Not long after returning from a second interview for the
athletic director position at Emory University, Betsy Stephenson
headed to the UCLA women’s basketball banquet. The associate
athletic director wouldn’t miss it for the world.
There, she received a note from guard Nikki Blue, which read:
“Thank you for all you’ve done for us. Sometimes you
just have to throw four down and go for yourself.”
The reference to Blue’s isolation play, in which she takes
on an opponent off the dribble one-on-one, found an appropriate
place in the context of Stephenson’s departure to the
Division III university in Atlanta, Ga.
After seven years tending to the needs of athletes and coaches
at UCLA, Stephenson, who will be assuming responsibilities as
Emory’s athletic director on June 1, is finally making a move
for herself.
The average student on UCLA’s campus probably
doesn’t know who Betsy Stephenson is.
But athletes definitely know her. And she knows them. And not
just their stats ““ she knows their hopes, their fears, their
dreams.
So when Stephenson broke the news to the Bruin athletes on the
Olympic sports teams she oversees, there were disappointed
sighs.
But players like Blue understood.
“I wasn’t going to take just any job to be an
athletic director,” Stephenson said. “It had to be the
right job.”
For Stephenson, working with athletes means encouraging success:
For her, it’s the feeling of accomplishment players attain
when they work their hardest ““ a simple idea for someone who
leads by example, as Stephenson does. She oversees the majority of
Olympic sports at UCLA, including women’s softball,
basketball and gymnastics. Under her watch, UCLA teams have won 15
national championships in the past seven years.
“I haven’t worked for an administrator who has known
every player on every team by name,” UCLA women’s
soccer coach Jill Ellis said. “Everything that goes on here
matters to Betsy. She’s been a tremendous advocate for the
student-athlete and a proponent for them at UCLA.”
Stephenson’s love for athletics began long before she
claimed a third-floor office in the Morgan Center. After graduating
from Kansas in 1983 ““ where she played volleyball ““ she
worked in event management for the NCAA, and ultimately as the
Director of Division I men’s basketball operations.
“When I worked at the NCAA, I was confused about why the
people there wanted to hire people from college campuses,”
she said. “Then, I got on a campus and realized how important
it was to get that perspective.”
She was offered that opportunity to move onto a campus in 1992,
when she returned to her alma mater in the same role she holds at
UCLA today.
After meeting administrators and coaches from UCLA at the 1996
volleyball regionals, she was invited to make another move ““
to Westwood.
“If you look top-to-bottom, the programs that coaches and
players are exposed to here was the main draw for me,”
Stephenson said. “The substance behind the Olympic sports
programs was what separated UCLA from others.”
Stephenson came to UCLA under difficult circumstances, as the
athletic department was still mired in the mess of the 1995
softball season, when it was discovered that an athlete was playing
under a soccer scholarship, a violation of NCAA rules.
The NCAA was processing the case, which ultimately cost UCLA the
1995 championship and the opportunity to compete in postseason play
the following year.
“The penalty was a witch hunt, with what they did. They
went after a sport that was in trouble to make an example out of
UCLA,” she said.
Seven years removed from the scandal, Stephenson must pause to
find the right words. The wounds might have scarred; they
haven’t disappeared.
That experience fostered a fierce loyalty in Stephenson, which
has never wavered.
“She will do anything for your program and for this
school,” said women’s basketball coach Kathy
Olivier.
Keeping her role at UCLA would have been easy, but the move to
Emory was a decision Stephenson had to make for her career. Her
name had come up in unofficial circles when the athletic director
position was open at Kansas and at Hawaii in 2003. In addition, she
was a finalist for UCLA’s athletic director position in 2002,
which ultimately went to Dan Guerrero.
Some speculate she has not received more interest from Division
I schools as a result of her lack of football management; she
points to Guerrero’s appointment from UC Irvine, which does
not have a football program.
But it’s the Olympic sports which have kept her here, not
the big-name glamour of UCLA.
A memory that will never leave her was one of her first: the
1997 men’s soccer championship.
“It was the golden goal,” she said. “It took
my breath away. I couldn’t believe it. We had our subs in and
just kept waiting … it just took my breath away.”
In the books, Stephenson is ending her time at UCLA the same way
she started: holding a trophy with UCLA’s name engraved as
the national gymnastics champions. This year, in Pauley Pavilion,
Stephenson shed tears ““ surely of joy, but also of sadness.
UCLA will always hold a special place in Stephenson’s heart;
but for now, she’s taking one for herself.