Gail force: UT's Goestenkors relentless

Transcription

1 SPORTSDAY Colleges: Texas Gail force: UT's Goestenkors relentless 07:02 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 By CHIP BROWN / The Dallas Morning News chipbrown@dallasnews.com AUSTIN While Texas women's basketball coach Gail Goestenkors' feet pound on the treadmill, her eyes and ears will be fixed on the TV in front of her. She'll constantly flip channels, from MTV and VH1 to BET and CMT. Growing up in Waterford, Mich., a hard-working town in the Rust Belt northwest of Detroit, she never would have dreamed of doing her homework with the TV on. Now, she wouldn't dream of doing her homework without the TV on. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights she's glued to American Idol. On Thursday nights it's Grey's Anatomy. And she tries not to miss an episode of America's Next Top Model. "It keeps me up with all the things the kids are interested in," said Goestenkors, 44. "When my team starts talking about something, I'm going to TiVo it, watch it and get in the discussion because there has to be some common ground outside of basketball." Talk to Goestenkors' former players and you realize why she went to 13 straight NCAA Tournaments at Duke, reaching the Final Four four times in the last nine seasons and the national championship game twice. Talk to the coaches she worked under and played for and you realize why Texas women's athletic director Chris Plonsky wanted to fly home with Goestenkors to Durham, N.C., after a three-day interview in Austin, while Goestenkors was deciding if she should take the Longhorns job. Talk to Goestenkors and you learn why she turned down a better offer from Duke roughly $1 million per year with a "lifetime guarantee," meaning she could have coached the Blue Devils as long as she wanted to succeed Hall of Famer Jody Conradt in Austin. "A lifetime guarantee is comfort. I did the scary thing. But to me, it's exciting," Goestenkors said. A natural leader Former Duke point guard Lindsey Harding, the No. 1 pick in this year's WNBA draft, says Texas is getting "a fighter" in Goestenkors. Her relentless, competitive spirit was shaped by trying to keep up with two older brothers. In sixth 1 of 5 5/16/07 7:20 PM

2 grade, Goestenkors played on what had been an all-boys flag football team. In seventh grade, her junior high had no girls track team, so she ran with the boys despite her coach's repeated efforts to get her to quit. "Finally, he grew to admire my determination," said Goestenkors (pronounced GES-ten-kors). Her father, John, an electrical engineer for General Motors, promised his four children he would pay for their first year of college. After that, they were on their own. So Goestenkors' goal was to get a scholarship. A 5-4 point guard, she led Waterford Kettering High School to a record but received no scholarship offers. So she and her father asked coaches for tryouts and drove to school after school. Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Grand Valley State, Bowling Green, Detroit. She literally waited by the mailbox during the summer after her senior year. They all sent form letters saying no. "That was the hardest time of my life," Goestenkors said. "I was just waiting for that letter saying I was good enough. It never came." But Saginaw Valley State coach Marsha Reall told her that if she paid her way the first year and made the team, she'd give her a scholarship. By the end of her freshman year, Goestenkors had her scholarship. By the time she was done at Saginaw Valley, she was an NAIA All-American. She also beat many of the schools that rejected her while leading the Cardinal to the NAIA championship game as a senior, losing by one point. "Gail led in every way," Reall said. "On the court, she was a coach, always huddling the players to make sure they were on the same page. In conditioning, she never lost a sprint. Gail was our best player and our hardest worker." Reall recommended Goestenkors for a job coaching a local seventh-grade team during the fall of Goestenkors' senior year. When a player failed to make the proper pass or forgot to trap on a full-court press, Goestenkors made her start over. The team reached its league championship game. But the players had a slumber party the night before and stayed up all night talking. Their sleepless night resulted in a loss. Goestenkors was furious. "That's when I knew I had to be a coach and be able to recruit players who were as passionate as I was," Goestenkors said. "I couldn't stand that it wasn't as important to them as it was to me." Building a winner Reall hired Goestenkors as an assistant coach after being named head coach at Purdue in Reall lasted one season. When Lin Dunn was named Reall's successor, she took one look at Goestenkors' recruiting list and hired her. "She was not only in on all the best players in the state of Indiana, she had a good chance of getting them," said Dunn, now an assistant coach with the WNBA Indiana Fever. Gale Valley, Goestenkors' top assistant for 15 years at Duke and Goestenkors' first hire at Texas, was an assistant at Duke for three seasons under Debbie Leonard before Goestenkors arrived. Duke had one winning record in the ACC in the 17 seasons before Goestenkors got there. In her last eight seasons at Duke, Goestenkors led the Blue Devils to the ACC regular-season championship, three times going undefeated in league play. She also won five ACC tournament titles. 2 of 5 5/16/07 7:20 PM

