Section A • Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, March 19, 1998
Washington travels hard road to success at Kansas
Continued from page 1A
“D right away, we had to face the
"Right away, we had to face the good old boys," Washington said. "To see how women were being treated and how they were not respected showed what their attitude was."
Not a week into her coaching career, Washington experienced that attitude firsthand.
The athletics director at the time, Clyde Walker, was not a friend of women, Washington said. On her second day of work, she picked up a newspaper article in which Walker was quoted as saying that he didn't care about the women's program and that he wasn't going to give them any money.
"I just got sick," she said. "Reporters were calling me up saying, 'Clyde Walker said this, Clyde Walker said that.' So I responded. I said that he's supposed to represent us. How can he say that he doesn't want us to build our program?"
The day after Washington's rebuttal appeared in the paper, she was called into Walker's office.
Walker, who is now a sports marketing consultant in Charlotte, N.C., says he doesn't remember the article. Nor does he know how somebody could say he did not support women.
"He says, 'You know, Marian, sometimes they don't get quotes right; they put words in your mouth,'" Washington said. "He was giving me an out."
But Washington told him that she had meant everything she had said in her newspaper response.
he said, 'We can't have this.' And I told him, 'You're right. I can't either,' she said.
Washington's career
“At that point, I thought it was all over for me. I wanted to coach and build this program, but I there was no way I was going to work for this man who was supposed to be over us but had that kind of disrespect.”
Year W L Pet
1973-74 11 18 .579
1974-75 7 17 .291
1975-76 13 14 .481
1976-77 13 15 .423
1977-78 22 11 .667
1978-79 30 8 .787
1979-80 29 8 .784
1980-81 27 5 .843
1981-82 16 14 .533
1982-83 13 15 .464
1983-84 11 61 .407
1984-85 19 10 .655
1985-86 18 10 .643
1986-87 20 13 .606
1987-88 22 10 .688
1988-89 13 14 .481
1989-90 20 9 .690
1990-91 20 13 .606
1991-92 25 6 .806
1992-93 21 9 .700
1993-94 22 6 .786
1994-95 20 11 .645
1995-96 22 10 .688
1996-97 25 6 .806
1997-98 23 8 .742
Totals 480 266 .643
"Clyde was not particularly sympathetic to the women's programs," Shankel said. "And that complicated Marian's life a lot."
Shankel understood what Wash ineton was facing.
As a result, Shankel split the athletics department into women's and men's sports and appointed Washington the athletics director for women.
Enter then-executive vice chancellor Del Shankel. He phoned Washington and told her that something needed to change. Washington replied that she could no longer work for Walker.
So there she was, in July 1974, head coach for the women's basketball team, athletics director for women's sports and coach of the women's track and field team, which she bad started.
Her workdays usually ran longer than 12 hours. She was paid $14,000 a year.
going to get it by it only playing schools within 30 miles of Lawrence.
Washington coached the track and field team for one year before the grind became too much. And she had a basketball program to build.
She needed money for the program. So in addition to proposing an annual budget to Student Senate, Washington held bake sales, car washes and summer camps.
Washington's teams would pile into old, white, state-issue vans, with packed lunches in hand, and would play teams such as Grand View and Mount St. Scholastica.
There was no recruiting. Washington would post the fliers for tryouts around campus and pray that young women would show up.
Andrew Rohrback / KANSAN
She did not give her first scholarship until 1975. It was a $200 check to Adrian Mitchell, who became the school's second all-time leading scorer.
Washington, who would drive, remembered a 12-hour ride to Plainview, Texas, on a cold December night in 1976, to play Wayland Baptist, one of the top teams in the nation.
She would make these trips to gain national recognition. She wasn't
And there was the snowstorm on the way to Minnesota in 1890. To this day, it's the worst Washington has seen. She could only see the road line immediately after the wiper would glide across the wide windshield.
Peg Wittmer, who has done the team's radio broadcasts for more than 20 years and is a longtime friend of Washington's, was also in the van.
"You couldn't even see two feet in front of the van, so we had to go about five miles an hour." Wittmer said.
"She was so calm, we knew she had it under control. And when we finally got to the arena where we were going to play the next day, I couldn't believe it. She just turned around like nothing happened and told the team to unload for the shootaround."
To Washington, it was no big deal.
"I've always had to find a way to work through whatever I was feeling." was all she said.
Now she's not talking about a snowstorm. She's talking about her life. She talks about things that she hasn't openly shared in all her time at Kansas.
