TUESDAY,MARCH 11,2003
WASHINGTON
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Washington
CONTINUED FROM 1A
top-10 ranked recruiting class coming in, showed her first hint of doubt.
Scott Reynolds/Kansan
Marian Washington has coached the KU women's basketball team for 30 straight seasons, the second longest record in the NCAA. Recently, she has come under fire from fans and media due to the dismal performance of her teams, who haven't enjoyed a winning season since 2000.
"I can't really say that I have any definite feelings," Washington said about her future. "But I don't think I had any feelings from the very beginning (of the season) in terms of where anyone stood — everyone's got their own agenda. Mine is to be here and to do the best job I can."
Many, though, have questioned her ability to run a Division I program in this century.
Bohl is being officially supportive, even though Washington's team isn't ready for the Top 25.
"What you're looking at with the women's basketball team is improvement," Bohl said. "Marian Washington is getting some talented players in here and they are really starting to show signs of improvement. They have a very young team, and in a few years time, they could also be ranked in that top 25. I really feel that they are moving in the right direction."
Yet others don't agree. They call her office and leave nasty remarks with no name, they write spiteful letters and don't put a return address and they thought she shouldn't have returned after going 5-25.
Sports fans seem to have short and fickle memories. Thirty years is a chunk of time that, for many, is difficult to understand. And for sports fans in general, 30 years can seem like an eternity. The validity of sports rests in the here and now.
Records are broken and names are forgotten. Darling athletes plastered on the front of sports magazines lose their place in public conscience the minute that they have graduated, gotten injured or had their name scratched out of the record books.
Forgotten History
Coach Washington doesn't ever seem to forget a player.
Covering Washington's office bookshelves are the smiling faces of many of the players who have donned a Kansas jersey in the past 30 seasons. Players with national recognition mingle alongside players whose names have long been forgotten by those outside of the program.
There too are the awards that Washington and those women have garnered over the last few decades. Not all of the seven conference or six conference tournament trophies line the room, but just the overflow, it seems.
Most of the time it's easy to think the history of this program
"We were at a point so long people took us for granted. No one knew our accomplishments, but all of a sudden one year, everyone knew about that one year." Marian Washington Women's basketball coach on '01-'02 season
has been forgotten and it must just reside on these walls. Left in the faces of Angela Aycock, Tamecka Dixon, Lynette Woodard and Lynn Pride. In the heat of last season, it must have seemed to Washington as if that nightmare of a season had discredited her entire three-decade career — blotting out those names, faces and accomplishments.
Her eyes seem to glint back and forth through the memories as she talks. Washington's face has barely aged since she arrived on this campus in her mid-twenties.
But her voice is mature and reminiscent, as if she longs for those happier stages in Jayhawk history. A time when Aycock and Dixon were Kodak All-Americans. When Pride was named All-Big 12 three seasons in a row. And when Woodard was racking up accolades such as 1980s Big Eight Player of the Decade, fourtime Kodak All-American honors, becoming the first woman to join the Harlem Globetrotters and scoring each of her 3,649 points, the best career total for a female collegiate player.
"We were at a point so long people took us for granted," Washington said, furrowing her brow. "No one knew our accomplishments, but all of a sudden, one year, everyone knew about that one year."
Indeed, for 10 years straight from the 1989-1990 season to the '99-'00 season. Washington's Jayhawks had won at least 20 games per season and had appeared in the NCAA Tournament nine times and the Women's National Invitational Tournament once. They were regulars in the Associated Press Top 25 poll during the 1990s. Things were consistently good.
But Washington rang in the new century headed for troubled waters and it seemed that everyone outside of the program could see the iceberg ahead, if they were looking.
In the slippery season of '00-01, Washington's stern eyes watched as her team fell from a 20-10 record to a 12-17 record, finishing ninth in the Big 12. It wasn't bad, but it was a below-average season. She hadn't had a
season like that since '83-'84, when her team went 11-16.
Women's basketball expert Mechelle Vopel said it was obvious that 12-17 wasn't going to be the worst of it. She knew what was going to happen. She knew that scoring power wasn't coming in and that going into '01-'02 it was going to be a long season for the Jayhawks.
"Everybody who covers the team, they knew that that was going to happen, it was very,very obvious that that was going to happen," said Vopel, a Kansas City Star sportswriter and regular ESPN.com contributor. "Marian had a track record of a 'star player' program. When Lynn Pride graduated, you didn't have that go-to player. That system wasn't set up to operate without that star player. The bottom line is that recruiting failed them."
The Jayhawks were left with good seniors that had no chemistry and no one that could be the team's standout performer. Washington's recruiting system it seemed hadn't progressed to the pace of other Division I teams.
