June 6, 2023 • 40 mins
You won’t find anyone else like her. At her Catholic high school and later in college at Kentucky, she competed at a high level in sports - even before Title IX was in full force. At age 23 she landed her first head coaching gig at Cincinnati. Four years later, she was offered two head coaching jobs, one in Washington state and the other in Colorado. She chose the University of Colorado because she knew she could recruit to Boulder… and did she ever. Ceal Barry spent 22 seasons at CU, compiling a 427-242 record, 12 NCAA tournament appearances, 13 20-win seasons, 4 conference championships and countless honors including multiple coach of the year awards and various Halls of Fame.
Unlike most coaches, Ceal was never fired, however she did step down from her basketball post at CU in April of 2005 and took a position in CU’s athletic administration. She found a new passion for helping student athletes in multiple sports and left the department in a far better place when she retired in July of 2020.
These days, Ceal splits time between Boulder and Florida and tries to avoid injuring herself while playing what is no doubt a highly competitive game of pickleball.
Hosted by Susie Wargin
Unlike most coaches, Ceal was never fired, however she did step down from her basketball post at CU in April of 2005 and took a position in CU’s athletic administration. She found a new passion for helping student athletes in multiple sports and left the department in a far better place when she retired in July of 2020.
These days, Ceal splits time between Boulder and Florida and tries to avoid injuring herself while playing what is no doubt a highly competitive game of pickleball.
Hosted by Susie Wargin
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I thought, I'm going to bringthe Cincinnati culture to Boulder. I thought
they were a little too laid back. I thought they need a little more
discipline. I thought they needed tobe more serious about the game. They
were last in the Big Eight.I thought they have to get more serious
about what we're doing if they wantto win. And I was talking about
the program, so I thought,I know how to do this. They're
(00:22):
going to adjust to me. I'mnot adjusted to them, and probably took
a couple of years, two orthree years, and then they adjusted.
Welcome to cut, traded, fired, retired. The title is a mouthful,
but it covers nearly everything that canhappen to a professional athlete or coach.
And my goal is to talk toas many as I can so we
can all gain perspective, learn fromchallenges, and maybe find some inspiration for
(00:45):
our own lives. I'm your host, Susie Wargin. I'm very excited about
this episode because it features our firstfemale guest. I've been a fan of
seal Berries for a very long time. The amount of respect she earned as
the women's basketball coach at SEU wasoff the charts, and to watch her
step down when she knew the timewas right and then make great strides as
an administrator in the Buffs Athletic departmentfor fifteen years made her even more impressive.
(01:08):
What I didn't know about seal washer upbringing, being one of eight
children, attending Catholic school and havingsolid opportunities as a female athlete in field
hockey, basketball, and volleyball beforeTitle nine was universal. She has done
amazing work and helped to mold andshape countless student athletes, ladies and gentlemen.
(01:29):
Seal Berry got traded fired Retired Podcastswith Susie Wargin seal Berry, This
is so fun. I haven't seenyou in a while, and you're the
first female that I'm going to haveon my podcast. I feel honored to
be your first female. I wasdriving down here thinking, I wonder how
many women have been on the podcast, so you're it so far. Yeah,
(01:52):
this will be a lot of funto talk to you because you are
such a legend in Colorado, inBoulder in particular, and I think it's
interesting for people to know you knowwhere you kind of came from, and
people always think of you. Associatedwould just see you, but there's so
much to your life beyond what youdid in Boulder. Well, I'm if
you want to know where I camefrom. I came from Kentucky. Yeah,
(02:15):
you did, not the Hills.No, the one big city Louisville,
and that's where you were born.You went to Assumption High School.
It's a Catholic high school. It'sa Catholic high school in Louisville, and
Louisville had at that time, andI think for the most part still do,
all the same gender high school,all the men, all the boys
went to the boys high schools.They were about ten of them in about
(02:37):
eight or nine girls high school Sowe had a league before Title nine was
ever passed in nineteen seventy two.The nuns thought, well, you know,
I went to a school that wasrun by women, so going to
an all girls school. They clearlywanted to keep us active absolutely and really
promoted sports. It was so interestingbecause it was the early seventies. You
(02:59):
grudu waited in seventy three, rightseventy three, and the law was passed
in seventy two. So the publicschools back then did not have any sport
teams, no sport programs, andalways felt a little privileged that I got
to go. I was so proudto be a Catholic because I get to
play sports. That was motivated meto go to church every Sunday. Oh
(03:21):
that's so interesting. And you obviouslyplayed basketball, but you also played volleyball
and field hockey. Yes, andmy grade school had volleyball, but when
I went to Assumption High School,field hockey was huge. It was almost
a bigger sport if you can imagine, in the state of Kentucky, basketball
is a big, big free That'swhere Wesley Unsold went. He went to
(03:42):
high school right across the street whereI went to grade school, as did
Diane Sawyer. But anyway, Wesleyonsoldwas a big name back then in the
sixties. He played for the BaltimoreBullets and he was a big name.
Basketball was huge, but you can'timagine how big in the city of Louisville
girl field hockey was. So youknow, that was my introduction into high
(04:03):
school sports, was being a memberof the field hockey team. Really,
so was that maybe a first lovebefore basketball? Yes. I have two
older sisters. Neither a sister playedsports, but they hid these yearbooks and
in the yearbooks, this is howyou know if you can see it,
you can be it. Yeah,I'd look at it. I would fifth
and sixth grader. I'd take myolder sister's yearbook and look at all the
(04:25):
field hockey pictures and try to visualizewhat it was like. My mother actually
played field hockey at a Catholic highschool in Louisville, not Assumption Sacred Heart.
She played field hockey in nineteen fortyone forty two. She had an
old field hockey stick. I hadno idea until I was maybe, I
don't know, twelve or thirteen yearsold. She gets it out, dusts
(04:46):
it off. My mom had eightkids, so she didn't have a lot
of time to be teaching for anybodysports. But she did that for me.
She got it out, and we'rein the backyard and she showed me
how to hold a field hockey stick, and and we got a tennis ball
and I started hitting the tennis ballagainst the brick wall. So when I
went out for a trial, youhad to go out for a tryout.
(05:06):
I wanted to make sure I madethe team. Oh my gosh, so
yeah, yeah, that is socool. So you had enough girls.
Even though it was very it wasa smaller Catholic school. You had enough
girls to field a team and goplay against other schools. Oh, my
gosh, we probably had thirty orso that were on the field hockey team.
Eleven kids play. They had enough. Probably they could have had a
(05:26):
JV. Team. But so therewere nine Catholic schools and there were no
buses, there was no budget,so we the seniors would drive the team
to the field and Susie. Therewere big crowds. There were probably five
hundred people for the big games.Yeah, five hundred. Oh they would
line these, yes, so liketheir stands at field hockey games usually,
(05:47):
but they probably put them in,didn't they. And when I think about
it, the fact that my motherplayed, there was a long tradition absolutely
field hockey there, and so yeah, it was a big deal. It
was a big deal to play fieldhockey than it was to play basketball in
the early seventies, right, thatchanged obviously as Kentucky progressed in basketball became
(06:08):
bigger. But you know, it'sfunny because field hockey here in Colorado,
like it wasn't even a thing.When I was in high school at Broomfield,
we didn't have a field hockey team. And that was in the eighties.
I mean just nobody. It justwasn't even around. So it's so
interesting that it was such a bigsport. Yeah, it was in the
Midwest, and I can clearly remembermy senior year I got motto, you
(06:28):
know high school kids. My coachsaid, there is a coach coming from
Saint Louis and they offer scholarships forfield hockey. So it must have been
big in the Midwest. I neverheard from that coach. I must have
recovered that wealth from the mono aboutbut it was very big and the Midwest
and probably East Coast a little bittoo, or do you think more Midwest?
