ON HER OWN; THERE'S JUST A FEW LIKE JERRO; COACHES LIKE JERRO ARE NEEDED.Byline: Karen Crouse Frozena Jerro might as well have been stepping onto a beach of bikini- clad sunbathers in her birthday suit for how exposed she felt. She had stepped inside San Jose San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. Arena, but it felt as if she had walked into the wrong restroom. Jerro, the second-year head coach of the Cal State Northridge women's basketball Women's basketball is one of the few games which developed in tandem with men's. It became popular, spreading from the east coast of the United States to the west coast, in large part via women's colleges. team, glanced around at a gathering of Division I head coaches during the Women's Final Four last year and wondered where were all the other African-American women. "You look around and it's just kind of noticeable that there aren't a lot of people like you," said Jerro, whose team opens its conference season tonight at Northern Arizona Northern Arizona is dominated by the Colorado Plateau, the southern border of which in Arizona is called the Mogollon Rim. In the West lies the Grand Canyon, which was cut by the flow of the Colorado River while the land slowly rose around it. . "It kind of makes you think a little." It's sad but true. So few African-American females are overseeing major college basketball College basketball most often refers to the American basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA. History
The Orange County Register recently did a head count of 29 Division I conferences (encompassing 291 schools) and found 17 African-American women overseeing women's basketball programs. Jerro and Co. fill roughly six percent of the available head coaching jobs despite nearly 35 percent of the Division I players are African-American. If those figures don't paint the problem starkly enough, there's this: In the Big Sky, Jerro is the only African-American female head coach in any sport. Picture Jerro as a lone tumbleweed tumbleweed, any of several plants, particularly abundant in prairie and steppe regions, that commonly break from their roots at maturity and, drying into a rounded tangle of light, stiff branches, roll before the wind, covering long distances and scattering seed as bouncing along the prairie and you've got a good idea of how the wind blows throughout the conference. It'd be our pleasure to report that enlightenment pushed CSUN CSUN California State University Northridge , and hence, the Big Sky, ahead of the Big West conference that is poised to adopt the Matadors and boasts not one African-American female head coach. However, to be perfectly frank, expediency was the force behind Jerro's promotion. When Michael Abraham was arrested on campus last year before the start of his fourth season and charged with drug trafficking, Abraham's shell-shocked players, awarded the responsibility of picking his replacement, chose Jerro, a second-year assistant. Opportunity, when it came knocking, was so bruised and bloodied Jerro hardly recognized it at first. But given how seldom it visits her neighborhood, the 28-year-old was grateful to see opportunity at all. She nursed the Matadors back to where the program was even healthier than before, and in doing so made certain her promotion stuck. She guided the team to a record of 21-8 by following the blueprint her coach at Arizona State, Maura McHugh, had outlined for her years earlier: "Those of you who want to go into coaching," Jerro remembered McHugh saying, "are going to have to work doubly hard and be very, very prepared to make it." Jerro did and she was. There was just one thing for which McHugh hadn't prepared her. When the Matadors were on the road last year, hotel reservations clerks, bellmen and bus drivers tended to make a beeline bee·line n. A direct, straight course. intr.v. bee·lined, bee·lin·ing, bee·lines To move swiftly in a direct, straight course. for trainer Steve Moreno, the only male in the traveling party, naturally assuming he was the head coach. "A lot of times I was the last one they'd come to," Jerro said, laughing. It got to be a running joke, a fast-break faux pas This page has been divided into the following:
Verb Informal to expect in vain: he could whistle for his vote in the future a necklace or a T-shirt that says, "I'm the coach, Stupid," a smile seemed the best accessory. "It's unfortunate people have those type of preconceived ideas," Jerro said. "It doesn't discourage me. People are just programmed that way." If Y2K See Y2K problem and Y2K compliant. Y2K - Year 2000 glitches can be eliminated in computers, then why not in humans? Carolyn Peck was the first African-American female hired as an assistant women's coach at Tennessee. She coached Purdue to last year's NCAA NCAA abbr. National Collegiate Athletic Association title before taking over the Orlando WNBA WNBA Women's National Basketball Association WNBA World Ninepin Bowling Association WNBA Wannabe Nasty Boys Association WNBA Women's National Book Association, Inc. WNBA Warszawski Nurt Basketu Amatorskiego entry. Peck's success in San Jose figured to open the door a little wider for African-American women in the collegiate coaching ranks. Instead, those fortunate enough to get a foot in the door wound up mostly with jammed toes. Of the 33 Division I head-coaching positions filled after Purdue's triumph, three went to African-American women. Peck, reached by telephone in Orlando on Wednesday, articulated the weighted burden of trailblazers everywhere when she said, "Personally, I look at it like it's my job to do the best I can to help my team be as successful as possible and (also) so other African-American women will be given an opportunity to get a good job." It's a long road and you have to be awfully strong, to carry a whole segment of the population on your back without stumbling. Those who manage to do it are very special indeed. Peck sees the Frozena Jerros of the coaching sorority sorority: see fraternity. making a difference in college basketball's suburbs and hopes they won't be overlooked when the top-tier jobs open up at places such as, say, Texas. "At the smaller schools you have to work twice as hard to be average," Peck said. And that's after working twice as hard to be hired. So the work adds up even if the head-coaching numbers don't. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to see there's something wrong with that equation. SHORT LIST African-American female head basketball coaches in Division I: Butler - Wendy Gatlin CSUN - Frozena Jerro East Carolina - Dee Gibson East Tennessee East Tennessee is a name given to approximately the eastern third of the state of Tennessee. Unlike the names given to regions or portions of many of U.S. states, the term East Tennessee can be precisely defined. State - Karen Kemp Fresno State - Britt King Kansas - Marianne Washington Kentucky - Bernadette Mattox Minnesota - Cheryl Littlejohn Pittsburgh - Traci Waites Rutgers - Vivian Stringer St. John's - Darcel Estep San Jose State - Janice Richard South Alabama South Alabama is a term used to describe various parts of southern Alabama. Its usage does not however reflect a strictly defined geographic region. The most general description of the area would be all Alabama counties south of the Black Belt. - Cheryl Rice Syracuse - Marianna Freeman Texas A&M - Peggie Gillom UNLV UNLV University of Nevada, Las Vegas - Regina Miller Wake Forest - Charlene Curtis CAPTION(S): 2 photos, box Photo: (1 - color) CSUN's Frozena Jerro is one of just 17 African-American female college basketball coaches in Division I. Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer (2) Cal State Northridge's Frozena Jerro often stands out among basketball coaches. In fact, she is the only African-American female head coach in any sport in the Big Sky Conference. Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer Box: SHORT LIST (see text) |
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