During the season when she made the base for the seniors of '01-'02, there was a recruiting shuffle as assistant coach Pam Decosta left for two seasons to Oklahoma and assistant coach Tim Eatman came in for two years to fill in for the position in
In that coaching shuffle — both coaches currently work for Kansas — it seemed that something didn't click, and the team was left with a gaggle of role players — not stars — to run the program last season.
"Recruiting is like a hurricane," Vopel said. "You miss one year, and the talent doesn't come in. Two bad years and you're in trouble."
Not that those years were awful, as the 1997 and 1998 recruiting classes were both ranked among the nation's top 10.
The Glow of the Spotlight
With that trouble came more media attention than Washington had gotten in her three decades at Kansas. She hadn't received more when her team was ranked No. 6 or when she coached the Olympic team.
games, we never heard anything. But the minute that she has a couple bad years, everybody that wants to say something but couldn't because we were winning, now they get a chance to say something."
And in the glare of the spotlight Washington had felt that her 30 years of successes had some how slipped under the radar. The program she had once kept afloat by walking Mt. Oread posting tryout fliers had become the target of a hailstorm of negativity.
What's worse, is with Kansas' paltry attendance figures — a generous 1,808 fans per game, as opposed to its opponents' average of 5,364 — Washington believed that her criticizers had never even seen her team play.
It came from all directions fans, colleagues and the media.
"I would challenge that most of those people probably did not come out to our games and probably never gave us much credit for all of the success we've had," Washington said.
"All people want are W's, that's just the way it is," DeCosta said. "The thing is, as long as coach is winning 20-some
Amid the media atmosphere after last season, the team's media guide, which was supposed to celebrate Washington's 30th anniversary with the school, seemed more to be a cut-and-dry reminder of Washington's winning past. A reminder to those who cover the team that she's been with the team longer than some of the regular reporters have been alive. The cover is emblazoned with Washington surrounded by the Kansas players with recognizable faces — Woodard, Dixon, Pride—and the five of the team's seven conference championship trophies. It runs down her accomplishments in list fashion, seemingly demanding respect for Washington's long career.
Other Relics
Washington isn't the only active coach that has managed to run a program at the same institution for a considerable amount of time. There are three other current Division I coaches that have been at their institution for 27 years or longer — Mike Granelli of St. Peter's, Kay Yow of North Carolina State and Pat Summitt at Tennessee. Also Chris Weller, who retired from coaching after last season, spent 27 years at Maryland.
All of the coaches have had their share of successes over the years, but only Summitt's career has been truly extraordinary. She has an 816-162 record (.806) and has six NCAA titles, 16 All-Americans and has never had a losing season.
But Washington measures her success in other categories than team victories.
Washington believes that she and her players are winners in life outside of basketball. She prides herself on not only being a coach but a mother figure to her players. She checks up on them, keeps in touch and lets them know that as long as they still get their degrees, they are winners, even if they have a losing record.
"I think that we have a
Coaches with more than 37 seasons at one school
Coaches with more than 27 seasons at one school:
1. Mike Granolli, St. Peter's (31st season)
■ Record 592-234
■ Three losing seasons
■ Six NCAA Tournaments
■ No available information for All-Americans
2. Marian Washington, Kansas (30th season)
■ Record 550-346
■ Eight losing seasons
■ 11 NCAA Tournaments
■ Four All-Americans
3. Pat Summitt, Tennessee (29th season)
■ Record 816-162
■ Zero losing seasons
■ 20 NCAA Tournaments (six-time champion)
■ 16 All-Americans
4. Kay Yow, North Carolina State (28th season)
■ Record 579-266
■ Two losing seasons
■ 16 NCAA Tournaments
■ 12 All-Americans
5. Chris Weller, Maryland (27 seasons – retired after last season)
■ Record 499-286
■ Five losing seasons
■ 12 NCAA Tournaments
■ Four All-Americans
greater responsibility as college coaches," Washington said. "I think, sure, we're all wanting to win, we're paid because of whatever success we achieve, but part of that success is not just the number of wins you have. Part of it is to help this university in developing future contributing citizens. And I don't feel that I have any less of a role in that. I can impact in a different way, maybe. I really believe that it's also part of my responsibility."
Woodard, Kansas' most famous and awarded player, said that above all of Washington's accomplishments it's her ability to inspire that has kept her going so long.
"She had a vision of things that I dream about, she was a visionary." Woodard said. "And at the time she was doing it too, at that time I think she was still playing internationally — things I had never heard of, playing in the Championships. She had done it—she was my inspiration."
Now, going into what could be the team's final game of the season — a duel against Iowa State at the Big 12 Tournament at noon today in Dallas — Washington only hopes that her tenure at Kansas won't expire before she gets to inspire even more.
— Kevin Flaherty contributed to this story. Edited by Melissa Hermreck
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