(06:50):
I think East Coast for sure.When I went to college, I
played field hockey in college. Also, we went to a camp at Sauk
Valley, Michigan. There were probablyprobably fifteen teams at a camp there in
August, and we played and itwas it was clearly a higher level women
instead of girls stronger. It wasa very difficult sport. Field hockey was
(07:13):
a lot harder. I thought,oh, I'm sure, yeah, Okay,
So when you graduate from Assumption HighSchool in seventy three, you do
go to the University of Kentucky forfour years. Where you play basketball and
field hockey? Did you go onscholarship? What was the vibe then as
far as women's sports and the nextlevel? Well even how kids have work
study now. I had a tryoutwith the women's athletic director who ran all
(07:38):
the women's sports at that time,still prior to Title nine, because Title
nine passed in seventy two. Butthere was a bit of a yeah,
because it had to work its waythrough the courts with a tower amendment.
NCA was trying to block it.I was in college at that time,
and this woman who was running allof the sports and coaching half of them.
(08:00):
She coached volleyball, softball. Youknow, it was kind of low
level club team like anyway, somebodytold her that I was pretty good,
so she gave me a trial andI tried out, and I was playing
against the guys in the rec center. The deal was, if I this
has to go with scholarship, ifI was good enough, she would give
me an hourly worker job. Itwasn't affiliated with financial a but I needed
(08:22):
that job to go to college awayfrom my house, away from home and
live in the residence hall. Sofor three years I worked with her and
helped her implement Title nine at theUniversity of Kentucky. Well then my senior
year, we hired Kayow's sister,Debbie Ow came on one of the best
athletic directors in the country, andDebbie said to me, you have to
(08:46):
play one sport or the other.I think she was kind of hoping I'd
play field hockey, but I chosebasketball because they were going to put the
basketball players on scholarship that year.So I was in the first class of
women in nineteen seventy six to receivescholarships. Okay, so I did get
a scholarship my last year in basketball, which was kind of icing on the
(09:07):
cake at that point. I hadit paid for, but it was a
tuition only. And how beneficial tohave worked with her those three years on
implementing Title nine, especially with whereyou ended up going with your career and
your education at Kentucky was your bachelor'swas in accounting. My bachelor's was in
accounting. Because this athletic director saidto me, Ceel, you need to
(09:30):
be an athletic administrator. That's whatyou need to do. There's some foreshadowing
and I'm going to hire you whenyou graduate, so get your degree in
accounting because I want you to dothe budgets. So I did, because
you know, I'm nineteen and soI get the degree in accounting, and
I was cleaning my house out.I came across this program from my senior
(09:52):
year in college. No, itwas more or less a media guide sort
of thing, okay, and ithad each player their number or their hometown,
and then it had aspiration of careerin my career. In nineteen seventy
six, I said, athletic director, that's what I want to be when
I kind of what I'd like tobe when I and so I got sidetracked
(10:16):
because Debbie Yaw when I graduated,called me. I'd gone home to Louisville
after I got my degree and wasmessing around trying to figure out what I
was going to do. I wouldprobably have gone back to Kentucky and worked
for the women's athletic director and donewhat she but I really wanted to get
out of Kentucky quite frankly. AndDebbie said, you know, the University
(10:39):
of Cincinnati and Memphis State University atthat time have graduate assistantships available for women's
basketball. And this was fairly new. Are you interested in neither of them?
I'll send you the information, whichis like snail mail back then stand
by your mailbox and I'll stand byyour mail. So that summer I interviewed
(11:01):
both places and decided to go toCincinnati because it was closer to my family.
People forget how close Cincinnati is toKentucky and Louisville. Right there.
It's very close, really close betweenLexington, Cincinnati, and Louisville. And
those were the three places i'd beenbefore I moved to Boulder, Colorado?
Is that right? For gosh,wow, I don't think i'd gone.
Well, when you're from a familyof ten, you don't vacation a lot.
(11:24):
And there were from a lot offamily vacations. Where are you in
that order of eight children? Fourth? Fourth? Okay, so right in
the middle, right. So Iwent to Cincinnati and fell in love with
coaching, So the whole administrative thing, I just I loved coaching. And
then you become the head coach innineteen seventy nine. How do you go
from a grad assistant to head coachat the University of Cincinnati. I was
(11:46):
actually twenty three when they gave methe job. A couple of years getting
my masters, and I had thisinstinct. I think I just knew this
from Kentucky and I knew it fromthat. I really am going to have
to draw a pretty thick line betweenthe players and me in terms of age,
because you know, I knew thoseplayers wanted to get close to me
because then they can manipulate. Absolutelycoach's best friend, I get to play,
(12:11):
and so that was I think Ireally distanced myself from the players.
And getting through the first and secondyear wasn't that difficult because we were not
that good of a team. Theteam that I took over was twelve and
eighteen, which has been my philosophy. I tell every former assistant, take
(12:31):
over a losing program. Don't takeover a winning program. You take over
a losing program. You win moregames than you know everybody up you hope.
Yeah, So it wasn't that hardbecause the current players had already been
there two years. I was alreadyrecruiting the next class, so I knew.
I knew the current players, forbetter or for worse. I knew
the current players, and I knewthe recruiting class, so I had a
(12:54):
little jump start. Were there otherpeople that were up for it. You
just don't hear grad assistance going tobe a head coach. Well, the
first year I was at Cincinnati,I coached with an NBA former NBA player,
Tom Thacker, who had played withOscar Robertson at Cincinnati. So Tom
was a part time guy and Idid all the operations and he would come
in at six o'clock every night andcoach the team. Sometimes he'd call me
(13:18):
and say, seel I'm not comingStarry coach of the team in practice.
And then my second year I wasthere the point guard from the nineteen seventy
six Olympic team that won silver medalin Montreal. She became the head coach.
She came in July, but byMarch she left. She went to
Arizona State. So I think theadministration was like, we've had two coaches
in two years. These kids needsome continuity. That's why I got it,
(13:41):
because they thought, oh, Sealwill be stabilizing force. So I
tried to be stable at age twentythree, try to put on my mature
face and you know, provide thatfor those players. That would be really
hard though, being that close inage to those kids and then drawing like
you said that line, we're ableto keep that then throughout did you keep
(14:03):
it that way throughout the rest ofyour coaching career? Did it kind of
change? Does it change with eachteam and depending on your personalities that you
have on that team. I thinkif you were to ask any of my
players, and if I were togive any advice to any any coach of
any age, you can't let theplayers get too close to you. Now,
we had a strong relationship, butyou're a parent. I think it's
(14:24):
like being a parent. You're nottheir best friend all the time. Can't
be no. They'll walk all overyou. They'll walk all over you,
and you have to say no.I'll tell you this, Pat Summit,
the Great Pat Summit. I interviewedto be an assistant coach with her after
my second year when I completed mygraduate degree. So I did the interview
(14:45):
and she calls me up and Isaid, Pat, they're gonna offer me
the job at Cincinnati, the headjob. She said, well, if
they're going to offer you the headjob, you might as well take it.
She goes, I've got someone elsein mind. Nancy Darsh that she
was interviewing, and she said,you should take that head job. So
I called my dad and I said, what do you think I should do?
