6A - Wednesday, November 13, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
'The best damn coach on this campus'
By ALEJANDRO ZUNIGA
Daily Sports Editor
The arched roof of Jenison
Fieldhouse in East Lansing once
housed Earvin "Magic" Johnson.
It hosted Mississippi State and
Loyola Chicago in the 1963 NCAA
Men's Basketball Tournament,
which helped advance civil rights
in one of the nation's most tenuous
times.
But on a day in January 1976,
the dusty court of the hallowed
building was disturbed not by the
cheers of thousands, but by the
methodic pounding of a basketball
as Carol Hutchins and the rest of
the Michigan State women's bas-
ketball team ran through drills.
Partway through the practice, a
prominent visiting men's Division
I squad walked into the building,
familiarizing itself with thevenue
before a game against the Spar-
tans later in the week. Then the
visitors stepped onto the court,
ignoring Hutchins and her team-
mates, and began to warm up.
By then, the head coach of the
visiting team was quite well-
known, and he would go on to
enjoy a long career. But when he
finally acknowledged Hutchins,
his stinging words ultimately
came as less of an insult than they
were the utterance of a painfully
obvious truth.
"No one gives a damn about
women's basketball."
And then he kicked them out.
Growing up in Lansing along-
side five siblings, Hutchins, now
entering her 30th year as the
Michigan softball coach, would
spend her afternoons and sum-
mers outdoors on the playground.
She never quite understood why,
but she always loved sports.
But when her three brothers
were old enough to join organized
teams, Hutchins didn't have the
same options. They went on to
Little League, and she had to sit
on the bleachers. They played bas-
ketball, and she watched from a
distance.
For lack of a better option,
Hutchins enlisted in her school's
cheerleading team in middle
school and high school, the only
varsity sport available to her. It
was far from ideal, but it was the
only way she could get from the
stands onto the field.
"I went and cheered for my
brothers, even though ISwas better
than them," Hutchins said.
Girls who wanted to play any
other sport had to rely on gym
class and sometimes hastily
arranged after-school activities -
no schedules, no uniforms and no
varsityletter.
Despite the extent that the law
would soon change Hutchins's
life, the day Title IX passed in 1972
didn't seem out of the ordinary to
the high-school student. Hutchins
didn't come home and tell her par-
ents that she could soon play orga-
nized sports. The implications of
Title IX on athletics weren't fully
realized until later; after all, it was
part of the Educational Amend-
ments of 1972 and had no explicit
relation to sports.
Instead, the 37 words of the law
state that no organization that
receives federal financial assis-
tance can deny benefits to people
on the basis of sex. In other words,
if a school wanted money from the
government, it couldn't discrimi-
nate against women.
In her senior year, Hutchins's
high school handed the girls' bas-
ketball team uniforms and a full
schedule and promised to make
arrangements for away games -
commodities it had never offered
before. A giddy Hutchins bought
her first pair of Adidas Superstar
shoes.
"I was in heaven," she said. "It
just gave us the same opportunity.
I don't deserve more opportunity.
I just want the same opportunity."
At that point, Hutchins was
content with enrolling at Michi-
gan State, especially since the
school demonstrated a progres-
sive attitude toward women's
sports. Her softball team even
won a national championship,
though it's only recognized by the
Association for Intercollegiate
Athletics for Women, and not the
NCAA.
At first there were no schol-
arships, but no one complained
about having to earn playing time
as a walk-on. Hutchins didn't
COURTESY OF MICHIGAN ATHLETICS
Michigan coach Carol Hutchins has been one of the pioneers of Title IX since its inception in 1972.
mind that the men had first choice
to all of the school's facilities and
that the women would be slotted
in as an afterthought, if at all.
But beyond the lack of avail-
able scholarships, there were still
countless inequalities between
men's and women's sports. The
women played at Jenison Field-
house just once per year when the
Athletic Department scheduled
a doubleheader with the men.
And in stark contrast to the men,
Hutchins and her teammates
wore a conglomeration of T-shirts
and shorts instead of school-
issued practice uniforms.
After watching her broth-
ers from the sidelines as a child,
Hutchins was happy just to play
- until, in one moment at Jeni-
son Fieldhouse, a men's basketball
coach changed her mind.
"Whatever the guys had, we
were like this," Hutchins said,
holding one hand high above the
other. "We were always second.
Back then, you had athletics and
then you had women's athletics."
In 1979, Hutchins sued Michi-
gan State, alleging that the school
provided better housing options
on road trips and a higher per
diem to male athletes. Two years
later, a preliminary injunction
barred the university from dis-
criminating against the women's
basketball team.
"Unless you filed suit, there was
no reason for an Athletic Depart-
ment to change," she said.
Former Athletic Director Don
Canham hired Hutchins as Mich-
igan's assistant softball coach
in 1982 and promoted her to the
head role three years later. As she
remembers with a wry laugh, her
initial job description mandated
she spend half the day perform-
ing clerical work for the Athletic
Department.
When she finished her office
duties, Hutchins had to take care
of Alumni Field on her own, bor-
rowing the tractor from the base-
ball team and driving it herself.
Once, she crashed it into the out-
field fence.
Getting the field watered was a
daily struggle. One season, it went
weeks without so much as a drop.
When it eventually became nearly
unplayable, the Athletic Depart-
ment finally brought in a fire truck
to douse the field.
But even if it seemed like she
was competing against the base-
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ball team, Hutchins stresses that
Title IX was never about pitting
men against women.
"My biggestbattles were not on
the softball field," Hutchins said.
"They were getting the resources
my team needed to be successful."
