allowed me to hire who I wanted as my assistant coaches. That's a big things.

Talk about the process about why you wanted the head coaching job at UCR?

I always thought that if a job opened up somewhere: Would I want to be a part of that? So when the UCR job opened up, I thought: One, I know the area. Two, I know there are a lot of players I can recruit from the area. Do I want to live there? Yes. Who do I want to work for? When you have Stan Morrison, how can you not want to work for him? If you have a situation where you're a coach and you have somebody who has done so well and done exactly what you want to do. You want to be a part of that.

Talk about your schedule. Did you have many dates to fill?

No it was done. I think our schedule is not one of the toughest. It's not high on the RPI. But all the teams that we play are good teams. It will be challenging.

Whats your philosophy about scheduling?

You have a couple things. How do you spread your schedule out? Last year at NAU we had a young team. The first four games were once a week. It was almost like football. We had a whole week to prepare. The first couple days, go over the things you didn't do well last game and then you have four more days to prepare for the next team. You have to spread it out in such a way that you have a chance to prepare for your next opponent.

Then you have to do it in such a way that you give your fans an opportunity to show up. Don't play at a time when nobody can make it. Don't play at a day when youre competing with a local high school and people are trying to decide whether they want to go see their kid or you. You're going to lose out every time.

Think about at what level you want to play. You need to prepare your team, so you have to play a tough schedule. You don't want to go into conference 0-7 and pretend like its OK. So those are some of the things you look at when scheduling.

What are your impressions of the Big West Conference?

I think that it is a well coached conference. I think the coaches do a good job. I believe that its the type of conference that not all the schools have a lot of money. So we are all in the same boat. People are working really hard. I've been around coaching long enough to know that they are out there recruiting their butts off. So if they didn't get their players, it's not because they weren't trying. They will get some players because they are working hard. And the people they have, they do a good job with them. I think it will be a challenge.

In the BW, Idaho with Mike Divilbiss, has turned things around in three years. Is that the standard now for all the BW coaches?

I don't think there is a standard. The reason why I say that is you look at Mark French. He didn't turn Santa Barbara around right away. Yet he built it.

How many players does it take to be a good team? Just say two. If you get those two players can you sustain it? After this recruiting class can you do it again? And can you do it again?

Now Mike Divilbiss at Idaho, you said it and I said it; he's a very good coach. He knows what he is looking for. He got the type of kids he wants and those kids are going to play hard for him.

You only have a small window of opportunity as a coach. You start coaching and not winning, you go into a recruit's home and they are wondering are you building a basement? Which way are you going? You're building but what are you building?

What do you think of the facilities here at UCR?

I think they're great. I'll tell you why. They best team I've ever been a part of was at Northeastern Illinois. The floor warped. We went 29-4. We beat everyone in Chicago. When I was at Fresno St we played in the North Gym and that was a great facility. Great atmosphere. Why would you want to play in a 17,000 seat arena with 500 people in the seats? Why not play in our facility and get 4,000 fans? Then all of a sudden it's a great facility. I don't know, I have as many baskets as everywhere else I've ever been. .. If we lost a player because of our facilities then that player is looking for all the wrong things.

How do you measure success?

I measure success by results. Not always wins and losses. But by how much have we been able to accomplish. Cause we set our minds to achieve a goal. Putting ourselves into a situation where good things will come. The process is important.

If I talked to you a year from now, what would you consider a successful year?

That we improved. That we got better from game to game. We actually didn't have too many practices where we didn't come out and work hard. Every now and then that's going to happen. But it's not going to be that many. Academically we are doing well.

The Big West Conference- Cal Poly

2009-01-05T00:41:00.000-08:00

I prefer to call the Big West conference, the Big Worst conference, because in women's basketball it is a terrible conference. For SEVEN STRAIGHT, that's right, SEVEN STRAIGHT years there have been two or more BW teams that lost 20 or more games.

01-02 season: Fullerton, Northridge, and Irvine.
02-03 season: Fullerton, Northridge, and Riverside.
03-04 season: Fullerton, Northridge, Riverside, and Irvine.
04-05 season: Fullerton, Irvine, Pacific.
05-06 season: Northridge and Pacific.
06-07 season: Long Beach, Irvine, and Pacific.
07-08 season: Northridge, Long Beach, and Irvine. Cal Poly and Fullerton both lost 19 games each.

For the 08-09 season, Long Beach, Irvine, and Northridge have 10,11, and 12 losses already. Anybody dare to say two of those teams WON'T lose 20 games?

So what are the problems? Why are BW schools losing? I will take a school by school look of Big West schools that are struggling. But first some general comments.

The first question should be, what are the expectations for BW Women's Basketball. I'm not expecting any BW school to become the next UConn or Tenn. But the BW can become a good conference with a RPI, as a conference between 12-15, a solid mid major. Not the 25 over below, meaning one of the worst conferences in the nation. So what's preventing the BW from getting to that level?

