CSULB Coach Wants 49ers to Keep Winning--and Start Graduating : Women’s basketball: Glenn McDonald has his work cut out matching the won-loss record of his predecessor, but he hopes to establish a new tradition in academics.

When Glenn McDonald became coach of the Cal State Long Beach women’s basketball team, he knew that maintaining a winning tradition would be no easy task.

An assistant for six seasons, McDonald had no experience as a head coach and was not recommended for the job by his predecessor, Joan Bonvicini, who built the 49ers into a national power. In 12 seasons, Bonvicini guided the 49ers to two NCAA Final Four appearances, 10 conference titles and a 325-71 record.

Bonvicini, who is now coach at Arizona, also left behind a plethora of academic problems. Only about 10% of all women’s basketball players, 6 of 59 players, have graduated in the past five years. Kay Don, associate director of athletics, said the university’s average graduation rate for all students in 1990, the most recent year available, was 32.8%. The graduation rate for all athletes that year was 34.5%.

McDonald has handled the situation with aplomb thus far.

“When one of our players walks down the street, I want people to look at her and say that she is not just a good basketball player, but a good person, too,” he said.

McDonald visits classrooms to make sure his players are in attendance. He has made recruiting local athletes a priority, and he is open and honest with the players.

“I’m really friendly,” he said. “I play, joke, laugh. I’m just as nuts (as the players are). But when it comes time to take care of business, the players take care of business.”

But McDonald has not been without disappointments. The 49ers (15-7 overall, 9-4 in the Big West Conference) have lost to three teams that had never beaten Long Beach before, were defeated by Stanford, 100-59--the worst loss in school history--and have nearly fallen out of contention for the conference title with two losses in their past three games.

On Monday, Long Beach set another school record when it shot only 28% from the field in an 88-52 road loss to UC Santa Barbara.

Don’t ask McDonald to dwell too long on the team’s foibles.

“I can’t put myself into (what happened before,)” he said. “I’ll discuss a loss but not dwell on it. I believe in looking ahead.”

According to players, hiring McDonald, a former CSULB star who was inducted into the university athletic hall of fame three years ago, means that the 49ers should no longer be judged solely by wins and losses.

“Now it feels like family more than a team,” said senior guard Trise Jackson, appointed a tri-captain by McDonald. “He is great. He’s more like a dad. With Joan, (basketball) was more serious. The unity just wasn’t there.”

Bad-mouthing of Bonvicini would be a misnomer. She was generally well liked, and she hesitated at leaving, even when Arizona offered a hefty base salary of $75,000 a year, plus a guaranteed four-year contract.

Bonvicini, by all accounts, was an excellent recruiter but very businesslike in her approach to players.

“I’m not afraid of making mistakes (now),” said senior center Bolivia Gaytan, a reserve last season under Bonvicini. “But with her it was, I was the player and she was the coach, and that was that.”

Bonvicini wanted her teams to run, apply full-court pressure and intimidate opponents.

“A lot of that (intimidation) was just talk,” said 49er assistant Margaret Mohr, who played for Bonvicini in 1983-87. “At times there was a cockiness about us, and the image was sometimes bigger than the team. It was part of the mystique.”

But Mohr, one of only six Bonvicini-era players to earn a degree since 1985, said it helped the team win.

“That reputation was intimidating. It was more a craziness than anything, but it could be considered rude.”

Bonvicini declined to say why she did not recommend McDonald for the job, preferring instead to compliment him on the job he is doing in his first season.

“It would be unfair (to him) to make comparisons (about winning),” she said. “To have that kind of consistency (at Long Beach) year in and year out. . . . It’s a different time.”

Bonvicini said she left Long Beach because she had become frustrated with the lack of academic support that players were receiving.

“It was harder to get the best-quality student-athletes (to attend) Long Beach,” she said.

McDonald said that, win or lose, more players will graduate.

“We have a reputation that we just do not graduate players from Cal State Long Beach,” he said. “I want to be the coach that came in here and can say that his kids graduated.”

McDonald attended Long Beach in 1971-74 and played for Jerry Tarkanian, now at Nevada Las Vegas, and Lute Olson, now at Arizona. He was the No. 1 draft pick of the Boston Celtics and played on the Celtics’ 1976 NBA championship team, averaging 8.6 points and 15 minutes of playing time as a swingman. A year later he played in Sweden for a team that finished third in the European Cup. He then played and coached in a Philippine professional league.

McDonald did not earn a degree until he returned to Long Beach in 1984. He eventually became a part-time assistant for the men’s team, which was coached by Ron Palmer, now at Poly High. Midway through a disastrous 7-22 season in 1985-86, McDonald became a full-time assistant under Bonvicini.

“I used to sit (in the coaching office) and talk to the women’s players every day,” McDonald said. “Joan saw me talking to them, listening to their problems, helping them out (with school). One day she asked me if I wanted to coach women’s basketball. I told her I don’t care what I coach. I just want to coach.”

Long Beach lost to Arizona earlier this season, and neither coach came out feeling like a winner.

Said Bonvicini: “I scheduled that game when I was at Long Beach. On paper, (Arizona) didn’t have a chance. There was a lot of emotion. It was a difficult game for me to coach.”

Said McDonald: “It was painful to see the kids trying so hard. That game was all about (our players) trying to beat Joan.”

But maybe it helped reduce a little pressure and let McDonald begin bringing his own identity to the program.