Cross-Country Coach Wonders if Bra Issue Is Basis for Firing

If it weren’t for the business about a bra, Bonnie Frankel and Loyola Marymount would have parted ways and the temptation would be to say, “So what? She’s a coach, she got fired. Happens all the time.”

But Frankel was fired after breathing life into a seemingly moribund cross-country program and after being commended by university officials for her students’ academic achievements. So the question lingers: Why, really, was she let go?

Was it that her supervisors at the athletic department felt compelled to tell Frankel, admittedly a free spirit, to wear a bra? Or that Frankel, a breast-cancer survivor who has undergone a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgeries and doesn’t normally wear a bra, wasn’t about to start wearing one just because some boss said so?

University officials are mum, saying they can’t discuss “personnel issues.” However, a senior LMU administrator, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted there’s more to it than lingerie: “You can rest assured it had nothing to do with apparel.”

As the dispute between ex-coach and school simmers, it vividly illustrates the tensions inherent in the emerging role of women in athletics, particularly women as coaches and administrators--that is, women as authority figures.

For instance, ought there be standards of dress for women in such positions of authority, especially coaches helping to mold young men and women?

Or does even posing such a question reveal a subtle double standard at work? When, for instance, was the last time a male coach was told by a boss to wear boxers instead of briefs?

Fundamentally, doesn’t every woman get to decide for herself what she wears--if anything--under her work clothes? And, as that noted shirt-stripper Brandi Chastain revealed this summer, there’s something about a bra that provokes intense emotion--but what?

“In the ‘60s, burning bras was like ripping up draft cards. It was the ultimate mark of freedom and independence,” observed Nancy McClelland, a specialist in employment law at the powerhouse Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

“Who would have thought that in the ‘90s, to bra or not to bra would be a civil rights issue?”

So far, the rift between the 54-year-old Frankel and the school has not produced legal action. But the firing abruptly spelled the end to a relationship that initially seemed so bright.

In 1991, Frankel enrolled at LMU, bringing with her a resume that included a learning disability, a variety of jobs, divorce, a suicide attempt, cancer, several reconstructive surgeries--and a late-blooming career as a runner.

That fall, when she went out for the cross-country team, the NCAA initially declared her ineligible, citing a rule that requires athletes to complete their four years of eligibility in a single block of five years.

Because Frankel had attended Santa Monica College for a semester and a half in the early 1960s, her eligibility had long since expired, the NCAA said.

With LMU’s aggressive support, Frankel campaigned to overturn the rule. And in January 1993, the NCAA voted to waive the rule for women who had enrolled in college before 1982, when the NCAA began offering women’s competition. The exemption is informally called “the Bonnie clause.”

In 1995, when she was winning masters’ races, Frankel was hired by LMU as its cross-country coach. That season, after she had recruited athletes from other sports, the men’s and women’s teams finished eighth in the eight-team West Coast Conference.

The next year, each finished sixth.

“She got numbers out and her kids were competitive,” said University of San Diego Coach Rich Cota.

In January 1997, the university sent Frankel a letter of congratulations. Of the 17 teams at LMU, hers had the highest grade-point average in the fall semester, 3.14. “Well Done!” it said.

Nonetheless, it was becoming increasingly evident--at least to other coaches and to Frankel as well--that personality and power clashes were brewing with some of her runners and, more important, her athletic department supervisors.

Some runners went behind her back to complain to the athletic department office, Frankel said.

In February 1997, she was ordered to a meeting with her immediate supervisor, Maria Behm, and Pam Wettig, associate athletic director. She said they told her to wear a bra, that it would be “embarrassing for them” for her to be recruiting without one.

Frankel said they also told her not to hug team members anymore. She also said she was accused of urinating in front of the team. She says that never happened.

Behm declined to comment. Wettig referred calls to the university’s human-resources department but, when asked if she and Behm had told Frankel to wear a bra, replied, “A conversation did take place, yes. Maria and I did have a conversation with her about what we saw as professional attire in the office.”

Wettig added, “From a professional standpoint, that’s what we deemed necessary at the time.”

As the months rolled by, Frankel said, Behm occasionally reiterated the order to don a bra. Frankel said she typically wore a loose T-shirt with pants or shorts, which she viewed as appropriate attire for a coach who left the office to run with her team, adding, “I kept telling Maria I was not going to wear a bra.”

With the 1997 season coming up, Frankel--intent on teaching her team that running involves discipline on and off the track--drafted a set of team rules.

One member of the women’s team, however, stood up at practice and declared she wasn’t going to sign.

Shortly thereafter, the athletic department rewrote the rules, softening some of them, according to Frankel and Kathy Zimmerman, the women’s team co-captain.

An example: Frankel’s original rules included, “No alcohol or drug use.” The revision read, “No alcohol use during practice or competitive season.”

“She tried to establish and enforce team rules,” said Zimmerman, 23, now an LMU grad working as an accountant. “It was the athletic department . . . that did not support her.”

That year, the men finished eighth, the women sixth.

In February 1998, the university fired Frankel.

Frank Montalvo, the university’s director of human resources, would say only, “She was not winning. We want to be competitive.”

Frankel contends the teams were increasingly competitive but, in retrospect, concedes that she and the school were heading in separate directions. Still, she wonders, how did a bra ever become part of the job description?

“I’m a breast cancer survivor with a double mastectomy,” Frankel said, sighing. “If you’re looking at my breasts, you’re looking at the wrong thing.”