COACH WITH A GOLDEN STANDARD : WOMEN'S TRACK LED BY DAVIS' VOCHATZER.

Byline: Bob Burns Sacramento Bee

Jon Vochatzer will see the light burning downstairs and know immediately what's brewing in his wife's head. It might be 2 a.m., but the clock has been ticking for nearly three years now - ever since Deanne Vochatzer received the startling news that she had been selected head coach of the U.S. Olympic women's track and field team.

``I'll come downstairs and she'll be wide awake, thinking about the relay prelims,'' Jon said. ``Her worst nightmare is the relay. Her worst nightmare is to not win the gold medal.

``She says to me, `Can you imagine being in a stadium with 100,000 people and having our team drop the baton?' ''

He tells her to relax, to savor the crowning moment of her coaching career. And Vochatzer has, by and large. The UC Davis women's track coach has used her bully pulpit to share her personal story and preach the importance of saving high school sports and making physical education mandatory.

``I've been able to touch groups I never would have been able to touch because of the title behind my name,'' Vochatzer said. ``I've taken advantage of that, because the day the (Olympic) Games are over, people are going to say, `Deanne who?' ''

But the time for heartfelt philosophical messages is basically over. Vochatzer is in Atlanta for the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials that began Friday. Once the team is selected, she and her staff go into overdrive.

A training camp has been established in Chapel Hill, N.C., but many of the Olympians will head for Europe and a series of lucrative meets. There isn't a lot of actual coaching involved in being an Olympic head coach - Michael Johnson and Gwen Torrence will bring their own, thanks - but the job carries great responsibility.

Vochatzer and men's coach Erv Hunt will speak for the U.S. team to the international media in Atlanta. Aside from that, Vochatzer's biggest concerns are making sure the athletes are healthy when track and field competition begins on July 26 and selecting the relay teams.

The American public might not give a hoot about track and field any other time, but it does two weeks every four years, particularly when those Olympic Games are being held on U.S. soil.

``I knew I'd have another shot at the job in 2000 when the Olympics are in Australia, a great place, with one-tenth of the pressure,'' Vochatzer said. ``But I wouldn't have passed this up for anything. There's nothing like having it in your own country.''

Casual track fans were saying ``Deanne who?'' on Nov. 28, 1993, when the women's coach at UC Davis received her profession's ultimate honor. But Vochatzer had worked her way up to the nonpaying job, drawing praise for her stint as national coach at the 1993 World University Games in Buffalo, N.Y.

Before coming to UC Davis - where her husband, Jon, is the men's track coach - Vochatzer had coached collegiately at Florida, Stanford, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Chico State, her alma mater. She was a national-class hurdler who competed in the 1972 Olympic Trials.

Those were the dark ages of women's track, which makes the 47-year-old Vochatzer a most compelling figure to UC Davis miler Suzy Jones.

``I admire her tremendously for what she's gone through and what she's done,'' Jones said. ``It wasn't that long ago that women weren't allowed to compete in track and field. Yes, she had muscles, and yes, she had goals and determination, but that's the epitome of Deanne as a person. She doesn't care what other people think.''

Vochatzer isn't sure what prompted her to start running track as a self-described ``knot-headed idiot'' growing up in Chico. But she hooked up with Mel Jones, the coach of the boys' team at Chico High School, and bucked the tide in those pre-Title IX days.

``People thought we were atrocious for allowing such a thing,'' said Jeanne Kurth, Deanne's mother. ``Even our family doctor told us to keep her at home.''

But Bob and Jeanne Kurth backed her to the hilt.

``The greatest payback of my life was making the phone call to my parents telling them their daughter was the head coach of the U.S. Olympic women's track team,'' Vochatzer said. ``They went through all that with me, back when it wasn't fashionable to run. Let's face it - I was a freak.''

Deanne attended Pleasant Valley High School but would ride across town in an old three-wheel delivery cart each day to train with the Chico boys' team. She wasn't oblivious to all the curious glances she got, however.

``I got married when I was 19, and one of my reasons was that female athletes were looked at as being of a different sexual persuasion,'' she said. ``One of the ways I fought that was by getting married. It was a mistake.''

She competed as Deanne Carlsen and later married Stanford track coach Brooks Johnson. She married Jon Vochatzer in 1991. Deanne has no children; Jon has two from a previous marriage.

``Deanne's family is her team,'' Jon said. ``The men and women on our team see her as a person who really listens.''

As Olympic coach, more people are listening. Vochatzer tried to accommodate every request for her time, be it spaghetti feed, fund-raiser or pep talk to grade-schoolers.

``This is a chance for me to give back,'' she said. ``Instead of belly-aching about how people don't know about our sport or how kids aren't interested in track anymore, well, step up to the plate.''

Vochatzer is a member of the Drug Enforcement Administration's speakers bureau. She became involved in the fight against drug and alcohol abuse while she was athletic director at San Jose's Presentation High School in the 1980s.

Drugs, physical education, women's sports, the Olympic movement - Vochatzer weaved them all together on a recent visit to the state Capitol. She later chuckled as she recalled a conversation with one lawmaker.

``I told him gangs are offering kids the same things as sports,'' she said. ``If you close off sports, you're shoving them toward the gangs. Gangs offer camaraderie, belonging, reinforcement, self-esteem. The more we lock up our gyms, the more we kick out on the streets.?

``He looked at me like, `This chick is crazy.' But whenever I can, I try to get that gut punch in.''

Her idea of a gut punch these days is a dropped baton. The U.S. women will be favored to win gold medals in the 400- and 1,600-meter relays. Vochatzer has the final say on who will run those relays and in what order, both in the preliminaries and finals.

Anyone who makes the Olympic team in an individual event is eligible to run either relay. Suppose Van Nuys' Gail Devers, the defending Olympic champion in the 100-meter dash, qualifies for this year's team in the hurdles only. Should she run the relay?

``I'll be under a phenomenal amount of pressure,'' Vochatzer said.