"I have a hard time with this part of my career," Washington said. "I could probably load up with so many negatives we could have a whole bunch of pages on it. They might say that Marian just thinks that people are out to get her. But people don't have any idea what I've been through."
The positives she has experienced outweigh the negatives, but the negatives drive her. They have pushed her to achieve 480 wins. She has accepted the challenges.
"To have been in this business as a black woman, people have done everything to keep me from being successful," Washington says. "I have worked hard to not let people see this side of me.
Washington recalls a statewide petition launched by former Kansas coaches to oust her from the position as athletics director. She recalls whispers accusing her of drug use, because nobody could be working as hard as she was to get the women's athletic program started.
"I never understood why people just couldn't appreciate my efforts," she says. "If I had to tell somebody that we needed the court for practice that day, well now I was a black b-i-t-c-h. And I think the hardest times were when they were people that I had to face every day.
"I have to pray about it all the time. I have to ask God to not harden my heart. He has moved me forward and those people are looking up to me now, calling me for help."
It wasn't only her early years that were troubling. In the winter of 1987, Washington was able to secure a recruiting visit from Daedra Charles, one of the top national recruits at the time, who now plays for the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA.
Washington had arranged a reception to welcome Charles at halftime of a men's basketball game at Allen Field House. Halftime came, and the two left the field house and went to the reception room.
Washington opened the door, and the room was dark and empty.
Charles ended up going to Tennessee, where she was a two-time All-American and a member of two national championship teams. Washington still can't explain what happened.
"I guess they just forgot about us," she says.
Washington still is searching for a piece of the basketball court she has spent about half of her 51 years on. After it was replaced in 1992, the court was cut into pieces and distributed. Some went to fans for a price, others were gifts to those in the athletics department. Washington never was offered a piece.
Those things eat at her.
"My life has been so focused, so driven, because of the pain," she said. "And I think that I lost a lot of the balance because of that. I wanted so much to be successful, that I was ready to put so much of the rest of my life aside.
"If I had it to go through again, I wouldn't do it. I would never do it again."
She would do it again.
Washington's faith in
God and in her parents,
Goldie and Marian, would
never allow her to quit.
She grew up in West
Chester, Pa., about 40
God, family and hard work
Washington in 1975. In the mid-70s, she served as women's basketball coach, women's athletics director and coach of the women's track & field team. Photo courtesy University Archives
They mowed lawns and helped people move. And when neighbor's cars broke down, they brought them to Goldie. Washington, her three younger sisters and younger brother would huddle around the engine, waiting for their dad's instructions.
miles south of Philadelphia. Goldie, who died in 1971 at the age of 81, was self-employed and did odd jobs around town. But whenever he was working, his family was closely in tow.
"I don't remember not working." Washington said. "Playing was a luxury to me. But it wasn't like we didn't have fun. We just learned how to have fun working hard."
"He was very much from the old school, in terms of stressing discipline and being strict, but he was so far ahead in his respect for women that he just didn't think there were any barriers," Washington said.
And Goldie placed no boundaries on them for being women.
Seeing the family struggle took its toll on Washington. This, her mother believes, is what drove her to succeed.
"I have my mother to thank for the capacity to love," Washington said. "She always stressed that even though we might not have had as much material things as others, it was important to have a relationship with God."
"She didn't like to see us toiling the way we had to toil," her mother said. "I could tell that she wanted to make it better for our family."
No matter how late the family finished the day's jobs, her mother would read the Bible to her every night.
She takes a long pause when asked to describe her childhood home.
She doesn't tell people that her home was without electricity sometimes, so the family would use kerosene lamps instead.
This is the part of her childhood she doesn't tell people.
"I don't really want to right now," she savs.
She doesn't tell people that the first time she saw carpet on the floor was when she was visiting a softball teammate's home in the fifth grade.
depth about her daughter, Josie, a 1984 graduate of Kansas who is married with two children and lives in pennsylvania. Washington chooses to keep this part of her life private.
Washington was a quiet child who spent a lot of time thinking. She wondered why, when she was walking to school, kids would hang out the window of passing cars and yell "blackie" and "nigger" as they sneed by.
It wasn't until she started competing in sports that Washington had an outlet.
"I didn't have to worry about the fact that I didn't have a lot of money or that my house wasn't as nice as someone else's." Washington said. "Competing just helped me have a sense of self-worth, because being Black did not keep me from being successful."
Washington excelled in basketball and track during her time at Henderson High School. Mary Jo Hetzel, who attended a private school nearby and played basketball against Washington, recalls one battle.
