For the past 18 years, Kelly Inouye-Perez has given her heart and soul to the UCLA softball team.
As a player and assistant coach, Inouye-Perez has experienced firsthand and played a significant role in six national championship titles.
Now, after coach Sue Enquist’s surprising retirement at the beginning of the school year, Inouye-Perez has taken over the position and all of the high expectations that come with it.
“It is a huge standard, but it all comes back to our day-to-day goal of being process-oriented,” Inouye-Perez said. “I could sit here and say “˜Oh my God,’ or I can sit here and just do everything I can to help prepare these guys to play the game that we know and do what we’ve done throughout history.”
As the No. 3 Bruins begin their season against No. 17 Texas today at the Kajikawa Classic in Tempe, Ariz., Inouye-Perez has her players all on the same page and full of high expectations for the season.
That’s an accomplishment that is nothing short of amazing when you consider how this year started off.
A rough beginning
Enquist’s abrupt retirement caught all of the players completely off guard. Enquist had prepared Inouye-Perez and the coaching staff for her departure as coach, but had given no signs at all to the players, who assumed she would be back to coach this season.
The sudden knowledge of Enquist’s retirement caused a mixed reaction among the Bruin players.
“It made so much sense,” said shortstop Jodie Legaspi, who is one of nine seniors for the Bruins this season. “She wanted to leave the game when she was at her best.”
Other players were not as understanding.
“I felt betrayed. I felt abandoned,” senior second-baseman/pitcher Lisa Dodd said. “I was really angry about it.”
Star freshman Megan Langenfeld is all smiles now and can’t wait to begin her UCLA career, but admits she felt a little bitter at the time.
“As a freshman, there was a little bit (of resentment),” she said. “Not that they meant to lead you down the wrong path, but you kind of felt a little misled.”
Fortunately, “Kelly I.,” as the players affectionately term Inouye-Perez, had the admiration and respect of all the players and coaches.
But that still wasn’t enough to make the transition smooth.
With competing egos among the seniors, a new coaching staff struggling to adjust to its roles, and a lingering sense of confusion, fall was a tough time for the team.
“It was almost like we were running around with our heads cut off,” Dodd said. “We were just doing what she said; we didn’t really know why, but she was the new coach, so we were doing it.”
For the seniors, the change in leadership created initial instability that hadn’t been present under the hard-line disciplinary hand of Enquist.
“At the beginning it was hard because all of us (seniors) had our own opinion,” Dodd explained. “All of us had our own vision of the way things should be and there’s nine of us plus the new coaches, and it was just kind of like chaos.”
For Inouye-Perez, the adjustment was a huge struggle at the beginning. She was quickly discovering how different it was to be the head coach as opposed to an assistant coach.
“I wanted to be a leader, but I also wanted to maintain my relationships with the girls,” she said. “That was their No. 1 concern ““ it was, “˜OK, what? You’re not going to be Kelly I. anymore?’
“It’s weird. I never expected when I took over that it would be like this. I was like, why is this getting so difficult? It was me trying to make it more than it was.”
A new identity
After a while, it was hard to ignore things were getting a bit out of hand. So Inouye-Perez held a meeting with her nine seniors to discuss the direction of the program.
“I have nine seniors, and I wanted to give them ownership and responsibility,” Inouye-Perez said. “It’s their team, their practice, and I wanted to be able to facilitate that and manage it but not just have it be one voice.”
The meeting was a big turning point for the team.
“It clarified everything,” Dodd said. “From there, we’ve really come together and I really think what she and the other coaches have done so far, just in the last 10 weeks, is a huge step up.”
As a coach, Inouye-Perez has a much different personality than Enquist. Whereas Enquist was inspirational, fiery and never short of words, Inouye-Perez tends to be more low-key while still making her presence felt.
“She’s flexible and able to bargain with us,” Legaspi said. “She’s great at feeling the mood of the team.”
In order to balance her personality in the coaching staff, Inouye-Perez added one of her best friends, Olympic softball legend and UCLA alumna Lisa Fernandez, as an assistant. Fernandez brings the fire and intensity that complements Inouye-Perez’s down-to-earth style.
“She has a very strong personality and she’s so good,” Dodd said of Fernandez. “You make a play, and it’s like nothing to her because she’s made it a hundred times before. Having her on the coaching staff, we can see the way she plays and the way she goes guts out, and it’s just taken all of us to another level.”
It took awhile, but Inouye-Perez eventually figured out the secret to making everything work.
“What I learned a lot in fall in my attempt to try and figure out how to be a head coach ““ I realized I really just need to remember how to be me,” she said. “I got back to just being me and since then, everything’s been so much better for all of us.”
High expectations
With nine seniors, the stronger return of junior pitcher Anjelica Selden, and a talented group of freshmen, the expectations couldn’t be higher for the Bruins to start the 2007 season.
“I really think our experience is going to carry us,” Dodd said. “Our standards are so high because we see each other perform and how good everyone is and we know we’re the top.”
Inouye-Perez hasn’t even been coach for a game yet, and the program has already been through so much under her. After all of the emotions, she can’t wait to get started.
“If we work together as a team, if we ignite and inspire each other, and if we’re mature, then I think we’ll be in a good place,” Inouye-Perez said. “We have to be excited and embrace the fact that the target may be on our backs.”