Basketball Coach Sees Her Grand Illusion Become Even Grander

Every dreamer has a wish, a hope that lasts a lifetime. It might be winning the lottery, or outdancing Michael Jackson on “Star Search.”

It might be a phone call from the White House: “Hi, White House here. Sorry to bother you, but we need an official hammock inspector in Bora Bora. You interested?”

Of course you’re interested. You start screaming, “Yes! Yes! Count me in!” when suddenly you realize it’s not the White House you’re talking to but your mother-in-law, who was merely calling to see if you’d like to come over for some leftover tuna casserole.

That’s the trouble with dreaming. Unless you want to be lost in a foggy fantasy all your life, you have to make room for reality. Which is why, years ago, Lisa McNamee didn’t waste too much time wondering what it would be like to coach women’s basketball at the Division I level.

What would be the point? McNamee was a high school coach, and high school coaches don’t just walk into a Division I program and say, “Hi. I’m here. Toss me a whistle.” No, they spend their days in obscurity while others with more luck and better connections soak up the college sports spotlight. Or so goes conventional thinking.

Fact is, last season, Lisa McNamee realized her lifetime dream. She was an assistant coach at Stanford, and Stanford won the NCAA championship. No joke. No lie. No fantasy on parade. She might have pinched herself, but there was no reason. Lisa McNamee, the longtime coach at Estancia High, was a coach--albeit volunteer assistant--of a Division I championship team.

But it gets more unusual: McNamee, 30, is now back coaching high school. She took over the Costa Mesa girls’ program this season and says she is enjoying every minute of it.

Go ahead and scoff. Make fun. McNamee expects it. Remind her of what she had at Stanford (prestige, glitzy hotels, an athletic budget that knew no bounds), and review where she is now (a school famous for its genuine farm animals). Moooo all you want. McNamee doesn’t care.

“People say, ‘Oh, you’re taking a step down,’ ” McNamee said. “It’s not a step down. I’m into coaching kids. I like to coach. I like teaching the game.”

Which she was allowed to do at Stanford, on a limited basis. Even though hers was a unpaid position, McNamee’s responsibilities included coaching the off-guards and shooting guards, helping with fund-raising, breaking down and analyzing videotape of games and practices, scouting opponents, recruiting, working with the boosters and putting on special events such as “Wanna Be” camp for women with little or no hoops experience.

“I was not the floor sweeper or the paper picker-upper, that’s for sure,” she said.

But the workload eventually caught up with McNamee. Working 6 1/2 days a week, often 12 hours a day, was more than her spirit could handle. She wasn’t burned out, but the pace of big-time college basketball enveloped her. An avid cyclist, McNamee had time to ride twice in eight months. Her best friend, who lived 30 minutes away, saw her three times. The only outings her two hunting dogs got were at 6 a.m. McNamee saw the look in their sad brown eyes, and the look said: “Gyp.”

The euphoria of the NCAA title made up for it, at least for a while. The year before, McNamee sat with a friend at the 1991 NCAA Women’s Final Four in New Orleans and imagined herself coaching in such a situation. She wondered what plays she would use, what defense she would choose, how the championship ring would feel on her finger.

She imagined plenty, but never that it might happen--not the very next spring, anyway. But today she has the rings--one from the NCAA, one from Stanford that includes 10 diamonds for the team’s Pac-10 title--and the snippet of basketball net to prove she was part of it. She hangs the piece of net on her bedroom windowsill, along with others she has collected over the years as both coach and player.

The memories of the Final Four--of calling her parents during their Greek Islands cruise after the game at $10 per minute, of crying with joy as she slipped on her championship ring--will always be with her. As will her Final Four chair, now stationed in her bedroom, and her coach’s pass, hanging over her mirror. But she’s even more excited about the future.

“I learned a lot about myself last year,” she said. “My friends all say I’ve really changed. I have. I am much more calm, more settled . . . more focused. Basketball isn’t the end of the world. It used to be everything to me. Now I know I have it more in perspective.”

McNamee isn’t the only one who has changed. The Costa Mesa players say they were a bit lackadaisical last year, and the team had little unity. McNamee, they say, is bringing out the best in them. Her approach is professional, but she also knows how to make it fun. Even being corrected feels like a positive, somehow.

“She’s always watching (game) video,” Mustang player Olivia DiCamilli said. “And then she tells you, ‘You had like 51 turnovers in that game.’ It’s kind of scary. She sees everything.”

Including a successful future. McNamee says she’d love to win a Southern Section title--It would be her first, and how many coaches win a section title after an NCAA title?--but she is quick to add winning is not her No. 1 priority.

“It takes a lot of years to build a dynasty,” McNamee said. “It’s more important to me that all the kids are mentally healthy and they graduate. Basketball is secondary.”

As a certain coach has come to learn.