Washington doesn't speak in
"I remember in one game, after she had already scored a bunch of points, I said to my coach, 'Let me try and guard her.'" Hetzel said. "And, let me tell you, I didn't do much better. She was just on another level."
Washington never thought of college until she met her ninth-grade algebra teacher, Ruth Redding. After seeing how hard Washington worked at math, Redding told her to consider college.
Washington eventually enrolled at West Chester State. Even though she continued to compete in sports, she had no scholarships. So she helped pay for school by working the night shift in a factory that produced plastic cups.
"All of a sudden, it wasn't just that I could play all these sports." Washington said. "Now there was someone telling me that I had a mind as well."
Washington's mother, who turned 88 last month, remembers the late-night talks she had with her husband about their oldest daughter.
"He used to tell me, 'Sister's going to be something,' she says, referring to the nickname Goldie gave her when she was born." The struggles she has faced in her life are all worth it now. Many people would have quit, but not Marian. She was focused on what she wanted, and now she has it."
the struggles and hard work influence Washington's spending habits today. Only after her salary was increased in recent years—she made $110,000 last year—did she buy new bedroom furniture and a set of pots and pans. The replaced
wares had been with her since she came to Kansas in the early 70s.
"I am so used to saving and being disciplined with money that I still don't really indulge with cars or clothes or anything," Washington said. "My father taught me that it was not how much you had, but the quality of what you had."
1 nat explains the well-preserved Flat that sits in her driveway and the '89 Saab in the garage, both of which she rarely drives.
But there is one exception to the quality/quantity rule: videotapes. They engulf the bar counter beside the living room and are piled 20 or 30 high in five neat stacks.
"I'm always taping games, and I guess sometimes I go overboard with those." Washington said, pointing at the three VCRs that sit atop her big-screen television. "But, you can never be too prepared for a game. And when we play, I need to feel like I did everything possible to give us the best chance to win."
Wins and Losses
Wins were something Washington had a hard time seeing when she looked at her team's tough schedule at this season's start. Maybe 10 wins, she thought.
On the team bus after winning the season's first game against Creighton, she said, "If we could just get through this year with the recruits and another year of experience, we can make it to the tournament next year. If we could just get through this year."
She would have laughed then he she had heard that her team would make it farther in the NCAA Tournament than the men's team.
The wins haven't always been easy. An 18 point comeback against Texas at Allen Field House earlier this season was one of the most gut-wrenching in Washington's career.
The team has 23 wins as they head to Oakland, Calif., this weekend to play Arkansas in the women's second-ever Sweet-16 appearance.
The words Tamecka Dixon spoke early in the season seem almost prophetic now. Dixon played for Washington from 1993-1997 and now plays for the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA.
Above: Marian Washington paces the sidelines during a game earlier this season. For the first time in her 25 years as women's basketball coach, her team has advanced farther in the NCAA Tournament than the men's team.
Left: The two Marian Washingtons. The younger Marian credits her mother, 80, with giving her the capacity to love.
"Everyone will be shocked when they're beating teams in the tournament," Dixon said in November. "But it's going to happen, because she is a great coach and will get the maximum out of these players."
During practices, Washington looks like a teacher waiting for her students to finish a test. She walks with arms folded to each group of drills, which are run by assistant coaches Tim Eatman, Misty Opat and Mahood.
When freshman point guard Jennifer Jackson fails to defend her player, Washington points out what she did wrong.
"Even when she yells, I don't feel like she's yelling at me, I just feel like she's talking loud," Jackson said. "A lot of coaches get mad and they scream their heads off. Coach Washington is not like that. She just looks at you, and you know exactly what you did wrong."
She can relate to players because she has competed at the highest level. Washington played center on the West Chester State team that won the national championship in 1969. Later that year, she was chosen as one of the first of two black women to make the U.S national team. She also competed internationally in handball as a member of the U.S. women's Olympic team in the 1975 World Games.
Though she wants nothing more than to see her players improve, she's not serious all the time. Her players get to see the side of Washington that only comes out when they're around.
Washington will attempt to prolong a surprisingly successful season this weekend at the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in Oakland, Calif.
On the serious side, she has games to win. Not just for herself, but to prove wrong all those that ever told her she couldn't and wouldn't be where she is today.
When junior guard Shandy Robins asked Washington what her beauty secret was the (51-year-old Washington doesn't look a day older than 40), she replied, "You kids keep me young."
She's won those battles, and now the biggest challenge is on the basketball court.
But, when asked how much longer she will coach, Washington plays it close to the vest.
"I still have too much to do," she savs.
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in Oakland, Calif.
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