June 3, 2001

By Patrick Kinahan
The Salt Lake Tribune

SALT LAKE CITY - The exhilaration was bursting through the sky in the early morning hours 10 years ago, when the University of Utah women's softball team clinched an NCAA playoff spot after playing two games spread over 12 hours.

Amid the celebration, assistant coach Mary Kay Amicone sneaked away to call her husband, Marc. At 7:30 a.m., after the Utes had beaten Creighton in 31 innings in a conference championship game that was preceded by a 25-inning affair between the teams, a drained Amicone was baffled when neither her husband nor her two young sons answered the telephone.

Curious and nervous, she knew there was a problem. Call it mother's instinct.

"Both boys had come down with the chicken pox," said Amicone, who recalled that her husband had taken the children to his parents' home.

Euphoria quickly transformed into concern. This mom's thoughts were back home in Utah.

"Ironically, it was Mother's Day," she said.

So much for breakfast in bed. Here's your card and pass the chicken soup, please.

For 14 years, since her first son was born, Amicone has juggled coaching and motherhood. In 1999, after many years as a high school coach and college assistant, she became a Division I head coach when Brigham Young elevated its club softball program.

Suddenly, her obligations soared.

"It would be impossible to do it without a great support system around me," she said. "For me being a head coach at BYU, Marc has been the biggest support. It's hard to live with me.

"I admit the ups and downs of coaching at this level really can be difficult to deal with."

For some, coaching and motherhood don't mix.

Six years ago, BYU lost its women's tennis coach, Tracy MacDonald, who decided after one season she could not handle the demands of both jobs.

The BYU athletic administration desperately sought to replace MacDonald with another woman. But the best person for the job turned out to be a man.

"We have a bit of a challenge here at BYU in finding women, especially younger women, who want to take on the responsibilities of being a head coach," said athletic director Val Hale.

BYU's last head coaching hire was a man-for-man trade. Assistant coach Jeff Judkins became the women's basketball coach, switching positions with Trent Shippen.

BYU prefers to hire females to coach women's sports, but men direct eight of its 11 women's teams. Amicone is only female coach who is married.

Females coach four of the University of Utah's 11 women's sports. The number could increase this month, if women are hired to coach the track and cross country teams.

Of Utah's four women coaches, only soccer's Amy Winslow is married -- her husband, Jim, is her assistant. She is expecting her first child next month and plans to coach this fall.

Finding Coaches: With a small pool of female coaching candidates, universities have encouraged women to pursue a career along the sidelines if they are inclined. At BYU, female athletes who have completed their eligibility are offered opportunities to serve as undergraduate assistant coaches.

"I like to promote women in the profession because there just are not very many to perpetuate women in athletics," said BYU women's athletic director Elaine Michaelis, who doubles as the women's volleyball coach. "We need to make sure they get a good shot at all things that are there. But I never would take one who isn't as equally qualified, because the quality of our program is important.

"It has to be a qualified candidate. If there were equal candidates -- one was a woman and one was a man -- I'd probably take the woman."

Michaelis, who is in her 39th year of coaching, is grooming a female to replace her. Both of her assistants are former BYU volleyball players. More than a dozen of her former players have followed Michaelis' path, including two who coach boys high school teams.

The University of Utah may soon be forced to choose between a man or woman. Long-time women's basketball coach Elaine Elliott is a top candidate for the Oregon job.

If Elliott leaves, assistant coach Joe Legerski may replace her. Athletic director Chris Hill won't comment unless Elliott leaves, but it's clear Legerski has the credentials.

"We've tried to make a good effort to have females coaching females, but I don't think that's a mandate," Hill said. "You always go back to you want to make sure, above all, you get the best people.

"Those days are over where we have to feel we have to have a women in position just to have a women in position. What's happened is people are just going to try to get the best people."

The best people often are men.

Survey Says: In 1972, before Title IX legislation, 90 percent of the coaches of college women's teams were females, according to a study by two Brooklyn, N.Y., women college professors. In recent years, the number has dropped to 45 percent.

In a national survey he conducted as a doctoral student in sports management at Texas A&M, former Ute baseball pitcher Mike Sagas found that 92.5 percent of male assistant coaches desired to become head coaches, compared with 68.1 percent of female assistants.