3 "Gail was able to turn Duke around by recruiting the best players and selling them on being a part of something special and winning championships," Valley said. "The reason those players listened is because Gail did most of the talking. For a head coach to lead the recruiting effort, do most of the phone calling, the ing or whatever, probably isn't that common. But she still does that today. She never stops." Leaving Duke was the most difficult decision of Goestenkors' career. The most difficult moment of her career came in the final game of the 2006 season. Duke blew a 13-point lead with 14:53 left in the national title game against Maryland, losing in overtime, Goestenkors was devastated. It was her fourth trip to the Final Four, her second to the national title game. After losing by 17 points to Purdue for the title in 1999, her team had been the favorite this time. Harding said Goestenkors never let her players see her devastation. "She came into the locker room after that game and said, 'What's delayed is not denied,' " Harding said. "That was her way of telling us we would simply have to get back to the championship." Before last season, Goestenkors cooked dinner for each class on her Duke team. Her players were shocked because Goestenkors doesn't cook. Her freezer is filled with frozen dinners. "I am always telling my players to get out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves," Goestenkors said. "So that's what I decided to do." Players got to choose what Goestenkors cooked. For her freshmen, she cooked steak and crab legs. For her sophomores, it was steak. For her juniors it was lasagna, and for her seniors it was spaghetti. "We chose spaghetti because we figured she couldn't mess that up," Harding said. "But she still burned the garlic toast." Goestenkors' team bounced back from the heartbreak of losing to Maryland by going 29-0 in the regular season. Duke was No. 1 going into the NCAA Tournament but was upset by Rutgers, 53-52, in the Sweet 16, less than four months after beating the Scarlet Knights by 40 in New Jersey. Harding missed two free throws with.01 seconds left. "Lindsey," Goestenkors told her in the locker room, "you've won countless games for us and never wanted the credit, so there's no way I'm going to let you take the blame. This game does not define you or this season." Her coach's words meant the world to Harding. "She tried to take the responsibility off of me and put it on herself," said Harding, now in the WNBA with the Minnesota Lynx. A need for change So why did Goestenkors leave a program she had taken to the top from scratch? "The people," Goestenkors said. "It was never about the money." Texas is one of only three schools in the country with a separate athletic director for women's sports (Tennessee and Arkansas are the others). The chance to work for Plonsky was appealing to Goestenkors. 3 of 5 5/16/07 7:20 PM

4 "Texas is a special place for women's athletics because of people like [former UT women's athletic director] Donna Lopiano, Jody Conradt and Chris Plonsky," Goestenkors said. But it wasn't until she met with other coaches at Texas, specifically football coach Mack Brown, basketball coach Rick Barnes, baseball coach Augie Garrido and women's track coach Bev Kearney, that she knew she would take the UT job. Brown even kept text messaging her after their on-campus meeting to see if there were any other questions he could answer. "The coaches here made me feel part of the family," Goestenkors said. Still, Goestenkors left Austin after three days of interviews without accepting the job. And the day Goestenkors left, there was a rally for her at Duke. Plonsky wanted to fly home to Durham, N.C., with Goestenkors and even offered to fly her straight to Cleveland, where both would be attending the Women's Final Four. "I knew she was perfect for us," said Plonsky, who had a 10-year friendship with Goestenkors through USA Basketball. Goestenkors politely declined. In the end, Goestenkors kept thinking back to something Garrido told her. She asked him why he left Cal State Fullerton, where he won three national titles, to come to Texas (where he has won two). Garrido said, "Winning a national title at Texas comes on a different stage." So the overachieving Michigan girl with a will to win so great that she ripped a bunch of seventh-graders years ago left her legacy at Duke to create another one at Texas. Goestenkors believes she will win a national title at Texas. She thinks Duke will win one, too. "I'm following a legend. That's tough," Goestenkors said. "Jody Conradt was so good and so humble. She told me, 'I've got my legacy and now you can make your legacy. I want you to have this job and everyone here wants that, too.' "It made me feel better. I'm just going to forge my own path." GAIL GOESTENKORS Age: 44 Record: (in 15 seasons at Duke) Career highlights: Four Final Fours (1999, 2002, 2003, 2006) and two appearances in the national championship game (1999, 2006).... Led Duke to an NCAA-record seven consecutive 30-win seasons from to National top-five recruiting classes from 1999 to national coach of the year honors, including the Naismith Award and the WBCA honor twice each (2003, 2007). Notable: Loves the water. Had a lake house in North Carolina, where she would take players for team-building sessions and jet skiing.... Reads two or three motivational books per month, then assigns them to players for book reports.... Was married for nine years to Mark Simons, associate head coach of the Georgia Tech women's basketball team, before divorcing last year. Building for the future: The top recruit for the freshman class of 2008 Elena DelleDonne, a 6-4 sharpshooter from Wilmington, Del. added Texas to her list of possible schools and dropped Duke after Goestenkors arrived in Austin. THE NUMBERS ON GOESTENKORS 4 of 5 5/16/07 7:20 PM

5 13 straight NCAA Tournament appearances by her teams at Duke. 4 Final Four appearances in the last nine seasons. 2 appearances in the national championship game. 396 wins in 15 seasons at Duke. 12 national coach of the year honors. 5 of 5 5/16/07 7:20 PM