THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 19, 1996 TAG: 9601190073
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GREENVILLE, N.C. LENGTH: Long : 159 lines
Anne Donovan is in the market for some purple shirts, preferably with a hint of gold trim.
Meanwhile, her wardrobe is overflowing with a bunch of blue and white garb she won't be wearing any time soon. It's her collection of Old Dominion shirts and shorts and caps, and she's looking for someone who can wear it now that she won't be.
``I've got a closet full of stuff that will fit somebody 6-8,'' says Donovan, today suited up in a black and white Nike jogging outfit. ``I'm looking for the right person.''
Donovan, who last spring left her job as an assistant at ODU to become the head women's basketball coach at East Carolina, will be showing off her new colors tonight when the Pirates (5-7) host her alma mater, Old Dominion (11-2), at Minges Coliseum. And although the former ODU great admits to being sentimental - ``I'm embarrassed by how much so,'' she says - you won't find this date circled on her calendar with a big star next to it.
``I have great reluctance seeing the kids on a different bench,'' says Donovan, who recruited many of them. ``That's tough.''
Understandably so since Donovan, 34, is the woman who perhaps most personifies the Lady Monarchs' tradition. In her four years as a player (1979-83), she became ODU's all-time leader in scoring (2,719 points), rebounding (1,976) and blocked shots (801). A three-time All-American, she led the Lady Monarchs to the 1979-80 national championship.
But today she is Anne Donovan, ECU coach. She apologizes for her scantily decorated office, which contains only a few reminders of a brilliant career that included three Olympic teams and an induction last May into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.
The plaque that commemorates the day she entered the Hall with the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabaar occupies an otherwise blank wall, and an adjacent wall bears a single photo of the 1988 gold medal team from Seoul, Korea. Peek behind her desk and interspersed with family collages is the one ODU keepsake Donovan holds most dear: a picture of her towering over teammates Nancy Lieberman and Inge Nissen from the championship season.
The dominant colors in her office are purple and gold, right down to the leftover Christmas tree on a nearby table.
``People have been so great here thinking this is Anne Donovan, Hall-of-Famer, Olympian, East Carolina coach as well,'' she says. ``I'm very excited that I'm here to rebuild this basketball program. I think that has made people take this program a little more seriously, that I could come in here. Someone with my background, my education.''
Donovan flatly states she didn't want to coach. Kids, she thought, and generations had changed too much since her playing days.
``By the time I was thinking about coaching, it was '89,'' she says. ``When I grew up, if we got a pair of shoes, it was the greatest thing. Now you get a pair and it's like, `When are we getting the next pair? And why aren't they purple?' ''
She credits ODU coach Wendy Larry for ``roping me into it.'' In her first season as the Lady Monarchs' part-time assistant, the team went 5-21, enough to make Donovan quit. But she didn't. She remained Larry's full-time assistant for six years.
``I survived that first year,'' she says. ``There were two kids on that team that I was able to reach, and I knew I made an impact on their lives. Not as basketball players. Neither one of them went on to do anything overly special on the court. But as people they definitely blossomed. And I knew I had something to do with that.''
That was the hook. And for someone who, despite being 6-foot-8, does not like to attract attention, the behind-the-scenes role was a comfortable fit. It wasn't until Pirates coach Rosie Thompson resigned last March after ECU's 8-19 season that Donovan seriously considered head coaching.
She had rejected positions in the past, but this one was different. Despite being a Northerner - Donovan is originally from Ridgewood, N.J. - she's a fan of Southern hospitality. ECU's academic reputation impressed her, as did the campus and arena - a great recruiting tool, she thought. Living in a small town would be difficult, but she anticipated the 13-hour days she's now a part of. A negative was coaching within the CAA, home of ODU.
``I don't relish playing Old Dominion two times a year,'' she says. ``But it's an advantage in some ways. I'm familiar with all the teams in the conference.''
