She’s a Winner : Six Months After Leaving USC, Hedges Has a Chance to Become First Female Athletic Director to Have Division I-A Football Champion

Barbara Hedges has been the athletic director at the University of Washington for six months. And in that time, just about everything has been coming up roses.

An omen, perhaps?

New Year’s Day, when No. 2 Washington plays Michigan in the Rose Bowl with a chance of winning the national championship, could be a day of crowning glory for all connected with the Husky athletic program.

It could also be a day that shows, in a highly public forum, what so many people around Los Angeles and in the West have known for years about Barbara Hedges: The lady is a champ.

The story of Hedges’ cracking the good ol’ boy network to get to her current position--on the doorstep of a national championship in football only six months after taking over as the CEO of the Washington athletic program--is a nice one. In fact, if you are female and in athletic administration on any level, it is inspirational.

Hedges, a 54-year-old mother of two grown boys, has been married to the same man for 35 years--John Hedges, who sold his equipment manufacturing business in Los Angeles and is looking for new business opportunities in Seattle--and has been working 14-hour days routinely for as long as she can remember.

She was hired by Washington President William Gerberding after an extensive search last spring, and when she began her duties in July, Gerberding was asked frequently to explain the hiring. Hedges was a surprising choice. She was not the first female to handle such a job with a Division I-A football school. Mary Alice Hill was, at San Diego State, from 1985-87. But Hedges was certainly the first to be in charge at one of the truly big-time football schools.

Washington is a Fortune 500 football company.

Gerberding said that Hedges had been hired because of her experience in the Pacific 10 Conference. But that was, as Gerberding well knows, an oversimplification. The most accurate explanation of Hedges’ hiring? Because she was Hedges.

“Women don’t get these kinds of offers often,” said Judy Holland, senior associate athletic director at UCLA and a friend of Hedges’. “I don’t know of anyone else who could handle this, or even get a shot at it.”

Hedges’ special nature comes from years of being special. All the cliches apply. Hedges has always gone the extra mile, taken the extra step. When she graduated from Arizona State, she did so with the label of “most outstanding physical education major.” Her professional life of complimentary adjectives before her name had begun.

She didn’t settle for a bachelor’s degree; she got her master’s from the University of Arizona. She didn’t simply coach gymnastics at a high school in Cheyenne, Wyo.; she started a gymnastics program for the entire school system. She didn’t simply move on to West Denver High School to coach; she took over as head of the girls’ physical education department.

And so on, to a career that returned to Arizona for some gymnastics coaching and soon moved to USC, where John McKay hired her in 1974 as associate athletic director in charge of the Trojans’ nine women’s sports.

When she arrived, USC women had won no national championships. When she left in July, her USC legacy included 13 national team championships, 68 individual national championships, an estimated 150 All-Americans and 36 Olympians.

By the time Washington and Gerberding came knocking last spring, Hedges had taken over the daily operation of all USC sports, men’s and women’s, except for football, men’s basketball and baseball.

So, on paper, she was clearly ready for Washington. But was Washington, with a macho football program and a Pacific Northwest loggers’ image, ready for a woman to be the boss?

Cathy Henkel, sports editor of the Seattle Times, said: “There really hasn’t been anything negative. She’s still in sort of her honeymoon time. She came in here to a program with about $14 million in the bank, and it has been smooth. She kind of skated right in. I thought that some of the old guys would be a problem for her, but she knows how to handle them, how to work a cocktail party. She’s a stylish woman.”

Holland said: “If you had asked me six months ago, I would have said it was going to be difficult. But now, from what I can see, she has been well accepted, well received. I think that is a testimonial to some enlightenment in our society toward women, and also to Barbara’s personality.”

Ah, the Hedges personality.

Hedges said: “One of the things I don’t like to hear is that something is impossible. I think one of my qualities is persistence . . . persistence without being obnoxious.”

Others say the same thing, with varying degrees of affection.

“She’s like a gnat,” said Peter Dalis, UCLA’s athletic director. “She’s dogged. She will never let go, but in all the best ways. She got me, the athletic director at UCLA, to buy one of those raffle tickets for a Mercedes they used to sell to raise money for her Women of Troy program. I always thought it would have been great if I had won. Wouldn’t all those Trojans have loved that?”

Mara Hunter, assistant athletic director at USC and a longtime friend and co-worker of Hedges, said: “She is outgoing, energetic, enthusiastic. When I worked directly for her the last six years, it was always a race between the two of us to see who could get to the office first, and then we’d sit and drink coffee and plan the day, and the day would often go well into the night.

“And through it all, no matter how hard the day was, she had a way of always smiling and keeping you smiling. I’ve learned that from her. I miss that now. I miss her a lot.”

The separation of Hedges from USC has been difficult and emotional for many people close to Trojan athletics, a further testimonial to who she is and why Washington hired her.

At this year’s USC-Washington game at the Coliseum, they had a special ceremony on the field, honoring her with an endowed women’s athletic scholarship in her name.

“I got all choked up,” she said. “I couldn’t help it.”

Then, on Dec. 5, at the Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, USC held a love-in, of sorts, for Hedges.

Years ago, she had started something called “Women of Troy Dansant,” a dinner-dance designed to have the same result that most things did involving Hedges over the years at USC: It raised money for Trojan women’s athletics.

