Game Over 
Texas Monthly Talks
Jody Conradt
(Page 2 of 2)
That’s probably accurate. You recruit four or five kids at most every year, and you have three in an incoming class. Every once in a while one will say, “I’m not getting enough playing time and therefore I’m going to go somewhere else,” but typically all of them progress and graduate. If they don’t, that’s the biggest failure I can have. Yes, basketball is really important to them, but what they do from this point forward is not going to depend on their basketball ability but on their ability to find a way to be successful.
Do we in the media focus too much on graduation rates?
In a lot of ways you do. I used to think the general public was right in line with the media in wanting to know about graduation rates. I’m not so sure that’s on their minds now. Winning probably overshadows it. And if you look at Kevin Durant—okay, he didn’t graduate. We’d like to believe he’s going to come back and finish, and he probably will, because he’s an outstanding young man who has the right values. But if he were your son, would you tell him to pass up $30 million, or whatever that number is, to graduate? If we had a position of influence with a young person, most of us would say, “Kid, set yourself up for the rest of your life.” Isn’t that what we’re all trying to do—have a profession that we love? I think athletes love what they do.
Is the issue different in men’s sports than it is in women’s sports?
It’s easier to have a higher graduation rate on the women’s side because there’s not the lure of professional sports. Yes, [UT’s star forward] Tiffany Jackson is going to be able to play in the WNBA, but she’s not going to make six figures doing it. Does every freshman coming in here think she’s going to be in a pro league? Absolutely. But the ones who grow and mature start to think, “It’s probably not going to happen to me, so I’d better grab on to this education.”
Let’s talk about how you ended up at UT. Donna Lopiano had just been hired as women’s athletics director. Coming from New York, she was a bit of an odd fit, wasn’t she?
She was the most unlikely person to come to Texas but, in retrospect, probably the absolute best that the university could have chosen. I only knew her by reputation, and I have to say that my first couple of meetings with her didn’t change my view that she was a pushy Yankee and very unlike the environment that she had been placed in. But at that point in time, it took someone who was willing to push and someone who was willing to think outside the conservative box to bring women’s athletics to a position of prominence here.
You were at UT-Arlington at the time. How did she think to call you?
What I’ve heard her say is that she asked people in the state who she should consider for the job. She came to Arlington, and her pitch to me involved cooking. Her parents owned a restaurant. I didn’t have any utensils, but she proceeded to go to Kmart and buy the things she needed to prepare this gigantic Italian meal.
What was women’s sports like at UT back then?
Nonexistent. Other schools were already starting to have programs and be successful. At Texas, the volleyball and basketball teams were still sharing uniforms; they had only been a year out of short skirts. When I arrived, the skirts were still in the closet.
How were you received by the players?
There was a man named Rodney Page who had been the coach as an aside to his job in the physical education department. When I was hired as head coach, nearly everybody on the team quit in protest of my being hired and his not being hired. Only two players continued—Cathy Self, who went on to coach at Westlake [High School] for years and is now coaching at Duncanville [High School], and the only African American on the team, Retha Swindell, who had been given a math scholarship to come to Texas. Everybody else quit, and we started over.
How hard was it to get women to come and play for you?
It wasn’t a hard sell, because there were all these women out there who hadn’t had an opportunity. The first person that I wanted to recruit was a player from South Carolina, of all places. I had met her one summer when I worked a camp out there. Her name was Kim Basinger; she’s a lawyer in Austin now. She had come to UT-Arlington, and when I took the job at Texas, she transferred. I also remember a very successful high school coach from Granbury named Leta Andrews. She had daughters who’d played, and her oldest had gone to Angelo State, but she had decided not to play there. I told Donna, “I want this player.” So Donna and I got in her Pacer and drove to Comanche, which is where Leta was coaching at that time. We stopped on the way at my parents’ house, in Goldthwaite; we had coffee with them, and Donna’s language was, uh, interesting. I remember her cursing. My mother dropped the sugar on the table.
I’m sure nobody talked like that in Goldthwaite.
That’s right. So, anyway, we talked Linda Andrews into coming, and then I recruited a junior college player named Cathy Burns, as well as some players from Waco Midway [High School]. Most of them came paying tuition only—if they came on scholarship at all.
At what point during those years did you think, “I’ve got this figured out”?
I can’t tell you that. When you’re nose to the grindstone, it’s hard to see the big picture. In those first years, when we started to sell season tickets to women’s games, you could have had a seat on the front row, the opportunity to come to the Fast Break Club, and anything else we could think to give you for probably $25. At that point, no one really thought any of that had much value, and of course I never envisioned that our program would grow the way it did. We just tried to do the best we could to create an environment for young people to succeed, and we were in the winning business, no question about it. We won a lot, and people came.
Is there a game or two in the course of your career that you think back on as the toughest you ever coached?
I laughed when a big deal was made about my nine hundred wins, because I don’t think they counted any of those junior college wins early on. They only counted wins against Division I schools. Yet some of the most difficult games we played were against Wayland Baptist [College]. They were always tough. Temple Junior College had a really good team. We ultimately recruited our backcourt off of Temple’s team—they were two of the players who helped us be really successful, so it wasn’t other big schools. Stephen F. Austin was really good. I think we had seven thousand or eight thousand people in the stands at a game with Stephen F. Austin. They were our rival at the time, not Tennessee. It was all very exhilarating because everything was new. There can only be one “first.”
The big first that everybody talks about is the first undefeated season in the history of NCAA women’s basketball. That was 1985—86, wasn’t it?
Right, but that wasn’t the biggest first in my mind. The biggest firsts were selling the season tickets to women’s games and the first-ever sold-out Final Four in women’s basketball [in 1987].
How are you spending your time now?
I’m just enjoying life, being stress free, spending time hanging out.
Are you going to watch women’s basketball in the fall?
I’m sure I’ll watch it some. Sports are a big part of my life.
Will the new coach, Gail Goestenkors, see you at UT games?
When she came here, I told her I’d be as close or as distant as she needed for me to be. And I meant that sincerely.
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