(15:07):
I said, what if I liketotally flopped, you know, then
I've done. I've forgotten all theaccounting I've ever. I am not going
to be a CPA. But youknow what, it is a good motivator
to think if you don't win,you're gonna get fired. That's the greatest
motivator in the world. She said, you should take that job because that's
exactly what you want. You aspireto be a head coach. Take the
(15:28):
head job as a head coach,and I hung up. I call him
and my dad said, well,if that's what coach Summit said, then
you should do it. I wismy butt on the line, But that
was good advice. It was goodadvice. And I think that issue of
being too close. I can distinctlyremember one player. I was twenty three
and she was probably twenty two anda half, and I can remember her
(15:50):
trying to be my friend, showup in my office just all of a
sudden, call me. Not inappropriate, but like trying to get you know,
outside of business hours. Yeah,outside of business hours, which for
coaches maybe from one am five barelyany non business hours. But I just
knew it, and probably I knewit because of my parents. My parents
(16:12):
had a good line with between parentingand their children, and I think I
could look at how did they runa team, A little Barrie team.
Yeah, they had a total teamgoing with eight kids. They pretty much
had a team, and I couldsee what was appropriate on being an authority
figure without being distant. That doesn'tmean you don't love. I mean you
(16:33):
have to love and they love you. It's that fine line. And I
talked to so many of my guestsabout this, whether they are a coach
or they've had that coach or thatcoach that makes the difference where they're hard
on you, but you'll run througha wall for them. And it's hard
to figure out how to make thatwork and how to make those connections with
those players. But once you haveit, it's magical. Yeah, And
that's through trust. You have tobuild trust every single day with every single
(16:57):
player and every single decision that youmake. If they don't trust you,
you can't love without trust. Ican genuinely say I love all of my
players to this day. I lovethem all I see them, I squeeze
them. They squeeze me. There'sa lot of love there. That's great.
So four years in Cincinnati in nineteeneighty three, you leave there and
(17:19):
you go to the University of Colorado. You sweet talk to Eddie Crowder,
who was the athletic director at thetime. Right, Did I read that
correctly, Susie, you did yourhomework? Susie does her homework. Right.
I was listening. She's got itdown. You know, I do
homework. And I gotta say Eddiewas a little slow on the draw.
He was running that Mexican cafe overthere on a baseline. But Washington State
(17:41):
that interviewed me and offered me thejob. I'm from back from the Midwest,
and I kept looking on the mapgoing so far it's really it's like
twice as far as Denver, andI couldn't quite figure out. Washington State
was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity witha real good ad at that time,
and they had really rolled down thered carpet. But I couldn't figure out,
how do you where are you goingto go to recruit? Because of
(18:04):
Pullman going to Spokane and then outin Colorado. You know, I thought,
now there's a place you can recruitpiece of cake. I just thought,
this is gonna be a great placeto recruit players. And finally I
got Eddie offered me that job,and he did in nineteen eighty three,
forty years ago, and I justI loved it. I loved it.
(18:25):
Yeah, and you replaced, whichI found interesting. Socks wal Seth and
I just talked to Chuck Williams.Chuck played for Socks when he played for
the CU men's basketball team, sohe was the head coach for the men's
team for a while, left inthe seventies, but came back out of
retirement to coach the women's program andbecame the first one to ever coach men's
and women's basketball I think in done college. So kind of interesting that
(18:48):
you took over for him, Andwere there expectations at that point, I
mean, was he doing a favorfor the university by coming back and helping
out with the women's team for thosethree years. I'd think a little bit.
I think if you'd look back atthe history the University of Colorado,
in nineteen eighty they cut gymnastics,swimming, diving, baseball, wrestling.
That cut seven sports budget cuts andthat's more or less. Riney Portland,
(19:12):
who coached at Penn State University,was the University of Colorado women's basketball coach
seventy eight through eighty. So Ithink you're right. I think they did
a favor for him. He dida favor for them. He took them
over for three years, not alot of recruiting, but they love playing
for Socks. Socks is fun andfunny and witty and smart and an offensive
(19:33):
genius. And they didn't like meas much because I think, honestly,
Susie, I think what I did. I was kind of a fish out
of water coming out here, tryingto figure out who are my friends,
where do I go to recruit,really trying to get the program going again.
They had been witty, but Iwasn't at my best. I would
(19:56):
say I wasn't creating relationships with thecurrent players. I see that with coach
Sanders up at SEU right now.I mean, you come in, Yeah,
they expect you to win. You'regoing to hire a new coach.
Here comes to this coach from Kentuckyslash Ohio. Yeah, they expect things.
So I wasn't at my best.I would say my biggest regret is
(20:18):
that I didn't really create a relationshipwith Socks until nineteen ninety seven. I
think I was on the move.We were, you know, we started
winning games. Oh yeah. ButSocks was just as such a wonderful resource
on the offensive end of the floor. He was a really good offensive coach.
And he'd come to our practices,he'd sit there, he'd have me
(20:41):
over. I'd go over to hishouse. We watch videotape. Socks was
the one Phil Jackson made the triangleoffense popular with Michael Jordan with the Bulls
and the Lakers, so they ranthe triangle. Their assistant coach was texts
winner. Text winner used to coachat k State men Socks. He maintains
that he ran the triangle before atext winner. Oh interesting, yeah,
(21:03):
self funny. He was excellent.When you say that you have like some
of those regrets and when you camein you couldn't make some of those connections.
Did you end up learning a loton the fly seal of how you
needed to be? And was Bolderthat much different than Cincinnati as far as
just even I mean, bolder isjust bolder in general and can be very
different in and of itself. Buthow different was it trying to get used
(21:23):
to the culture there. You know, that's a great question, and I
want to tell you, I don'tknow where I had this confidence. At
a young age, I thought I'mgoing to bring the Cincinnati culture to Boulder.
I thought they were a little toolaid back. I thought they were
a little too relaxed. I thoughtthey need a little more discipline. I
thought they needed to be more seriousabout the game. They were last in
(21:47):
the Big eight teams in the Bigeight and CEU was last. I thought,
they have to get more serious aboutwhat we're doing if they want to
win. And I was talking aboutthe program, our program, So I
thought, I know how to dothis. They're going to adjust to me.
I'm not adjusted to them, Andprobably took a couple of years,
two or three years, and thenthey adjusted, and then they embraced it.
(22:08):
Then they became proud of it.Big difference. When you're dragging them
yourself, you're one step from thestreet, right because they can it could
be a total rebellion. Yeah,oh absolutely. Well you end up being
there for twenty two seasons, twelveNC DOUBLEA appearances, You had six and
sweet sixteen you went to the EliteEight three times, You're Big Eight Coach
(22:30):
of the Year four times. Imean, just the accolades just started coming
in along the way. Do youhave some kind of favorite moments or things
that you're the most proud of?And I know you don't want to call
out certain teams being better than otherteams or favorite of other teams, but
there has to be some moments whereyou're like, yeah, this was so
satisfying and so rewarding. I thinkI'm most proud of the Events Center had
(22:51):
never sold out. It was openedin nineteen seventy nine, and in nineteen
eighty nine, it had never soldout for a men's game or a women's
game. In the sellout, whatI like to point out and what I'm
proud of, is that it wasan NCAA game. In NCAA does not
allow ticket giveaways. You have tosell those tickets because the NCAA put you
(23:12):
on a budget, and they wereall ticketed. And yeah, yeah,
the fire marshals were called in toclear the aisles because they over sold,
they sold over capacity. I'm probablymost proud that we were able to attract
that sort of following. Absolutely,people didn't just like that we won.
(23:33):
I think they liked how we played, not just that we won games.
Absolutely. So did Boulder end upbeing as easy of a place to recruit
as you thought it was or didit take a little while for that?
