THE CHANGING FACE OF GIRLS SPORTS : From a Competitive Program Comes a Competitive Coach

When Mickey McAulay goes to her next high school reunion, it probably won’t come as a shock to old classmates when she tells them her occupation.

While the class clown stands around expounding about the joys of patent law and the former straight-A student talks about that short stint in county jail, McAulay will discuss the ups and downs of being a girls’ basketball coach.

Ah, at least one class prophecy was fulfilled.

McAulay always knew, deep down, she was going to be a basketball coach.

She knew it when her father built her stilts, so she could imagine what it was like playing against the big guys.

“I didn’t realize I wasn’t going to be able to dribble,” McAulay said, then laughed.

She knew it in junior high when she would try to help people at the playground courts.

“I always would pick the person nobody wanted on their team if I was a captain,” McAulay said. “I didn’t want people to feel bad. That’s just my nature.”

And she really knew it after playing at Fullerton College for Coach Colleen Riley, the country’s most successful women’s basketball coach who has won 88% of her games.

After spending two years as an assistant at Fullerton, McAulay was hired as coach of Katella High School at age 22.

Though it may not be entirely correct to say McAulay is a new breed of girls’ coach, she is part of a new wave.

These are coaches who played on a competitive level at high school and college. They want to give back what they got out of the programs.

And McAulay, now 26, and her peers are really the first group that has been able to do so. The varsity and junior varsity teams competing in the Southern Section were experiencing their growing pains when McAulay was in high school.

With each year, there came improvement. But it was slow.

“I didn’t have a positive experience in high school basketball,” McAulay said. “Our coach was a boys’ soccer coach. He did what he could with what he knew.

“Looking back now there wasn’t the same kind of intensity. They didn’t demand it because we were just coming out of GAA (the Girls’ Athletic Assn.). It was just starting to develop.”

But the expectations have changed.

Heading into her fourth season at Katella, McAulay has established a tradition in girls basketball that wasn’t present before. Katella didn’t have a strong program or an on-campus coach before she arrived.

McAulay, however, wasn’t blessed with success from the start. Her first year, Katella went 1-19, a rude awakening for someone coming from a strong program.

“I came in with unrealistic expectations,” she said. “It was a great growth and learning experience in the sense that we had to re-establish goals that were attainable. . . . I was a typical first-year coach. It didn’t take long to realize I had made some errors that needed adjusting.

“It was a great turning point in my career as a coach. There comes a time when a coach has to put her ego aside. That was that point for me.”

It wasn’t until McAulay left Fullerton that she realized what effect the program had on her. The knowledge started to creep in during the first season at Katella. There were many discussions with Riley that year.

Said Riley: “She had some hard, difficult times to get through, but she stayed with it. She didn’t change or alter her philosophy or goals.

“I think what happened was she was used to success as a player. When they are young, a coach tends to base their success on their won-loss record. So she was looking at her record and thinking she wasn’t a success, when in reality, she really was, but she just didn’t have the end result.”

Now McAulay is successful on the court as well. Last year, Katella had its best in girls’ basketball. The Knights were 21-4 and reached the Southern Section 3-A quarterfinals.

“She’s special,” said Julie Ramirez, who was a freshman when McAulay first came to Katella. “We’re lucky she stuck with us after that first year.”

Tom Danley, athletic director and boys’ basketball coach, believes that McAulay has brought stability to her program.

“She personifies what we’re looking for not only in women’s sports, but in all of sports,” he said. “She cares about the kids and she has a handle on the proper work ethic.”

At least three of McAulay’s seven returning seniors have expressed interest in coaching careers.

When McAulay was in junior high school she looked up to Pat Head Summitt, who was at Tennessee and later became the U.S. Olympic coach. Now girls in Orange County have role models such as McAulay to emulate.