He did not have venture far to find a practical application. His wife, Ali Andrus-Sagas, is an A&M assistant softball coach and mother who prefers to stay in that position.

She pitched at Utah for coach Jo Evans, who's now at A&M.

But motherhood is not the sole reason for the decline of women coaches. As Title IX became implemented more, salaries in women's coaching grew substantially.

Oregon reportedly is offering a $200,000 package annually for women's basketball.

"When I came up, guys weren't interested in coaching women," said Elliott. "There wasn't any money in it. As the value was perceived to have improved and grown, all of a sudden there was now a market for men. That's really been the story of the job market and the gender roles that have played out over time in any kind of profession."

She makes a strong point.

Five years ago, the fledgling WNBA had one male head coach. But the league, which appears to have found a niche, now has 10 male head coaches, including two former NBA head coaches -- Ron Rothstein and Richie Adubato -- and ex-Los Angeles Laker Michael Cooper.

"The entire reason men migrated to women's jobs is solely because they became paying jobs," Elliott said. "There wasn't any innate desire to help women athletes."

A strong supporter of hiring female coaches, Elliott speaks with credibility. Any bitterness has justification, considering that women coaches are not welcome in men's games.

But in 18 years as Utah's head coach, Elliott has hired the best available candidate regardless of gender. After the 1997-98 season, she promoted Legerski to associate head coach.

"He earned it," Elliott said. "You can't do any better than Joe."

Legerski, a father of three, has coached women's basketball for 17 years, including one season as the head coach at Western Wyoming. He has worked with Elliott for 10 years.

Not wanting to discuss her future, Elliott also declined to speculate on possible successors. But BYU's Michaelis endorses Legerski.

Even if Utah's preference would be to hire a woman.

Another reason for the abundance of men coaches in women's sports is what Michaelis calls "the old boys network." Research supports her theory.

In the same study, the two Brooklyn professors found women athletic directors hired women to coach female sports more than half the time. For schools with male athletic directors, the number of females coaching women's teams dropped to 45 percent.

"It's been perpetuated by athletic directors who are of the male sex," Michaelis said.

BYU is one of a handful of Division I schools with separate athletic directors divided by gender. Michaelis and Hale are equals, each with responsibilities over women's and men's programs, respectively.

Keeping Judkins: Last April, a group of BYU women basketball players implored Michaelis to find a way to keep Judkins as a women's coach. They were afraid he would leave as an assistant women's coach to replace Heath Schroyer on the men's staff.

Judkins rejected Steve Cleveland's offer for the chance to direct his own program. A former NBA player and a 10-year assistant to Rick Majerus at Utah, Judkins was on Shippen's staff last season.

He quickly picked up on general differences between coaching men and women.

"The women probably listen a little bit better," he said. "They haven't been through it all and they don't have all the answers, so when you coach them, they really try to absorb it and take it to heart.

"They're not as gifted, but they execute and really try to do what you want them to do."

Danielle Cheesman, the Mountain View basketball star who will play for BYU next fall, agrees with her future coach. Because of gender differences, she believes women's teams should have at least one female coach.

Soon after Judkins took his current position, he hired former Utah point guard Alli Bills as an assistant. Cindy Lawrence also has been on the staff for four years.

At Mountain View, Cheesman played for Dave Houle and assistant Laura Romo.

"Everyone knows girls are different than guys. Girls are more sensitive, you can't yell as much," Cheesman said. "[Male coaches] can get their point across better of who they want you to be and what they want you to do. But women are more understanding and more patient with athletes, and they're more articulate with what they want."

Judkins does not discount the money issue, but he also points out that some men prefer the women's game because the athletes are more coachable. Few female athletes seem to be discipline problems.

The big question for Judkins concerns his future. Ultimately, he wants to return to men's basketball as a head coach.

But it's a one-way street. Male coaches who jump to women's sports traditionally don't get back into men's sports.

"It's not a steppingstone," Elliott said. "There's a pecking order, and I tend to think a women's coach still is viewed as below a men's coach."

Amicone views herself as role model to her players. She wants to show that bats and babies can work.

To accommodate a better family life, Amicone often involves her children in the BYU softball program. During summer recruiting trips, her family sandwiches a vacation around work.

Her sons made the trip to California for last month's NCAA regionals.

"I don't feel like I'm letting my boys down," she said. "In fact, we've been able to have a lot of experiences that are really good."