It was Megan Langenfeld’s first day of school at UCLA. Her first day ever. Her first practice, her first conditioning test, her first college class.
She’s a senior leader on the softball team now, so when I asked her if she remembered approximately when that day was, I didn’t expect an exact answer.
“I remember this,” she said. “It’s insane: Sept. 28, 2006.”
“It was big news,” she understatedly added later. “I’ll never forget that day, ever.”
Sept. 28, 2006, was a very important day for Megan Langenfeld because that was the day her then-coach, the legendary Sue Enquist, announced her abrupt and unexpected retirement.
“At that point we had every sort of reaction you could have possibly had,” Langenfeld recalled. “The freshmen … we sat there almost in shell shock. We just didn’t know what to think. You had some of the seniors crying, crying hysterically. Then you had some of them that were mad. And you had some girls who were happy for (Enquist). … You had every sort of emotion.”
Gone was the woman who recruited Langenfeld, and gone was the coach with 10 national championships, the most of any coach in softball history.
“We thought Coach Enquist was going to be the head coach until she practically died,” Langenfeld only half-jokingly said. “We thought she was going to be there, almost Joe Paterno status, (until she was) 80 something, she was just going to be there rounding third base.
“We still talk about that day, me and the seniors do.”
I can certainly understand why.
Coaching changes leave scars.
The last week-and-a-half has been perhaps the most tumultuous 10 days of my college career for UCLA Athletics.
Out went Pete Carroll at USC, shaking up the entire conference as he made his splashdown in the NFL. In came Lane Kiffin, leaving Tennessee students to literally blaze a trail behind him, Kiffin dragging along some of his baggage, committing a potential NCAA infraction before he even made it to his press conference.
That all mattered to our side of town because irresponsible and inaccurate reporting by ESPN’s Shelley Smith claimed offensive coordinator Norm Chow had already finalized a deal with the Trojans. It took several days for those stories to unravel as untrue.
In the midst of the football drama, UCLA’s legendary women’s volleyball coach, the face of the sport for more than 40 years, pulled a Sue Enquist and shocked his bosses by announcing his retirement. Coincidently or not, Andy Banachowski’s two best players Amanda Gil and Lauren Cook left the program within hours of his departure.
What a mess.
For those counting, that’s three coaches that peaced out promptly, leaving their programs in shambles, and one offensive coordinator that almost jumped ship hours before the most critical recruiting weekend in college football.
Some of the athletes currently stuck within the sour situation did their best to look optimistically into the future. But they also didn’t make any qualms about hiding their pain.
“I grew up here,” quarterback Kevin Prince said after learning Chow was here to stay. “UCLA is where my dad went to school, but a lot of the reason also was Coach Neuheisel and Coach Chow. It’s hard as a recruit to not like a coach and want to play for him. That’s a lot of reason why a lot of recruits choose to play for a school.”
“It was pretty sad to be honest with you,” said middle blocker Katie Camp about Banachowski’s retirement.
“It was definitely hard,” outside hitter Dicey McGraw added. “It was very unexpected. I didn’t think Andy was going to leave anytime soon. I thought he was going to be here at least 10 more years. We all did. So, I was very caught off guard, the entire team was caught off guard. A lot of tears.”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Coaches may indeed leave for good and appropriate reasons. Certainly, after 43 years of service Banachowski has earned the right to call it quits whenever he so chooses.
Others leave for more selfish reasons, Kiffin being the perfect example of a guy willing to hang his players out to dry in order to advance himself.
But regardless of right or wrong, coaches, the media, and athletic departments need to really stop and consider how coaching changes rattle the young people getting coached.
Rick Neuheisel said earlier this week that “coaches are replaceable.”
That’s how we all tend to look at them: dehumanized cogs who go in and come out, get hired, get fired, and we move on with our lives.
But the players who invested all of themselves into these coaches don’t see it that way.
Erica Tukiainen had to watch as the UCLA Athletic Department nudged her then-coach Kathy Olivier out the door.
“When we heard it was time for her retirement, it hurt,” Tukiainen said. “It’s like you’re breaking up with somebody, or you have to break up.”
“To some degree there is a sense of selfishness in that, you commit yourself to these specific coaches with these specific roles, and you get thrown this crazy curveball,” Langenfeld added. “Then, it’s, “˜Why me, why now?'”
Certainly changes are sometimes needed within a program, as Tukiainen said was the case in women’s basketball at the time.
And Tukiainen and Langenfeld both said that athletes have learned to embrace adversity, so they are well-equipped to deal with coaching changes.
But listening to Langenfeld recall her first day of school like it was yesterday can’t help but make me feel for the athletes who have to go through this.
The revolving door that coaches walk through never rotates for the student-athletes involved. It traps them, suffocates them, and brings forth many tears.
E-mail Stevens at mstevens@media.ucla.edu.