From the beginning, I felt likepeople are gonna take trips. Prospects get
five trips, paid trips, andI thought, you know, there's a
couple of places in the country thatkids are going to say yes, Hawaii,
(23:56):
Colorado, Southern California. You knowthey're gonna say yet, so I
could always get Typically August, youbegin your phone conversations with prospects seniors.
You call them in August, youbring them to the campus in September and
October, and you sign them inNovember. And we usually start with about
twenty and you sign about four orfive. You expect someone are going to
(24:19):
dump you. You're gonna you know, usually I call about twenty kids on
August first, nineteen of them areinterested. Wows it's Boulder, Colorado.
Right. Yeah, we joked beforewe started talking that you've never been fired,
but you also fired yourself before.You were probably going to be done
when you left. See you you'reonly forty nine in April of two thousand
(24:40):
and five when you leave and thensoon after that you become an associate athletic
director. What went into that decisionto kind of make that change and get
out of coaching and then go overto the administrative side. Well, the
biggest difference was this was two thousandand four, two thousand and five,
when the president one of the university, Betsy Hoffman, I think, was
(25:02):
let go. The chancellor may havebeen let go. I know our athletic
director. There was a lot ofchange in the university, and I thought
it might be an opportunity for meto move on into administration because there were
so many vacancies. There was nobodythere was There was just and I can
(25:23):
remember going in and speaking with oneof the administrative assistants and saying, there's
all these positions open in the department. Do you think I can do it?
And she said, oh, Seal, with what you've done and running
your own program wins that you cando this. So my responsibilities were equipment.
I oversaw the equipment manager. Itwas a first hire. I made
(25:45):
equipment, you know, shoulder pads, helmets, you know, training table,
academic support, sports medicine, allof the support services before I began
to oversee sports. But I decidedto fire myself, which I think is
so funny, mostly because I wasstarting to lose a little of the passion,
(26:07):
Okay, just a little enough ofthe passion. I had done this
for twenty eight years, since theday I walked out of UK. I
just thought, I don't want tobe one of those coaches that's on that
slippery slope, earning the money youhot seat every year. Yeah, man,
just maybe doing it for the wrongreasons, doing it because my salary
was going up at that time andexposure was going up. There were a
(26:32):
lot of good things about coaching intwo thousand and five, but I just
could feel my passion for doing itsliding a little bit, and I felt
like I'd rather get out when Ican call the shot that as opposed to
somebody else. And did you also, you spent so much time at that
school over two decades, did youwant to try and help them get right
again? I always had that interestin administration. I thought this will be
(26:52):
great. I won't oversee women's basketball, but I could help volleyball, soccer,
tennis. Those coaches that I hadrelationships with and Kelly Nicole Kenneely Bill
Hempen, who was a soccer coachat the time, PEIU, all those
coaches that I knew that if Iwas kind of had a hand in administration,
and I thought it would be interestingand a little more challenging to take
(27:17):
what we did in women's basketball andhelp make a difference in the other sports.
Do you feel like it did well? My goal was I wanted to
see women's basketball, volleyball, soccer, and lacrosse all make the NCAA tournament
the same year. That never happenedin the fifteen years I was an Administrator's
a that's a tough goal. Aright, that would have been my goal
(27:37):
on the women's side of things.But do you feel like the strides you
made when you were in the administrationdefinitely was in a better place when you
left than it was when you started. I think administratively, yes, I
didn't really realize the emotional drain thatbeing a senior woman administrator in an organization.
It's really a business that football isdriving the bottom line. And there's
(28:00):
a law called Title nine, andmy job is gender equity in Title nine
also embrace sexual harassment and sexual assault. So you're kind of the point person
for all things bad when you goto a meeting. Tennis has porta potties
at their courts. You know,women's cross country has one sports brought and
they run sixty miles a week.I mean, the kids will walk in
(28:22):
my office and they'd let me know. And I thought, boy, with
this job, you have job securityfor the rest of your life because always
something to fix, no question.Even now, they're building lights. Soccer
is the only Division one school inthe state of Colorado that doesn't have permanent
lighting in the soccer stadium. Onlyonce YESSU has. They to College Northern
Colorado. And when we hired Dannyfrom Metro, we said we're going to
(28:45):
get lights. Well they're going toput up lights this summer. So wait,
and you left when High left threeyears ago. Yeah, but when
I see that nowadays, I readit in the paper, I'm excited.
I'm excited for Danny because I rememberthe meeting. I remember sitting there saying
we will have lights. But youknow, it's a process. So you
(29:06):
do that for tell July of twentytwenty, and then you retire fifteen years
at sixty five. So fifteen yearsThat was the hardest thing, I think,
the transition from running your own program. I had all the direct reports
in women's basketball, my assistant coaches, strength, coach media, all those
(29:26):
reporting to me. So you feelas if you either get it right or
you don't. And I like thatpressure, right, I like it bring
it. It was different to besomeone else's direct report and to be so
excited about so many things that needto get done. There's so many things
that in it felt slow, yes, and so it was a little frustrating,
(29:51):
But in retrospect it was probably beneficialfor the student athletes. I think
I could make a different and probablygood for me to kind of stare step
it down to full retirement. Iguess, did you miss coaching after you
left it? Though I did,I really did by the time I finished,
I did not. Fifteen years later. I did not miss coaching probably
the first five to seven Yes,you know, I couldn't go to practice
(30:15):
sometimes, or I really made aneffort. I really made an effort not
to. Yeah, probably when LindaLappy was the coaches when I went more
often because she was a player ofyours and that makes more sense, and
she probably wouldn't be I would.I mean, I would think anybody that
would go in if you're coming topractice, there's a slight intimidation factor,
right, And I didn't want themto think or the players. You don't
(30:36):
want the players to think those stealshere, something's wrong, you know.
I didn't want to do that.But Linda, I was real proud.
In twenty thirteen, we had notbeen to the NCAA tournament since oh four.
In twenty thirteen, Linda took theteam to the first NCAA tournament since
what nine years? So I wasreal proud of her. Yeah. Well,
I love Linda and she's now theexecutive director for Sportswoman of Colorado,
(30:59):
which is really deciding to have herin that role. So is it fun
to see? And you said youstill have great relationships with your players.
I'm sure you stay in touch withlots of them, seeing where they go
in life and where they've gone to. Absolutely, that's got to be one
of the most rewarding things I wouldthink it is to see their successes,
successful families and marriages and careers.A lot of them are in the Denver
(31:21):
area. There's teachers, coaches.Linda has done so many good things by
and large, they're all doing reallywell. That's pleased with that. You
have received so many You're a bunchof hall of fames. It's almost too
many to mention, right, ColoradoSports Hall of Fame, Colorado Women's Hall
of Fame, Women's Basketball Hall ofFame, CEU Athletics Hall of Fame.
You've been National Coach of the Year. I mentioned the Big Gate titles.
(31:45):
And then most recently, you're inthe PAC twelve Hall of Honor. I
sent you a text congratulating you onit, and you're like, yeah,
I've never coached in the Pac twelve, but now there. I am right.
Didn't lose one game. Somebody textsmaybe you didn't with losing games in
the PAC twelve. It was agreat ceremony and I was one of the
oldest there. I think three orfour of us were Title nine administrators and
(32:07):
Title nine babies, so to speak. But a lot of the athletes,
the PAC twelve has so many superiorathletes at the Olympic level. Jessica Mendoza
from Stanford the pitcher kind of spokeon our behalf, but track athlete from
Arizona State, a volleyball athlete fromWashington state. They were mostly twenty twenty
five years younger than me, andthey had all benefited from Title nine.
(32:30):
But it was really cool to bearound that energy, in that level of
athleticism. I was never even closeto that good of an athlete, so
it's kind of satisfying to see whata law can do too. And they're
so comfortable in their skin, intheir bodies. These are big, strong
women six foot three, very wellput together and strong, confident ladies.