One spring, both the softball
and baseball teams had road trips
to Indiana on the same day. When
they arrived, Hutchins walked
over to the baseball diamond
to pick up an extra set of lineup
cards, because she had forgotten
her own in Ann Arbor. There, she
noticed that the baseball team had
been given a charteredbus. Mean-
while, the Athletic Department
had offered the softball players
vans.
"When I first came to Michi-
gan, they just wanted to be great
in the men's sports," Hutchins
said. "It was a very reluctant
atmosphere (for the women)."
When Bo Schembechler
became Athletic Director in 1988,
he helped usher in reform for
women's athletics at Michigan, a
shift that continued under Jack
Weidenbach's reign in the early
1990s. For instance, it was because
of Schembechler that the softball
team finally received enough
practice uniforms to wear all
week long. And little by little, the
resources provided to women's
sports began to increase.
"There were two things Bo
loved: Michigan, and a well-run
program," explains historian
John U. Bacon, who authored Bo's
Lasting Lessons, aswell as several
other books about college football.
"Hutch was both."
Even when Hutchins had to
tend to Alumni Field and spend
half the day as a secretary, the
Wolverines never endured a los-
ing season with her in charge.
They won their first Big Ten title
in 1992 and proceeded to claim
two of the next three. And with
that came the respect ofthe restnof
the University.
In October 1996, Bacon and
Schembechler drove back togeth-
er to Ann Arbor from Grand
Rapids, arriving on campus well
after everyone had left the ath-
letic campus. As they pulled into
the parking lot by the old soft-
ball facilities, Schembechler saw
Hutchins finally walking out of
her office for the night.
"Look at that!" Bacon remem-
bers Schembechler saying. "Ten-
thirty at night, and she's working
her ass off. That is the best damn
coach on this campus."
Then he paused, remembering
then-football coach Lloyd Carr.
"The best women's coach."
In 2005, the Michigan softball
team made history by becoming
the first team east of the Missis-
sippi River to win the Women's
College World Series. Down by a
game in the best-of-three series,
the Wolverines clawed back to
take the second game. In the 10th
inning of the decisive contest,
freshman Samantha Findlay hit a
three-run shot over the left-field
wall to give her team the title.
The Wolverines mobbed each
other at home plate, and because
the triumph was broadcast
nationally, millions could watch
their accomplishment.
After the game, Hutchins cried.
"Everyone's all on board now,"
she said. "Back in those days, it
seemed like we were always going
to be the second class."
When the softball team
returned to Ann Arbor that
summer, Hutchins's phone was
flooded with congratulatory
voicemails, and she turned on her
computer to hundreds of unread
emails. People recognized her
when she walked through the city
the following day, and Schem-
bechler himself waited on a street
cornerto greet her.
"Hutchins made a big convert
out of an old-school guy," Bacon
said.
Schembechler wasn't the only
figure on campus buying into
Hutchins's program. Hundreds
of miles away in Parry Sound,
Ont., hockey coach Red Berenson
watched that final game on televi-
sion. When it ended, he began to
tear up, and at the first coaches'
meetinginthe fall, he walked over
to Hutchins and asked for a hug.
"Why would I care aboutnwom-
en's softball?" he said. "This is
Michigan women's softball. This
is Carol Hutchins."
In March, the Michigan soft-
ball team will open its home
schedule against Bowling Green,
unveiling the latest addition to
Alumni Field: an AstroTurf sur-
face that allows the Wolverines
to practice outdoors, even in cold
weather.
This spring will also mark the
completion of a brand-new soft-
ball center, a three-story building
which will feature locker rooms,
fitness centers and hydrotherapy
pools. The 10,200-square-foot
complex cost $5.3 million alone,
while the University spent $2.5
million combined to retrofit the
baseball and softball fields with
AstroTurf.
And Hutchins will be enter-
ing her 30th season as leader of
that softball team. She's the win-
ningestcoach in Michigan history
and has twice been named NCAA
Coach of the Year. Her teams have
finished atop the Big Ten in 16 of
the last 21years, including the last
six in a row.
When the Wolverines beat
Northwestern to clinch a first-
place finish in the conference last
May, many of the 1,800 fans in
attendance waited outside Alumni
Field to applaud Hutchins as she
walked back to the locker room.
The relationship between
men's and women's sports isn't
entirely equal. For example,
accordingto a survey by Brooklyn
College researchers, more than 97
percent of men's collegiate pro-
grams in 2012 were coached by a
man. But that same year, only 43
percent of women's teams had
female coaches - a 47-percent
decrease from 1972, when Title IX
was introduced.
But it's certainly a step up from
being kicked off her home court
by a visiting team in East Lansing
those dozens of years ago.
Despite the flaws, plentyofsigns
pointto the amendment's success.
Never in the history of collegiate
sports have there been more
female athletes or more women's
programs per school than today.
In many ways, Hutchins says,
we're closer to equal opportunity
than ever before.
And the public has responded.
The Michigan softball team has
been on national TV more than
40 times since 2005, including 14
times in the last two years.
Every game of the 2013 Wom-
en's College World Series was
broadcast on ESPN, and several
aired on ESPN International from
Africa, to the Middle East, to
Latin America.
"Look how far we've come.
Who would have ever thought
that could happen?" Hutchins
said. "What makes me smile is
seeing where women have come
today and the opportunitieswe all
have. I don'ttake it forgranted."
When the current group of
seniors on the Michigan softball
team arrived on campusfour years
ago, they came to Ann Arbor with
access to some of the best athletic
facilities in the nation. They all
grew up playing sports because
the world wasn't tellingthemthey
couldn't. But when Hutchins men-
tioned Title IX, one of them asked,
"what's that?"
So Hutchins sat them down and
told themher story.
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