At UCLA, They’re Not Ready for Moore of the Same

She was the John Wooden of women’s basketball, the former darling of Cal State Fullerton, where, in her first year of coaching, she led the Titan women to a national championship.

Back then, in 1970, 25-year-old Billie Moore had the only game in town.

In 8 seasons at Fullerton, she racked up a 140-15 record, won the conference championship 7 times, went 39-8 in playoff games and finished 4 seasons ranked in the top 5 nationally. She was no fluke.

Moore was so impressive that UCLA fired a winning coach to hire her. In her first season, 1977-78, Moore responded by leading the Bruins to their first national championship and to high national rankings 2 of the next 3 seasons.

Then suddenly, Billie Moore wasn’t spectacular anymore. Only once in the last 7 seasons have the Bruins finished the season ranked in the top 20. Just twice have they been in postseason play. And not once in that time have they won a conference title.

Where have you gone, Billie Moore?

There is a plaque on the wall of Moore’s office at UCLA that reads: “I Have the Simplest of Tastes--I Only Want the Best.”

Moore said some friends gave it to her because, they told her, it exemplified her character.

Then politely, Moore, who clearly would prefer to talk about her current team than the mediocrity of the ‘80s, tried to explain why the best isn’t so simple for her anymore.

She mentioned her first losing season, 1985-86, when she lost four starters. Two players graduated, and the others went home for the summer to the Netherlands and decided not to come back.

“We had to start all over again,” she said. “It was the most difficult year of my life.”

She talked about how hard she tried to recruit Cheryl Miller in 1982, when Miller signed with USC.

She defended her style of play, saying she prefers an up-tempo style but had to change to a slower, more half-court game because of the limitations of her team.

“As a coach you have to adapt to your players,” she said.

And then there is the recruiting dilemma.

“I’m not going to make any excuses,” she said. “But I can tell you that about the same time the program started to struggle, the academic requirements at UCLA got tougher, (in 1981), and it made it more difficult for me to recruit, because the pool of athletes to choose from got smaller.”

And yes, she said, UCLA loses recruits to Stanford.

“Some of my peers thought I was crazy for staying here, but now, it’s starting to pay off,” Moore said.

“This year we signed Molly Tideback, the type of player that can take your program to another level. Rehema Stephens, another excellent player transferred here from Colorado and will play next year.”

Last week, Moore also signed Nicole Young, a highly recruited high school player from Arizona.

“I believe in cycles, and ours is coming around again,” she said.

Last season, with the addition of two highly regarded recruits, the UCLA program was supposed to be on the upswing. Instead, there was no change, and the Bruins finished fourth in the tough Pacific 10 Conference for the third straight season.

“It seems to be a recurring scenario, that this is going to be the year it turns around,” said Ann Dean Gardner, who played for Moore from 1982-86 and now lives in Washington, D.C. “There is talent, but I don’t know why it’s not working.

“I can tell you one thing about Billie, though. She darn well knows the fundamentals, and we learned and practiced them over and over. We would have great scrimmages, but for some reason we couldn’t put it together on the floor.”

Moore said that her last several teams have been missing a piece to the puzzle.

“Now, with Tideback, I think we have that blue-chip type of player to help put it together,” Moore said.

But Dora Dome, who played for Moore from 1984-88, thinks Moore is the main reason the team isn’t a champion.

“Billie breaks down your self-confidence, rather than building you up,” said Dome, who led the Bruins in scoring the last 2 seasons. “If you disappoint her, and don’t play or do things the way she likes, she verbally takes off on you.

“She doesn’t only attack the basketball player, she attacks the person. Her verbal abuse inhibits the players because they are so afraid of messing up. I saw a few of the players (this week) and they told me that they hoped I would talk and tell the truth about Billie.”

Dome admitted that she didn’t get along with Moore from the start, and that her first 2 years she didn’t get along with most of her teammates, but said that Moore promoted the tension.

“Look at all the players who have left--there’s about eight that I know of--for one reason or another,” Dome said.

Moore disagrees. She admits she is demanding, but says any coach is in a position of being a dictator, and she knows she is not going to please everyone.

“One of the things that happens with a girl like a Dora, is that you ask them to make some changes, and some adjust more easily than others,” Moore said. “The people who are the most vocal are the ones who are most discontent.

“But in my 20 years of coaching, I have not had a player quit the team. I’ve had players who I no longer kept, for academic reasons or because they don’t meet my expectations, but even then, I can only name three that I have asked to leave and we still kept them on scholarship.”

Alma Batchie, who played on the team from 1985-88, said Moore didn’t like her, and tried to “break her like a horse.”

“She breaks your morale, and I was so down on myself,” Batchie said. “She is a good coach, and she tries to make you give your best, and there is nothing wrong with that, it’s just the way she does it.

“She made me so nervous about my losing weight, and it wasn’t that much, that I became bulimic. She made it so hard for me. She would find all these little things to keep me from succeeding.”

The last 7 years, Moore’s outstanding talent has included Dome, Necie Thompson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Michelle McCoy, who was touted in 1982 as one of the top point guards in the country.