(32:52):
It was fun. We were togetherall weekend, so the ceremony was outstanding.
Do you lose count of how manyaccolades you've had and how many places
your name is hanging somewhere you havea big award shelf somewhere, seal that
you have everything displayed well, asyou know, I don't have any children,
being from a large family, Igot about fifteen nieces and nephews,
and I think not one of mynieces and nephews is you don't want this
(33:15):
plaque or want this trophy, SoI'm not sure what I'm gonna do with
it. Right. Yeah, yousplit time now in retirement between two places.
You come here in the summertime toBoulder and then you winter. Now
in Florida. Yeah, what's thatlike enjoying retirement. Well, I was
searching for a place. A goodfriend of mine LPGA US Open three time
champion, Hollis Stacey. I playedgolf with her out at Riverdale Dunes and
(33:39):
she said, Seal you you knowyou're looking for a place, want to
be warm? My family being fromFlorida, I wanted a place a little
bit closer to them where they couldenjoy it and come down. And she
said, you ought to look atAnna Maria Island. So Anna Maria Island
is north of Longboat Key. It'snear Bradenton, Florida. So I look
down in that area and that's whereI found a place. I think the
(34:00):
big challenge in retirement is to stayhealthy. I've had torminiscus, a torn
calf, a bad back just sinceretirement, broken toe. I've never had
anything. Well, you sit ata desk all day, you go out
there and try to play pickleball threehours a day, and though you got
the pickleball bug. Yeah that's thething. Yeah, I bet you're pretty
(34:22):
good. Well. I spent alot of time in Holi Dumps with my
players. We'd play Friday Sunday allday Saturday. We would play ping pong
in Holi Dosh to keep the playersoccupied and keep them And I'd love playing
ping pong. I have five brothers. Well to me, pickleball is ping
pong on steroids. Yeah, onsteroids. So yeah, your brain thinks
(34:45):
you can get that ball. Youthink you're seventeen, and you go and
you lunge and you go, youhave I haven't done a lunge since.
Hence the torn calf, A torncalf, you name it, I just
dial it back. That's so funny. So you bring up the Holodome and
gosh, we used to stay atthe Holodome up in Dylan when I was
a kid, and we loved goingthere and we played ping pong every time,
(35:07):
you know, the other pool andthe ping pong right there. And
speaking of Title nine and just thewhole traveling thing, how was it when
you know you're taking over these programsand they're just kind of still in the
emphasy of not having the charters ornot having all of the amenities that all
of the guys had. How didyou work through some of those? And
I love hearing the stories of thisis how we did it, and so
(35:29):
people that do it now don't complainbecause it was like this back then.
Well, you know what, I'mglad you asked this question because I am
not a complainer. I'm not aperson to knock on the door of the
AD and say we need charter buses, we need charter flights. And I'm
not sure why, because I onlyhave so much energy. And if I
was going to complain, it wasgonna because we didn't block out or we
(35:52):
didn't get back on defense. That'sjust me. I thought, if we
win, they're going to be proudof us winning and they're gonna want us
to keep winning, and they beingthe administration. So I just thought we're
going to get just win and thatthe rest will happen. It did.
It gradually happened. You know,the men had charter buses before we did.
(36:14):
Seven years later, we got totake a charter bus to d IA.
We got to have a charter buspick us up at Kansas City and
take us over to KU and kState. Those were big things. And
every year the players, I stillalmost want to call them the kids.
I could tell them that this yearwe're going to get this. This year
we're going to get two sets atuniforms, three sets at uniforms, warm
(36:36):
ups, more shoes, whatever itis. But being the accountant, it's
not realistic to think you're going tobe equitable with the men's team in three
years. You're not. It's gonnabe a gradual thing. We always got
a little present at the end ofthe year. We got something new for
the next year. That always happenedat see you as you look back on
your career, seal and you haven'tbeen cut, traded or fired, but
(36:57):
you are now retired, but youhave had ups and downs. Just because
you haven't been fired doesn't mean thatyou didn't have some years where you know,
you didn't always win. And there'salways that stress as a coach to
win and to perform. And sowhat is your advice to people when they
have the setbacks, they're down andtrying to figure out how to kind of
get back up and move into thatnext phase. And then I think a
great example of as you saying,at the age of forty nine, I'm
(37:22):
kind of done here. Let mego on to the next thing. You're
never too old to reinvent yourself.I told one of our coaches, I'm
not going to say who You're alwayson an island. As a head coach,
you're on your own, so youneed a go to person. Mine
was my dad. He was mygo to. Ironically, when I did
retire, I retired No. Five. He passed away in twenty ten.
(37:44):
I knew he was in the laststages of his life and I wanted to
spend a little more time with him. But you have to have a go
to person that you trust, thatyou can be vulnerable with. You can't
all the time be vulnerable with yourstaff, assistant coaches, they report to
you. You know, that's areal fine balance. That would be another
(38:05):
conversation your staff. Half of themwant your job. They want your job.
They're ambitious people. But being vulnerableand being able to have someone to
be a sounding board that you trust. It can't being an opposing coach somebody
else in Division one. It can'tbe friends that you meet along the way.
I love Tara Vanderveer, but shewas not going to be my sounding
board. She wanted to beat myrear end, right, you know,
(38:29):
So mine was my dad And you'llappreciate this. One of my lowest moments,
and you'll probably laugh. We losta CSU at CSU, and we
were really good. We were rankedand they weren't. And we go up
there and you know how they crankit up with a ya, and you
know, and you know, becauseyou're CU, you're supposed to beat Wyoming
(38:49):
and CSU. And I had somethingin my head that I'm going to schedule
them every year because we should beable to go up there home in a
way, and we're going to schedulethem. We lost, and I couldn't
get over it. In twenty fourhours later, I called my dad from
the training room, Well, Ihad to go out to practice, and
I was I had tears in myeyes, that's how much I cared.
(39:09):
Wow, And he got you know, my dad's pretty easy going. He
got me going and he said,come on, you go ahead, to
get up and get going because they'reout there so you can do this.
And the other thing. I losta recruit and I had put countless hours
and I stood in my kitchen whenshe told me she was going to cal
(39:30):
Berkeley and I cried on that one. That's how much passion and care I
had for the program and for theteam. You put your blood, sweat
and your tears, so you haveto have somebody other than your staff,
I think, to lift you up. I think that's great advice. You
have to be careful who you chooseas your support people choose wisely. Absolutely,
(39:53):
Seel, this has been so muchfun. I've enjoyed getting to know
more about you. I mean,I knew all about you you from your
your bolder time, but just knowingmore of your roots and where you came
from. I love it. Well, Thank you, Susie. I've always
respected you and like you, andso it's I really enjoy being down here,
all right. Thanks Seal. Whata treat. Thank you, Seal.
(40:14):
New episodes of Cut, Traded,Fired, Retired come out every Tuesday.
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(40:36):
guests on here. I'm your host, Susie Wargin. Thank you for taking
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and until next time, please becareful be safe and be kind.
Take care,
I thought, I'm going to bringthe Cincinnati culture to Boulder. I thought
they were a little too laid back. I thought they need a little more
discipline. I thought they needed tobe more serious about the game. They
were last in the Big Eight.I thought they have to get more serious
about what we're doing if they wantto win. And I was talking about
the program, so I thought,I know how to do this. They're
(00:22):
going to adjust to me. I'mnot adjusted to them, and probably took
a couple of years, two orthree years, and then they adjusted.
Welcome to cut, traded, fired, retired. The title is a mouthful,
but it covers nearly everything that canhappen to a professional athlete or coach.
