UCLA Women Are on Track for Another Title

After leading UCLA to top-three finishes in eight of 10 NCAA outdoor championship meets, Jeanette Bolden, women’s track and field coach, grew tired of questions about her teams’ not winning the title.

“Every year ... they would say, ‘UCLA’s the bridesmaid once again. UCLA is second one more time,’ ” said Bolden, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist on the women’s 400-meter relay team. “Now, second is not that bad, but when you have to hear it over and over again.... “

So maybe that explains why, after the Bruins had edged defending champion Louisiana State for the championship, 69-68, in last year’s national meet, the normally reserved Bolden surprised her team with a celebration dance.

“After the award ceremony, it was really late,” senior 400-meter runner Monique Henderson said. “She led us to the center of the grass and just began to dance. It was so funny! ... There were only a few people left in the stands and there she was, just groovin’.”

For Bolden, it felt that good. “It was such a relief,” she said. She added that, despite 10 Pacific 10 Conference titles and a 70-0 dual meet record, which included an 11-0 mark against USC, she had begun to feel increasing pressure to win a national championship last season.

But instead of turning up the intensity, Bolden flipped things around. Fewer team-goal speeches, more stress on individual pride.

“We had been ranked No. 1 in the country a lot of times, usually after the USC meet, then we got caught up and beat [in the NCAA championships],” Bolden said. “When we got ranked last year, I didn’t even pay attention to it.

“But after the [Pacific 10 meet], I noticed in the stats that we could pull this off. I told myself not to even think like that and kept it to myself.”

Bolden’s strategy worked. Even with key performers Renee Williams and Lena Nillson out because of injuries, the Bruins performed in the clutch: Sheena Johnson won the 400-meter hurdles and finished third in the 100-meter hurdles, and Henderson finished second in the 400 meters and anchored both scoring relay teams.

“She didn’t talk about winning nationals, but she did put a little bug in your ear that made you believe it was reachable,” said junior hurdler Dawn Harper, who finished eighth in the 100-meter hurdles and ran a leg on the second-place 400-meter relay team at the NCAA meet.

This season, Bolden’s goal is to lead the Bruins to their first repeat national title since 1983.

Johnson is gone, but UCLA has talent and depth. Henderson, Athens Olympic gold medalist, is back in the 1,600-meter relay, as are junior Chelsea Johnson, 2004 NCAA pole vault champion, and senior Jessica Cosby, second last year in the NCAA hammer throw.

Bolden’s ability to develop young athletes may well determine whether the Bruins will repeat this year, and many will be competing this weekend at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner Kersee Invitational at Drake Stadium from Thursday through Saturday.

“Jeanette has the same determination like always,” Henderson said about Bolden, who led UCLA to NCAA indoor titles in 2000 and 2001. “She’s made sure that we understand that once you win it once, it’s even harder going out and winning it again.”

To drive home her message, Bolden had her team go through twice-daily workouts during UCLA’s spring break last week.

As a former world-class athlete who has known disappointment -- a fourth-place finish in the 100 meters in the 1984 Olympics and a ruptured Achilles’ tendon at the 1988 Olympic trials -- Bolden, a five-time All-American at UCLA who still holds the collegiate indoor record in the 50 meters, said she was demanding for a reason.

“I never wanted to be the type of person who looked back and said, ‘I wish I could have-would have-should have,’ ” she said.

“I always want to feel like I’ve given it my all, all of the time. I tell my team in practice that you don’t want to look back and realize that you could have done more.”

Bolden said she used to be an even tougher coach before she and her husband of 16 years, Al, adopted twins Anthony and Kimberly, two years ago.

“My life has changed in that I’m more organized now,” she said. “I know that I’m very intense at meets, but I’m more relaxed now. For example, at last year’s NCAA meet before the mile relay, I kept thinking about changing the order of the runners. I was a mess ... but just when the team was about to take the track, my phone rang.

“It was my husband, who put [the twins] on the phone. My son told me that he went to the bathroom by himself and my daughter told me she’s a big girl because she dressed herself. Just like that, everything changed.”

And 15 minutes later, Bolden had her first NCAA title.