In my opinions money is not one of the reasons why BW schools are losing. Yes the BW doesn't have the money of the bigger schools in conferences where football brings in a ton of money. But all Big West schools must provide 80% of NCAA maximum for scholarships. So all BW schools have at least funding for 12 scholarships. The NCAA allows 15 schoalrships for women's basketball. Twelve scholarships are more than enough to win. Plus all BW schools spend about the same amount of money for WBB. It's not like one school spends, $250,000 with another school spends, $5 million. Most BW schools spend about $750,000 a year on women's basketball. So one school doesn't have such a big advantage over the other eight schools.

That's not to say BW schools should put more money into women's basketball. They should try to find more funding for programs.

So what are the reasons for the sorry state of Big West Women's Basketball?

Apathy towards women's basketball:

I think almost all BW schools could care less about WBB. Their attitude is get good kids, who graduate and don't get into trouble. Also don't lose too much money.

No expectations or standards.

In any business there are certain expectations and standards. If you're in sales and you don't meet you sales quotas, you're not going to be working for that company much longer. If you're a teacher and if your students aren't passing the tests, you're not going to be teaching much longer.

But in the BW, why aren't there any standards for winning in women's basketball?

If a coach has been at the school for twelve years and has never had a winning record, how is that coach still at the school?

I wanted to comment on academics. Yes, it's important for kids to graduate. Yes it's important for kids to go to class. But if you have a 100% graduation rate, but can't finish 500 overall, you shouldn't keep your job as head coach.

So let's look at each school. First up Cal Poly and head coach Faith Mimnaugh:

How can a school like Cal Poly keep Faith Mimnaugh for 12 long, losing seasons? In eleven years she was 121-185, with ZERO winning overall records and only two winning records in the BW.

This is her record at Cal Poly:
Year: Overall BW
97-98 6-20 3-12
98-99 8-18 2-13
99-00 9-19 5-10
00-01 12-17 5-9
01-02 11-17 7-9
02-03 10-17 6-10
03-04 14-14 10-8
04-05 11-16 5-13
05-06 13-14 7-7
06-07 14-14 9-5
07-08 13-09 8-8

Back in 2006 Cal Poly gave Faith a one year contract extension but never bothered to announce it through the Cal Poly's SID office. WHY? What do they have to hide?

Interesting that all three of Faith's assistant coaches from the 04-05 season left the program. Amy Saneholtz going to Montana St, Kristi Baker to Utah St, and Odessa Jenkins going into private business. Anytime all three assistant coaches leave, that should raise red flags. I'm sure all three assistants thought about the possibility that they would have to move on after the 05-06 season, and decided to leave on their own terms.

In June of 2007 Cal Poly did release Faith got a two year contract extension.

http://www.calpolymustangs.com/index.php?p=sports&tab=news&id=29941&article_id=8121

So during the 06-07 season, what great things did Faith do to get that two year extension? 14-14 overall, 9-5 in the BW, mind you, a BW with three teams that lost 20 or more games.

Currently Cal Poly is 8-5 overall and 1-1 in the BW. But her 7 non BW wins, have come to teams with a 31-42 record. Her 4, no BW losses have come to schools with 30-12 record. Meaning she hasn't beaten a team worth a damn. Her best wins are against San Diego and Illinois-Chicago. Not exactly powerhouses.

Faith's contract is up at the end of the year. The real question is by what standards will Cal Poly use to decide whether Faith gets a new contract? If she has a 16-14 overall record will Faith get a new contract? Shouldn't the decision be over her entire career and not just ONE season or even one week's (during the Big West Tournament) of good play?

At the very least Cal Poly should see that Faith has reach her "ceiling" at Cal Poly. You know what you're going to get. Why not try to find somebody else who maybe able to acheive more?

One other thing. Faith is white. The AD at Cal Poly is white. San Luis Obispo is mostly white. The coach, who Cal Poly fired and Faith replaced after two years was black. Karen Booker had a two year record of 9-44. No doubt she should have been fired. But if Cal Poly was so quick to pull the trigger on Booker's firing, why then have they put up with Faith's losing ways, for so long?

If people don't think race plays a factor in the hiring and firing of coaches, you are clueless. Go stick your head in the sand. And it works both ways. Some black coaches should be fired but aren't because of the potential backlash of firing a black coach.

This wasn't meant to be a Faith Mimnaigh bashing. She is a very ncie person who does care about her players. But it's clear to see she is not a good head coach and should not be resigned to a new contract, no matter what her 08-09 record maybe.

Next up, Cal State Northridge and Staci Schulz.