And my goal is to talk toas many as I can so we
can all gain perspective, learn fromchallenges, and maybe find some inspiration for
(00:45):
our own lives. I'm your host, Susie Wargin. I'm very excited about
this episode because it features our firstfemale guest. I've been a fan of
seal Berries for a very long time. The amount of respect she earned as
the women's basketball coach at SEU wasoff the charts, and to watch her
step down when she knew the timewas right and then make great strides as
an administrator in the Buffs Athletic departmentfor fifteen years made her even more impressive.
(01:08):
What I didn't know about seal washer upbringing, being one of eight
children, attending Catholic school and havingsolid opportunities as a female athlete in field
hockey, basketball, and volleyball beforeTitle nine was universal. She has done
amazing work and helped to mold andshape countless student athletes, ladies and gentlemen.
(01:29):
Seal Berry got traded fired Retired Podcastswith Susie Wargin seal Berry, This
is so fun. I haven't seenyou in a while, and you're the
first female that I'm going to haveon my podcast. I feel honored to
be your first female. I wasdriving down here thinking, I wonder how
many women have been on the podcast, so you're it so far. Yeah,
(01:52):
this will be a lot of funto talk to you because you are
such a legend in Colorado, inBoulder in particular, and I think it's
interesting for people to know you knowwhere you kind of came from, and
people always think of you. Associatedwould just see you, but there's so
much to your life beyond what youdid in Boulder. Well, I'm if
you want to know where I camefrom. I came from Kentucky. Yeah,
(02:15):
you did, not the Hills.No, the one big city Louisville,
and that's where you were born.You went to Assumption High School.
It's a Catholic high school. It'sa Catholic high school in Louisville, and
Louisville had at that time, andI think for the most part still do,
all the same gender high school,all the men, all the boys
went to the boys high schools.They were about ten of them in about
(02:37):
eight or nine girls high school Sowe had a league before Title nine was
ever passed in nineteen seventy two.The nuns thought, well, you know,
I went to a school that wasrun by women, so going to
an all girls school. They clearlywanted to keep us active absolutely and really
promoted sports. It was so interestingbecause it was the early seventies. You
(02:59):
grudu waited in seventy three, rightseventy three, and the law was passed
in seventy two. So the publicschools back then did not have any sport
teams, no sport programs, andalways felt a little privileged that I got
to go. I was so proudto be a Catholic because I get to
play sports. That was motivated meto go to church every Sunday. Oh
(03:21):
that's so interesting. And you obviouslyplayed basketball, but you also played volleyball
and field hockey. Yes, andmy grade school had volleyball, but when
I went to Assumption High School,field hockey was huge. It was almost
a bigger sport if you can imagine, in the state of Kentucky, basketball
is a big, big free That'swhere Wesley Unsold went. He went to
(03:42):
high school right across the street whereI went to grade school, as did
Diane Sawyer. But anyway, Wesleyonsoldwas a big name back then in the
sixties. He played for the BaltimoreBullets and he was a big name.
Basketball was huge, but you can'timagine how big in the city of Louisville
girl field hockey was. So youknow, that was my introduction into high
(04:03):
school sports, was being a memberof the field hockey team. Really,
so was that maybe a first lovebefore basketball? Yes. I have two
older sisters. Neither a sister playedsports, but they hid these yearbooks and
in the yearbooks, this is howyou know if you can see it,
you can be it. Yeah,I'd look at it. I would fifth
and sixth grader. I'd take myolder sister's yearbook and look at all the
(04:25):
field hockey pictures and try to visualizewhat it was like. My mother actually
played field hockey at a Catholic highschool in Louisville, not Assumption Sacred Heart.
She played field hockey in nineteen fortyone forty two. She had an
old field hockey stick. I hadno idea until I was maybe, I
don't know, twelve or thirteen yearsold. She gets it out, dusts
(04:46):
it off. My mom had eightkids, so she didn't have a lot
of time to be teaching for anybodysports. But she did that for me.
She got it out, and we'rein the backyard and she showed me
how to hold a field hockey stick, and and we got a tennis ball
and I started hitting the tennis ballagainst the brick wall. So when I
went out for a trial, youhad to go out for a tryout.
(05:06):
I wanted to make sure I madethe team. Oh my gosh, so
yeah, yeah, that is socool. So you had enough girls.
Even though it was very it wasa smaller Catholic school. You had enough
girls to field a team and goplay against other schools. Oh, my
gosh, we probably had thirty orso that were on the field hockey team.
Eleven kids play. They had enough. Probably they could have had a
(05:26):
JV. Team. But so therewere nine Catholic schools and there were no
buses, there was no budget,so we the seniors would drive the team
to the field and Susie. Therewere big crowds. There were probably five
hundred people for the big games.Yeah, five hundred. Oh they would
line these, yes, so liketheir stands at field hockey games usually,
(05:47):
but they probably put them in,didn't they. And when I think about
it, the fact that my motherplayed, there was a long tradition absolutely
field hockey there, and so yeah, it was a big deal. It
was a big deal to play fieldhockey than it was to play basketball in
the early seventies, right, thatchanged obviously as Kentucky progressed in basketball became
(06:08):
bigger. But you know, it'sfunny because field hockey here in Colorado,
like it wasn't even a thing.When I was in high school at Broomfield,
we didn't have a field hockey team. And that was in the eighties.
I mean just nobody. It justwasn't even around. So it's so
interesting that it was such a bigsport. Yeah, it was in the
Midwest, and I can clearly remembermy senior year I got motto, you
(06:28):
know high school kids. My coachsaid, there is a coach coming from
Saint Louis and they offer scholarships forfield hockey. So it must have been
big in the Midwest. I neverheard from that coach. I must have
recovered that wealth from the mono aboutbut it was very big and the Midwest
and probably East Coast a little bittoo, or do you think more Midwest?
(06:50):
I think East Coast for sure.When I went to college, I
played field hockey in college. Also, we went to a camp at Sauk
Valley, Michigan. There were probablyprobably fifteen teams at a camp there in
August, and we played and itwas it was clearly a higher level women
instead of girls stronger. It wasa very difficult sport. Field hockey was
(07:13):
a lot harder. I thought,oh, I'm sure, yeah, Okay,
So when you graduate from Assumption HighSchool in seventy three, you do
go to the University of Kentucky forfour years. Where you play basketball and
field hockey? Did you go onscholarship? What was the vibe then as
far as women's sports and the nextlevel? Well even how kids have work
study now. I had a tryoutwith the women's athletic director who ran all
(07:38):
the women's sports at that time,still prior to Title nine, because Title
nine passed in seventy two. Butthere was a bit of a yeah,
because it had to work its waythrough the courts with a tower amendment.
NCA was trying to block it.I was in college at that time,
and this woman who was running allof the sports and coaching half of them.
