It’s Difficult Road Over Gender Gap : High Schools: Women coaching boys, men coaching girls is a matter of motivation.

His reputation preceded him. He was never afraid to jump in and show his players a thing or two. Up close andpersonal.

Frank Foggiano had a certain physical presence as coach of the Grossmont boys’ basketball team in 1978.

When spring arrived the next year, he inherited the girls’ team, and he could hear the immortal words of Charlie Brown ringing in his head. “Good grief,” he thought.

“I was intimidated the first time I coached the girls,” said Foggiano. “More so than they were. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it.”

What made him particularly uncomfortable in the early stages was the inevitable physical contact he would have with the girls.

“I’m a very ‘hands-on’ coach,” he said. “I was intimidated to touch them.”

But after a few practices, Foggiano’s fears were quelled.

“That’s gone by the wayside,” he said. “People know me, and that’s the way I coach.”

Foggiano is one of 253 high school coaches in San Diego County who hold the distinction of “cross-coach” men who coach girls, women who coach boys, and many who coach both.

According to Foggiano and other cross-coaches, there are certain philosophies they’ve adopted to get he most out of their athletics.

Generally, coaches realize that girls and boys have special needs and design their programs accordingly. Among their findings:

- Girls respond better to positive reinforcement; boys respond to negative feedback.

- Boys aren’t openly as supportive of their teammates as are girls.

- Girls’ basic athletic skills at the high school level aren’t as developed as boys are.

- Boys vent their frustrations during competition; girls usually hold back.

But the bottom line, victory, means as much to both.

There are only five football coaches who make the transition to a girls’ sport (excluding swimming, cross-country and track, all considered co-ed).

Steve Miner of Madison is one, and he has won championships in both. In 1981, his Clairemont football team won the 2-A championship, and in his first year (1986) at Madison, his softball team won the 3-A title.

“The feeling of accomplishment is the same,” Miner said. “The kids on the team, that’s what they’re all shooting for.”

But coaches say they struggle to find the right words to motivate their athletes, particularly girls who often turn constructive criticism into a personal affront.

“Girls tend to take all comments personally, rather than on a basketball level,” said Foggiano. “They’ll take it as a personal comment rather than as a way to improve their play.

“There’s a certain way ou motivate boys that doesn’t work with girls. Boys respond to negative a lot better. Girls are seldom confident, and you constantly have to use positive reinforcement.”

Miner agreed, saying girls need a gentler, kinder approach.

“The guys expect and respond more to stern commands,” he said. “Girls respond well when approached properly, but when you get in their face, they’ll go in the tank on you.”

Anne Meigs, the former women’s tennis coach at U.S. International, is in the midst of coaching the Torrey Pines girls’ and boys’ teams for the sixth year. She has had success with both--the girls were runner-up to Poway for the 3-A team title last week, and the boys were runner-up to Mt. Carmel last season.

Meigs found attitudes in practice seldom vary, but the girls often rationalize after matches.

“For men,” Meigs said, “when it’s over, they shake hands. It’s the attitude of, ‘you beat me, I’ll get you next time.’ With the girls, there’s more self-identity, more excuses. They tend to take it more personally. I’m trying to teach them it doesn’t make them more or less a person if they lose. But that’s more a tennis thing.”

Another “tennis thing” is an unparalleled reaction to questionable line calls. Meigs said a girl won’t cause a commotion on the court but will unleash once she’s off.

“If a guy gets a bad call, he yells at the time, then doesn’t say another word,” Meigs said. “They’re much more confrontational. Girls don’t say anything in a match; they just complain afterward.”

They also point fingers at themselves rather than teammates in the wake of a loss. Experience has shown La Jolla volleyball Coach Vicki Eveleth that the concept of “team” means more to the girls than the boys.

“The girls are much more emotional,” said Eveleth, a 16-year veteran coach of girls’ teams. Last year, her girls’ team finished second in Division II, and her boys’ team won the 2-A title for the first time.

“Everything’s the team,” she said. “There’s not one star. If they lose, they feel they’ve let down the whole team.”

Poway girls’ and boys’ swim Coach Dennis Moore agreed. Last year, for the first time, both Titan teams won their 3-A section titles. Although they work out and compete together, Moore still sees a unity unique to the girls.

“Girls like to give each other notes, little gifts,” Moore said. “Boys don’t like to be seen doing that. They think little games to boost spirit are silly.”

Leading cheers from the side of the pool is something the boys will rarely do.

“I tried to encourage it,” he said, “but they won’t do it much. When they do, their teammates have to be winning.”

Moore also said he had a choice crop of kids, but when discipline problems arose, the boys were usually the culprits, as evidenced by the low percentage of swimmers who made very meet.

“Only one swam in all 12 meets,” he said.

In Meigs’ case, unruly behavior results in punishment that, surprisingly, her male team members demand.

“They need some kind of physical punishment from deviating from the norm,” she said. “They like to run lines. The girls aren’t into that. They want it made clear what the expectations are.”

When Meigs once stoped practice to ask her boys why they were trying to hit winning passing shots when a less flashy job would suffice, she learned something she was able to incorporate into the girls’ program.

“They all said they’d rather beat themselves than let their opponents beat them,” Meigs said. “I told them to never beat themselves and they’d get fined if they hit passing shots in that situation.”

Nancy Harper, Granite Hills boys’ water polo coach, is one of just three women in the county who coaches a boys team that has no counterpart for the girls.

A former San Diego State club player, Harper brought success to USDHS (1984-1987) and in her first year at Granite Hills led the Eagles to their first playoff.

“I’m in a very unusual role, no question about it,” Harper said. “I’ve been coaching for six years and they respect me here, but in Hawaii or somewhere, I’ll introduce myself to other coaches and they’ll say, ‘Are we playing a women’s team?’ ”

Granite Hills’ team members, many playing under a woman for the first time, approached their new leader with more apprehension than aplomb.

“They were a little giggly,” she said. “They didn’t know quite what to think of me. I was pretty much of a bear for a month or two before I felt I could relax and let them see that I was normal.”

Eveleth said respect wasn’t much a problem since the boys approached her to take over their club team.

“There was some built-in respect because I was already the girls’ coach,” she said, then paused. “But boys just aren’t used to having a female telling them what to do.”

THE COUNTY’S ‘CROSS-COACHES’ San Diego Section 2-A/3-A Coaches: Men coaching girls--140 Women coaching boys--9 Men coaching both--88 (including swimming, track, cross-country) Women coaching both--16 (including swimming, track, cross-country)