Thompson quit the team for undisclosed health reasons, and McCoy left for academic reasons. But McCoy was unhappy with Moore before she left, and Thompson’s departure was never fully explained.

Dome said when she went to UCLA on her recruiting visit, in 1983, several players told her not to sign with Moore. Dome said she brushed off the advice.

“I used to sit behind the bench and watch Billie coach,” Dome said. “I would watch her call time out and then I would see how the play worked. It was my dream to play for Billie Moore.”

Parity, both locally and nationally, has also been no friend to Moore.

About the same time UCLA began to struggle, Cal State Long Beach and USC emerged as national powers.

Joan Bonvicini, coach of No. 2-ranked Long Beach, has won 8 conference titles in 9 years and played in the Final Four the last 2 years. USC Coach Linda Sharp, one of Moore’s players at Fullerton, has taken her team to the playoffs every year since 1978, winning back-to-back national championships along the way.

“Unfortunately when you lose, you are compared to the other local teams,” Bonvicini said. “My style is real up-tempo, and that’s how I recruit my players. Linda, at USC, plays a fast game too.”

Moore, who signed a 3-year contract last spring, is in no danger of losing her job, according to Dr. Judith Holland, UCLA’s associate athletic director. Seemingly, the pressure put on the women’s basketball coach at UCLA to produce a winner is much less than that on the men’s coach.

With that in mind, Moore’s overall record at UCLA the last 11 years, 218-116, is acceptable. She has won a national championship, two conference titles and four times has finished the season nationally ranked.

Still, that doesn’t alleviate the outside pressure Holland gets to replace Moore.

“People write letters and ask me why I haven’t got rid of her, and say she doesn’t know how to recruit,” Holland said. “And, some people think because Billie is a close personal friend, I won’t fire her.

“Well, I am close friends with a lot of my coaches. Bobby Kersee and I are great friends. But I know what it takes to coach in this environment and I know what Billie is up against. Our admission requirements are high and she can’t bring just anybody in.”

This year, for example, UCLA officials say only 3 of the top 10 high school basketball players in the nation qualify academically for Moore to recruit.

Apparently, though, some early criticism of Moore’s recruiting was warranted, Holland said. When Moore arrived at UCLA in 1978, she was not adept at national recruiting and, Holland said, really didn’t like to recruit at all.

“At first, Billie would send her assistants out to recruit, and so the rap on her was that she didn’t know what we were getting,” Holland said. “She only did that for 1 year, then she learned real quick to get interested.”

A bad recruiting year usually shows up 2 or 3 seasons later. For Moore, that year was 1981-82, the first time in her career her team did not qualify for the playoffs--UCLA finished fourth in the conference.

In 1980, criticism of Moore arose when one of the McGee twins reportedly wanted to attend UCLA, but Moore wouldn’t offer a scholarship to both her and her sister. Moore said UCLA couldn’t tie up two scholarships at that time, regardless of “how much she wanted to.”

Then, in the summer of 1982, Moore was questioned again for not trying hard enough to sign Miller, according to published excerpts from Miller’s diary.

Pam and Paula McGee and Miller went on to win consecutive national championships for USC in the 1982-83 and ‘83-84 seasons. Combined, they averaged 60 points and 30 rebounds a game in 1982-83. Add Rhonda Windham and Cynthia Cooper, and USC under Sharp had stolen the spotlight.

To make matters worse, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, with Moore’s blessing, quit the team for the 1983-84 season to train for the Olympics.

The crusher came in the 1984-85 season, when Bonvicini’s Long Beach team beat UCLA by 53 points. The next morning, Moore marched into Holland’s office and resigned.

“She said she had brought embarrassment to the school, and she felt she had to leave,” said Holland, who refused to accept the resignation. “That was the low point.”

The next season, however, it got even lower.

“I was the only senior on that team in 1985, and I don’t know where to point the finger,” Dean said of Moore’s first losing season.

In the wake of UCLA’s recent mediocrity, some point the finger at Moore, and wonder if time has passed her by. Still, Moore, who coached the 1976 Olympic team, remains one of the most respected figures in women’s basketball. Even Dome said that Moore is the most knowledgeable coach in the country.

Perhaps the current team, with so many promising freshmen, holds the key.

Tideback, a 6-3 freshman center from Waterloo, Iowa, is the most heralded high school recruit Moore has signed in a decade. Stephens, of Oakland, was one of the most sought-after high school guards in 1987.

Together, Tideback and Stephens, playing to their potential, could be a franchise. Why then, would either of these stars choose unranked, seemingly washed-up UCLA?

“Billie has a great reputation as a coach and I saw all the talent on this team,” said Tideback, who received offers from No. 1 Tennessee, Stanford, Iowa, USC and Long Beach.

“I thought I could make an impact here. She is such a good teacher, she’s intense. . . . I feel like this is her last chance, we (this team) are Billie’s last chance to win a championship. And I want to help her win it.”

Added Stephens: “This is the beginning of a new era, I just know it.”