(08:00):
She coached volleyball, softball. Youknow, it was kind of low
level club team like anyway, somebodytold her that I was pretty good,
so she gave me a trial andI tried out, and I was playing
against the guys in the rec center. The deal was, if I this
has to go with scholarship, ifI was good enough, she would give
me an hourly worker job. Itwasn't affiliated with financial a but I needed
(08:22):
that job to go to college awayfrom my house, away from home and
live in the residence hall. Sofor three years I worked with her and
helped her implement Title nine at theUniversity of Kentucky. Well then my senior
year, we hired Kayow's sister,Debbie Ow came on one of the best
athletic directors in the country, andDebbie said to me, you have to
(08:46):
play one sport or the other.I think she was kind of hoping I'd
play field hockey, but I chosebasketball because they were going to put the
basketball players on scholarship that year.So I was in the first class of
women in nineteen seventy six to receivescholarships. Okay, so I did get
a scholarship my last year in basketball, which was kind of icing on the
(09:07):
cake at that point. I hadit paid for, but it was a
tuition only. And how beneficial tohave worked with her those three years on
implementing Title nine, especially with whereyou ended up going with your career and
your education at Kentucky was your bachelor'swas in accounting. My bachelor's was in
accounting. Because this athletic director saidto me, Ceel, you need to
(09:30):
be an athletic administrator. That's whatyou need to do. There's some foreshadowing
and I'm going to hire you whenyou graduate, so get your degree in
accounting because I want you to dothe budgets. So I did, because
you know, I'm nineteen and soI get the degree in accounting, and
I was cleaning my house out.I came across this program from my senior
(09:52):
year in college. No, itwas more or less a media guide sort
of thing, okay, and ithad each player their number or their hometown,
and then it had aspiration of careerin my career. In nineteen seventy
six, I said, athletic director, that's what I want to be when
I kind of what I'd like tobe when I and so I got sidetracked
(10:16):
because Debbie Yaw when I graduated,called me. I'd gone home to Louisville
after I got my degree and wasmessing around trying to figure out what I
was going to do. I wouldprobably have gone back to Kentucky and worked
for the women's athletic director and donewhat she but I really wanted to get
out of Kentucky quite frankly. AndDebbie said, you know, the University
(10:39):
of Cincinnati and Memphis State University atthat time have graduate assistantships available for women's
basketball. And this was fairly new. Are you interested in neither of them?
I'll send you the information, whichis like snail mail back then stand
by your mailbox and I'll stand byyour mail. So that summer I interviewed
(11:01):
both places and decided to go toCincinnati because it was closer to my family.
People forget how close Cincinnati is toKentucky and Louisville. Right there.
It's very close, really close betweenLexington, Cincinnati, and Louisville. And
those were the three places i'd beenbefore I moved to Boulder, Colorado?
Is that right? For gosh,wow, I don't think i'd gone.
Well, when you're from a familyof ten, you don't vacation a lot.
(11:24):
And there were from a lot offamily vacations. Where are you in
that order of eight children? Fourth? Fourth? Okay, so right in
the middle, right. So Iwent to Cincinnati and fell in love with
coaching, So the whole administrative thing, I just I loved coaching. And
then you become the head coach innineteen seventy nine. How do you go
from a grad assistant to head coachat the University of Cincinnati. I was
(11:46):
actually twenty three when they gave methe job. A couple of years getting
my masters, and I had thisinstinct. I think I just knew this
from Kentucky and I knew it fromthat. I really am going to have
to draw a pretty thick line betweenthe players and me in terms of age,
because you know, I knew thoseplayers wanted to get close to me
because then they can manipulate. Absolutelycoach's best friend, I get to play,
(12:11):
and so that was I think Ireally distanced myself from the players.
And getting through the first and secondyear wasn't that difficult because we were not
that good of a team. Theteam that I took over was twelve and
eighteen, which has been my philosophy. I tell every former assistant, take
(12:31):
over a losing program. Don't takeover a winning program. You take over
a losing program. You win moregames than you know everybody up you hope.
Yeah, So it wasn't that hardbecause the current players had already been
there two years. I was alreadyrecruiting the next class, so I knew.
I knew the current players, forbetter or for worse. I knew
the current players, and I knewthe recruiting class, so I had a
(12:54):
little jump start. Were there otherpeople that were up for it. You
just don't hear grad assistance going tobe a head coach. Well, the
first year I was at Cincinnati,I coached with an NBA former NBA player,
Tom Thacker, who had played withOscar Robertson at Cincinnati. So Tom
was a part time guy and Idid all the operations and he would come
in at six o'clock every night andcoach the team. Sometimes he'd call me
(13:18):
and say, seel I'm not comingStarry coach of the team in practice.
And then my second year I wasthere the point guard from the nineteen seventy
six Olympic team that won silver medalin Montreal. She became the head coach.
She came in July, but byMarch she left. She went to
Arizona State. So I think theadministration was like, we've had two coaches
in two years. These kids needsome continuity. That's why I got it,
(13:41):
because they thought, oh, Sealwill be stabilizing force. So I
tried to be stable at age twentythree, try to put on my mature
face and you know, provide thatfor those players. That would be really
hard though, being that close inage to those kids and then drawing like
you said that line, we're ableto keep that then throughout did you keep
(14:03):
it that way throughout the rest ofyour coaching career? Did it kind of
change? Does it change with eachteam and depending on your personalities that you
have on that team. I thinkif you were to ask any of my
players, and if I were togive any advice to any any coach of
any age, you can't let theplayers get too close to you. Now,
we had a strong relationship, butyou're a parent. I think it's
(14:24):
like being a parent. You're nottheir best friend all the time. Can't
be no. They'll walk all overyou. They'll walk all over you,
and you have to say no.I'll tell you this, Pat Summit,
the Great Pat Summit. I interviewedto be an assistant coach with her after
my second year when I completed mygraduate degree. So I did the interview
(14:45):
and she calls me up and Isaid, Pat, they're gonna offer me
the job at Cincinnati, the headjob. She said, well, if
they're going to offer you the headjob, you might as well take it.
She goes, I've got someone elsein mind. Nancy Darsh that she
was interviewing, and she said,you should take that head job. So
I called my dad and I said, what do you think I should do?
(15:07):
I said, what if I liketotally flopped, you know, then
I've done. I've forgotten all theaccounting I've ever. I am not going
to be a CPA. But youknow what, it is a good motivator
to think if you don't win,you're gonna get fired. That's the greatest
motivator in the world. She said, you should take that job because that's
exactly what you want. You aspireto be a head coach. Take the
(15:28):
head job as a head coach,and I hung up. I call him
and my dad said, well,if that's what coach Summit said, then
you should do it. I wismy butt on the line, But that
was good advice. It was goodadvice. And I think that issue of
being too close. I can distinctlyremember one player. I was twenty three
and she was probably twenty two anda half, and I can remember her
(15:50):
trying to be my friend, showup in my office just all of a
sudden, call me. Not inappropriate, but like trying to get you know,
outside of business hours. Yeah,outside of business hours, which for
coaches maybe from one am five barelyany non business hours. But I just
knew it, and probably I knewit because of my parents. My parents
(16:12):
had a good line with between parentingand their children, and I think I
could look at how did they runa team, A little Barrie team.
Yeah, they had a total teamgoing with eight kids. They pretty much
had a team, and I couldsee what was appropriate on being an authority
figure without being distant. That doesn'tmean you don't love. I mean you
(16:33):
have to love and they love you. It's that fine line. And I
talked to so many of my guestsabout this, whether they are a coach
or they've had that coach or thatcoach that makes the difference where they're hard
on you, but you'll run througha wall for them. And it's hard
to figure out how to make thatwork and how to make those connections with
those players. But once you haveit, it's magical. Yeah, And
that's through trust. You have tobuild trust every single day with every single
(16:57):
player and every single decision that youmake. If they don't trust you,
you can't love without trust. Ican genuinely say I love all of my
players to this day. I lovethem all I see them, I squeeze
them. They squeeze me. There'sa lot of love there. That's great.
So four years in Cincinnati in nineteeneighty three, you leave there and
(17:19):
you go to the University of Colorado. You sweet talk to Eddie Crowder,
who was the athletic director at thetime. Right, Did I read that
correctly, Susie, you did yourhomework? Susie does her homework. Right.
I was listening. She's got itdown. You know, I do
homework. And I gotta say Eddiewas a little slow on the draw.