Donovan inherited a program that was 26-55 the past three seasons. Four starters returned who were accustomed to a system completely unlike Donovan's. Classifying herself as demanding and intense, Donovan admits her personality was night-and-day different from Thompson's.
Her philosophy combines her inborn motivation with the team-building skills she picked up from Kay Yow, her Olympic coach; the intensity she learned from Marianne Stanley, her coach at ODU; and the ability to keep it all in perspective, a Wendy Larry trait.
Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, who coached Donovan twice on Olympic teams, reiterated something Donovan's mother taught her that she now applies in practices: Do it the right way, 110 percent of the time. There are no excuses; you don't practice the wrong way.
It was a tough lesson for the Pirates, and some didn't wait around for it. ECU started the season with 16 players and 12 remain.
``I think the kids were doing the absolute minimum to be an athlete here,'' Donovan says. ``They're great students, all dean's list, but on the court, they were doing the bare minimum. . . . It was a struggle, and it was a power struggle the first days, the first weeks of practice over who was going to win.''
On those days, the generally reserved Donovan did a lot of yelling and screaming. She challenged their work ethic, pushed harder than before and in areas like defense, started from Square 1.
Senior guard Danielle Charlesworth said her teammates who didn't want to give their best effort probably frustrated Donovan the most. Charlesworth anticipated harder times when Donovan accepted the job.
``Every day the difference is probably the intensity and how well focused we are,'' she says. ``We know every drill we have to be focused.''
Not all the adjustments came easily for Donovan, either. The friendly rapport she had with the Lady Monarchs as an assistant didn't come naturally with the Pirates.
``I was real close to her,'' says Esther Benjamin, one of ODU's senior post players. ``I would go in and talk to her - Coach D. She was the kind of person, well, you couldn't tell her everything, but almost everything. . . . She's the type of coach, she understands. She always knew what to say.''
Donovan, who spoke with several ODU players after their upset win over Georgia, relished the role of being a player confidant. At ECU her door is open, but her players often seek out her assistants. Donovan attributes most of that to an innate fear every player has of the head coach.
``It was hard for me to imagine how they could be afraid of me,'' she says. ``I think my players here would be shocked with the rapport I had with the kids at ODU. It was so different. And I think in time it will come. But that was the hardest thing for me. To go from being a listener to head honcho.''
The other provoking realization came earlier this week when ECU was blown out at American University. On the bus ride back, Donovan remembers thinking: ``The buck really does stop in my seat. I'm the one who has to come up with answers for why we played so poorly.''
And she is the one who all eyes will be fixed on tonight. Coaches like to tell you they give every game the same weight. But Donovan can't deny that this game has extra elements, down to the pregame meal.
``If I remember correctly, Old Dominion will eat at the same restaurant that we eat our pregame meal in, and I would like that not to happen,'' she says. ``I would like as much as possible to distance myself emotionally, just because it's going to be pretty difficult anyway.
``But I won't change what we do here. It's important for our kids here, and I'd be lying if I said our kids here weren't curious about this, and what kind of effect it will have on me.''
Donovan has only seen ODU on tape - rules prevent her from being in-person at games - and she's impressed.
Too, she talks to Donovan regularly.
``Anne certainly knows Wendy and Wendy knows Anne,'' Larry says. ``It will be interesting to see the philosophy she develops and the basis of that. But we've changed things; we're a different look, a different basketball team. There are some changes, some twists if you will. Maybe we'll save a couple for Coach D.''
And Larry will no doubt recognize a few of her own touches on the Donovan sideline - starting with everyone wearing purple.
``We have a rule, actually Wendy had it at Old Dominion,'' Donovan says, ``that you can't wear other schools' clothing. And my players here give me the hardest time for that. But all my life I've been Old Dominion. You can't imagine the wardrobe I'll give away in order to follow my own rule.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Brant Sanderlin, The Daily Reflector
Anne Donovan, who last spring left her job as an ODU assistant to
become the women's basketball coach at East Carolina, will face her
old team tonight.
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