Where Are They Now? Carrie Dormire and Maureen Batiste

2009-01-05T00:17:00.000-08:00

Where are they now? (This interview was conducted in Fall 2005.)

Carrie Dormire and Maureen Batiste: Cal State Northridge 1992-1996

Women’s basketball players at Tulane and the University of New Orleans have moved to other colleges to prepare for the 2005-06 season, due to the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Let’s go back in time to 1994. Los Angeles had two NFL teams, though both teams were playing their last season in 1994.

Baltimore was just screwed out of an expansion NFL team by the jerk commissioner and a jerk NFL owner.

Thank you to Norman Braman the only NFL owner who made the right vote, for Baltimore.

Magic Johnson was named head coach of the Lakers.

The Lakers would miss the playoffs for the first time since the 1970’s.

The Kings would again trade away my favorite player, Jimmy Carson.

The Mighty Ducks were in their first season.

The jerk Donald Fehr and the stupid baseball owners couldn’t come up with a labor agreement thus forcing the cancellation of the World Series.

1994 also saw one of the most powerful earthquakes ever hit the LA area. The epicenter was Northridge. The earthquake hit at about 4am on January 17, 1994. Cal State Northridge suffered a lot of damage and was closed for a few weeks until officials could inspect all buildings and declare them safe. An entire floor of an apartment complex in Northridge was destroyed and many lives were lost. A parking structure at CSUN was destroyed. Luckily no CSUN basketball players lived in that apartment complex and nobody was hurt in the parking structure.

Two former Cal State Northridge women’s basketball players talk about their experiences playing basketball, going to class and finding new places to live after the earthquake.
Carrie Dormire and Maureen Batiste played together at Northridge for four seasons (1992-93 through the 95-96 season) Carrie and Maureen talk about their experiences trying to play basketball after the earthquake and what they have been doing since graduating from Northridge.

LA Women's Hoops would like to thank Carrie and Maureen for taking the time to do this interview.

Carrie Dormire is one of the greatest players ever at Cal State Northridge. She set many records while at CSN and she can still be found in the records books, even though it’s been seven years since she last wore the red and black of the Matadors. Now married and going by her married name, Carrie Boyce is a 4th grade teacher in the Bay Area.

Where were you living in Jan. 1994?

I was asleep in my dorm room right by the college. It was on Zelzah and I think it was a dorm/ apartment. Most of us lived there that were on the team. Only some softball players lived in the dorm that crashed down an entire floor.

Where were you when the January 1994 Northridge earthquake hit? On the road with the team? Or in Northridge?

Our team was in Northridge when the quake hit. The men's team was out of town. I remember because my boyfriend at the time Josh Willis was on the men's team.
Was there any damage to your place? If so, where did you live after the earthquake?

There was damage to my room. The windows broke, and the ceiling cracked around most of the edges of the room. FEMA came in and said we couldn't live there for awhile. The building was shut down. I stayed at my boyfriend's house in La Crescenta for awhile. Most of my teammates got to go home. I think we all had to find new places to live after that.

How helpful was CSUN helping you find a new place to live?

I don't think CSUN helped us at all. FEMA helped us out.

The CSN campus was closed right after the earthquake. Do you remember where you practiced? Was it tough to practice and focus on basketball with all that was happening?

We practiced at some shady places I remember, like high schools. We also practiced at other colleges and JCs I think.

It destroyed our focus. Not to mention we were still having aftershocks almost daily. I still get that scared feeling if something underneath me shakes.

How did the earthquake affect the team? Did the team become closer? Did the team pull together?

I don't think it brought us closer. We were always very close. Most of us still are. We just didn't win much. We kept losing just like before. At least people felt a little sorry for us now because we had an excuse.

Talk about how it felt going back to classes on campus? Worried about aftershocks? Worried about the structural integrity of the buildings?

I remember watching our new Science buildings going up in flames that night because of the earthquake. I remember the hissing of gas lines, and the crashing of glass. I remember our library had just finished installing this new robotics system and it was now ruined.

Going back to class was scary but ok. It gave us a sense of being back on schedule. It gave us some hope. It was confusing trying to find where your classes were now at.

We were scared to death of aftershocks. We would all run out of the room if one hit. I hated my classes being on the bottom floor, but I also hated some of them being up a couple stories too. I felt like the buildings that were strong made it through the quake, so if I was in one of them I was ok for the most part.

Do you still keep track of the CSN program?

I don't know a thing about the program. I don't receive anything from the alumni, team, or school. I wish I did. CSUN doesn't advertise enough in Northern California.

How would you describe your playing career at CSN?