The recent dansant, French for dance party, was like most of the others: Very plush hotel, lots of tuxedos and glittery evening gowns emerging from lots of Mercedes and Cadillacs, a beautifully decorated ballroom with cardinal and gold everywhere.

But unlike previous years--or any year henceforth if this event is continued--there was an outsider on hand, albeit a beloved one. The cover of the dinner program bore a sketch of Hedges entitled: “Barbara of Troy . . . Leaving a Legacy.” Inside, the program documented where USC women’s athletics had gone since Hedges took over its direction 18 years ago, and gave an elaboration of the endowed scholarship in her name previously announced at the football game.

With each invitation and program came a circle pin with Hedges’ picture.

The program went quickly, smoothly, as established by Hedges years ago. Dancing during dinner was to upbeat music, not the elevator variety that frequently is chosen whenever a dinner committee expects four or more people over 50. Hedges had ordered, years ago, that this was to be a night to loosen up, have some fun.

Hedges’ former assistant, Hunter, admitting later to “having trouble getting through it,” welcomed all, paid tribute to Hedges, brought USC Athletic Director Mike McGee to the microphone for his kind words about his former assistant, and then introduced Megan McAllister, former USC athlete. McAllister told the audience that Hedges was “someone I admire and respect.”

She also said: “Barbara Hedges, you have made me a better person. You have integrity, wit and poise. When you walk into a room, the atmosphere changes. Losing you is an immeasurable loss for USC, but now, you blaze a trail for hundreds of women.”

And then, McAllister, doing a nice job of keeping the program from turning mushy, finished by saying: “But you must know one thing, Barbara. I cannot, and will not, accept seeing you in an interview wearing purple (Washington’s color). At least it isn’t blue and gold (UCLA colors).”

But it was later in the evening, after Hedges had danced and mingled and worked the room as only she can, that reality set in for all who were paying attention.

By coincidence, the Trojan band had attended another function at the hotel, and when one of the dansant committee members discovered that, the band was ushered down the hall for one more rendition of “Fight On” for Hedges. And as they played, somebody suggested to Hedges, good-naturedly, that true Trojans wave their two fingers in salute. Hunter said Hedges replied that she didn’t think she could do that.

Later, when asked about it, Hedges said, firmly: “They wanted me to, but I did not.”

And so, if there had been any lingering questions about the loyalties of Hedges, there were none as of Dec. 5. The Founding Woman of Troy had become a Pioneer Woman of Washington.

She had ended her speech to her gathered friends at the dansant by saying: “I treasure the years I spent at USC. USC will always be in my heart. It will be there forever.”

But it is UW that is on her mind these days, and although there are many challenges ahead, and certainly some bumpy times that go with the territory, the road so far has been so smooth that it is not stretching the imagination to think that the first female athletic director of a big-time college football program will win a national championship in her first year on the job.

“That would be the greatest thing ever,” said her former UCLA counterpart, Holland. “I’m really rooting for that.”

So are many other women, some in athletic administration and some merely observing from afar.

“Gender is an issue, there’s no question about that,” Hedges said. “And I do feel a certain amount of pressure because of that. But mostly, I feel that pressure because it is a big job, with huge responsibilities.

“I don’t fear anything. I felt when I took the job that I could do it. I wouldn’t have taken it unless I thought I had the background.

“Right now, I don’t want to change a lot of things. I want to learn more about the university, about the people and culture of Seattle.

“Right now, I see my job as being supportive.”

That has been relatively easy, since the wrinkles that come with the position of athletic director at a place such as Washington have, so far, been small.

She has fielded some questions about athletes’ low graduation rates, an issue that surfaced in January of 1990 and triggered another wrinkle recently when an investigation of the UW athletic program led Seattle TV station KIRO to discover and broadcast the news that half a dozen or so Husky football players had outstanding bench warrants that they appeared to be ignoring.

The story got national play for a day or so, but more because of the initial decision by the station’s CEO to not run the story to avoid casting a negative light on the Huskies than because of the seriousness of the warrants, which were mostly traffic violations.

Henkel, the Seattle Times sports editor, said: “I don’t think that hurt her. She seemed to stay pretty much out of that.”

Certainly, the charmed life that Hedges has lived in her first six months under the microscope in Seattle will end. The nature of the job dictates that.

But for now, she continues in the period Henkel labeled “a honeymoon.”

When Don James, the Huskies’ football coach and arguably the most powerful man--a carefully chosen word in the current context--in sports in the state of Washington, was asked about his new boss, he said: “Hey, we’re gonna keep her. She’s undefeated.”

And when a potentially explosive situation was defused after the Washington-Washington State game, and the goal posts and all limbs of all celebrators were left in place, Hedges was labeled by one of her administrative assistants as “Alice in Wonderland.”

She said she loves Seattle. She said she has received no letters from male chauvinists. She said her relationship with Don James couldn’t be better. She even has a dog, named Jake, who, fittingly, looks like a husky.

Oh, yes. There was a problem with the media. Isn’t there always a problem with the media? Blaine Newnham of the Seattle Times called her “Babs” in one of his columns. Hedges disliked that, to understate greatly. According to Henkel, Hedges told Newnham of her dislike.

Does he call her “Babs” anymore?

“Not to her face,” Henkel said.

So, other than a minor thing or two like that, Hedges has made a tough, pioneering move look easy. And it shows in her disposition these days.

Just call it rosy.