I had a great career! I broke lots of records and had fun for the most part. I wonder if any of those records are still there? It was fun getting so much playing time as a freshman, but I knew that coming in. All 4 years, I always got to play. I never had to be on the bench. I wouldn't have stayed at CSUN if I did. I was the first woman (I might have been the first person) to make 1st team all conference in basketball for women at CSUN. I made it my junior and senior year. That meant so much to me and still does. I loved playing for Coach Michael Abraham my senior year. He knew the game. I loved traveling all over. I look back on my career and smile. It was tough losing, but it really helped me grow up and become the woman I am today. Luckily the good memories with my teammates outweigh the bad by far. I love those girls still. We were so close with the men's team too. I miss those guys just as much.

What have you been doing since you graduated from CSN?

Since graduating I have been teaching 4th grade which I love. I coached girls basketball and volleyball for a bit at all different levels. I miss doing that now. I earned a Masters in Education a few years ago. I got married to Zack a fireman on August 14, 2003. We are expecting our first child February 18th which is so exciting. We are looking to buy our second house by the end of this year.

Maureen Batiste got married back in July to the brother of former Northridge teammate, Sarah Bell. She is a compliance officer for a hospital.

Where were you living in Jan. 1994? CSN dorm? Apartment? House?

I was living in housing along with some other teammates across the street from the campus. I don't recall any of us living in an apartment complex that was destroyed by the earthquake.

Where were you when the earthquake hit?

We had just come back off a road trip, so we were in our room when the earthquake hit.

What kind of damage was there at your place?

There were broken windows and the floors and hallways were rippled. Not to mention everything was out of the cabinets in the kitchen and the refrigerator had toppled over.If you had to move out of your place, where did you live after the earthquake?

After the earthquake, I literally threw my clothes and other items in 2 large boxes and went home, since at that time my family was living in Los Angeles. I know those of us who lived the L.A. area went home, but I don't remember what the others did that were out of state. Some of them went home with us (the players that stayed in the area) or some went with friends.

How helpful was CSUN helping you find a new place to live?

I was fortunate not to have to look for a new place.

We were able to return to our living quarters in approximately 1-2 weeks after the earthquake.The CSN campus was closed right after the earthquake.

Do you remember where you practiced? Was it tough to practice and focus on basketball with all that was happening?

If I remember right, we practiced in our gym which sustained only minor damage during the earthquake. Northridge athletic teams was a big family, so it was tough to focus knowing that some of our dearest friends (from other teams like softball, volleyball, etc.) had been trapped or the building that they were living in collapsed. Some of us even lost friends during the earthquake too.

How did the earthquake affect the team? Did the team become closer? Did the team pull together?

The team had already been a very very close knit, so we looked at it as just another hurdle to get through.

Talk about how it felt going back to classes on campus? Worried about aftershocks? Worried about the structural integrity of the buildings?

It was nerve racking to go back to classes on campus. If I remember right, some of my classes were in portable trailers so you felt everything, and you always thought it was another earthquake when it was just someone walking by. I definitely was not worried about the structural integrity of the buildings. The University didn't allow students to go into those buildings that were considered 'unsafe.' I recall one of the most exciting moments was when Pres. Clinton came to visit the disaster area and gave a speech at the campus in front of the Oviatt Library.

What have you been doing since you graduated from CSN?

Since graduating from CSUN, I continued on (in school) for an MBA and am now working at a Southern California Hospital as a Compliance Officer. I am a newlywed as of July of this year! No kids as of yet, but hoping to start a family early next year.

Do you still keep track of the CSN program?

I haven't been involved too much with the basketball programs or any other athletic programs since I left CSUN. There have been so many changes, I'm not familiar with anyone.

How would you describe your playing career at CSN?

My playing career at CSUN has taught me some great life lessons, that at the time (when I was playing) I thought were meaningless. Looking back over those years, I've learned that there is no challenge to hard to conquer. It has also given me a group of friends (e.g. Carrie Dormire, Michelle Chevalier, Kanika Means, Tannea Nelson, Sarah Bell, etc.) that I still keep in touch with almost 8-10 years later and are very much a part in each other's life. By the way, Sarah Bell (1994-1998 season) is now my sister in law. We joke about our kids meeting up in tournaments one day playing against each other or for the same team. It's been great!

Welcome

2007-05-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new and improved www.lawomenshoops.com. After careful thought I have decided to make a lot of changes. Of course the biggest change is moving to a blog form. The blog will allow me to do more interviews, features stories, and even a opinions of coaches, players, and teams from, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach St., LMU, Pepperdine and USC.

Plese bear with me as I move over, update, add, and change www.lawomenshoops.com into a better site for women's basketball fans.

You can always email me with comments, suggestions, and critcisms at lawomenshoops@gmail.com

TIME WILL NOT DIM THE GLORY OF THEIR DEEDS

"And in our grief and anger wehave found our mission and our moment. .......... We will not tire. We will not falter and WE WILL NOT FAIL!!!!!!"
George W. Bush Sept. 2001