He was running that Mexican cafe overthere on a baseline. But Washington State
(17:41):
that interviewed me and offered me thejob. I'm from back from the Midwest,
and I kept looking on the mapgoing so far it's really it's like
twice as far as Denver, andI couldn't quite figure out. Washington State
was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity witha real good ad at that time,
and they had really rolled down thered carpet. But I couldn't figure out,
how do you where are you goingto go to recruit? Because of
(18:04):
Pullman going to Spokane and then outin Colorado. You know, I thought,
now there's a place you can recruitpiece of cake. I just thought,
this is gonna be a great placeto recruit players. And finally I
got Eddie offered me that job,and he did in nineteen eighty three,
forty years ago, and I justI loved it. I loved it.
(18:25):
Yeah, and you replaced, whichI found interesting. Socks wal Seth and
I just talked to Chuck Williams.Chuck played for Socks when he played for
the CU men's basketball team, sohe was the head coach for the men's
team for a while, left inthe seventies, but came back out of
retirement to coach the women's program andbecame the first one to ever coach men's
and women's basketball I think in done college. So kind of interesting that
(18:48):
you took over for him, Andwere there expectations at that point, I
mean, was he doing a favorfor the university by coming back and helping
out with the women's team for thosethree years. I'd think a little bit.
I think if you'd look back atthe history the University of Colorado,
in nineteen eighty they cut gymnastics,swimming, diving, baseball, wrestling.
That cut seven sports budget cuts andthat's more or less. Riney Portland,
(19:12):
who coached at Penn State University,was the University of Colorado women's basketball coach
seventy eight through eighty. So Ithink you're right. I think they did
a favor for him. He dida favor for them. He took them
over for three years, not alot of recruiting, but they love playing
for Socks. Socks is fun andfunny and witty and smart and an offensive
(19:33):
genius. And they didn't like meas much because I think, honestly,
Susie, I think what I did. I was kind of a fish out
of water coming out here, tryingto figure out who are my friends,
where do I go to recruit,really trying to get the program going again.
They had been witty, but Iwasn't at my best. I would
(19:56):
say I wasn't creating relationships with thecurrent players. I see that with coach
Sanders up at SEU right now.I mean, you come in, Yeah,
they expect you to win. You'regoing to hire a new coach.
Here comes to this coach from Kentuckyslash Ohio. Yeah, they expect things.
So I wasn't at my best.I would say my biggest regret is
(20:18):
that I didn't really create a relationshipwith Socks until nineteen ninety seven. I
think I was on the move.We were, you know, we started
winning games. Oh yeah. ButSocks was just as such a wonderful resource
on the offensive end of the floor. He was a really good offensive coach.
And he'd come to our practices,he'd sit there, he'd have me
(20:41):
over. I'd go over to hishouse. We watch videotape. Socks was
the one Phil Jackson made the triangleoffense popular with Michael Jordan with the Bulls
and the Lakers, so they ranthe triangle. Their assistant coach was texts
winner. Text winner used to coachat k State men Socks. He maintains
that he ran the triangle before atext winner. Oh interesting, yeah,
(21:03):
self funny. He was excellent.When you say that you have like some
of those regrets and when you camein you couldn't make some of those connections.
Did you end up learning a loton the fly seal of how you
needed to be? And was Bolderthat much different than Cincinnati as far as
just even I mean, bolder isjust bolder in general and can be very
different in and of itself. Buthow different was it trying to get used
(21:23):
to the culture there. You know, that's a great question, and I
want to tell you, I don'tknow where I had this confidence. At
a young age, I thought I'mgoing to bring the Cincinnati culture to Boulder.
I thought they were a little toolaid back. I thought they were
a little too relaxed. I thoughtthey need a little more discipline. I
thought they needed to be more seriousabout the game. They were last in
(21:47):
the Big eight teams in the Bigeight and CEU was last. I thought,
they have to get more serious aboutwhat we're doing if they want to
win. And I was talking aboutthe program, our program, So I
thought, I know how to dothis. They're going to adjust to me.
I'm not adjusted to them, Andprobably took a couple of years,
two or three years, and thenthey adjusted, and then they embraced it.
(22:08):
Then they became proud of it.Big difference. When you're dragging them
yourself, you're one step from thestreet, right because they can it could
be a total rebellion. Yeah,oh absolutely. Well you end up being
there for twenty two seasons, twelveNC DOUBLEA appearances, You had six and
sweet sixteen you went to the EliteEight three times, You're Big Eight Coach
(22:30):
of the Year four times. Imean, just the accolades just started coming
in along the way. Do youhave some kind of favorite moments or things
that you're the most proud of?And I know you don't want to call
out certain teams being better than otherteams or favorite of other teams, but
there has to be some moments whereyou're like, yeah, this was so
satisfying and so rewarding. I thinkI'm most proud of the Events Center had
(22:51):
never sold out. It was openedin nineteen seventy nine, and in nineteen
eighty nine, it had never soldout for a men's game or a women's
game. In the sellout, whatI like to point out and what I'm
proud of, is that it wasan NCAA game. In NCAA does not
allow ticket giveaways. You have tosell those tickets because the NCAA put you
(23:12):
on a budget, and they wereall ticketed. And yeah, yeah,
the fire marshals were called in toclear the aisles because they over sold,
they sold over capacity. I'm probablymost proud that we were able to attract
that sort of following. Absolutely,people didn't just like that we won.
(23:33):
I think they liked how we played, not just that we won games.
Absolutely. So did Boulder end upbeing as easy of a place to recruit
as you thought it was or didit take a little while for that?
From the beginning, I felt likepeople are gonna take trips. Prospects get
five trips, paid trips, andI thought, you know, there's a
couple of places in the country thatkids are going to say yes, Hawaii,
(23:56):
Colorado, Southern California. You knowthey're gonna say yet, so I
could always get Typically August, youbegin your phone conversations with prospects seniors.
You call them in August, youbring them to the campus in September and
October, and you sign them inNovember. And we usually start with about
twenty and you sign about four orfive. You expect someone are going to
(24:19):
dump you. You're gonna you know, usually I call about twenty kids on
August first, nineteen of them areinterested. Wows it's Boulder, Colorado.
Right. Yeah, we joked beforewe started talking that you've never been fired,
but you also fired yourself before.You were probably going to be done
when you left. See you you'reonly forty nine in April of two thousand
(24:40):
and five when you leave and thensoon after that you become an associate athletic
director. What went into that decisionto kind of make that change and get
out of coaching and then go overto the administrative side. Well, the
biggest difference was this was two thousandand four, two thousand and five,
when the president one of the university, Betsy Hoffman, I think, was
(25:02):
let go. The chancellor may havebeen let go. I know our athletic
director. There was a lot ofchange in the university, and I thought
it might be an opportunity for meto move on into administration because there were
so many vacancies. There was nobodythere was There was just and I can
(25:23):
remember going in and speaking with oneof the administrative assistants and saying, there's
all these positions open in the department. Do you think I can do it?
And she said, oh, Seal, with what you've done and running
your own program wins that you cando this. So my responsibilities were equipment.
I oversaw the equipment manager. Itwas a first hire. I made
(25:45):
equipment, you know, shoulder pads, helmets, you know, training table,
academic support, sports medicine, allof the support services before I began
to oversee sports. But I decidedto fire myself, which I think is
so funny, mostly because I wasstarting to lose a little of the passion,
(26:07):
Okay, just a little enough ofthe passion. I had done this
for twenty eight years, since theday I walked out of UK. I
just thought, I don't want tobe one of those coaches that's on that
slippery slope, earning the money youhot seat every year. Yeah, man,
just maybe doing it for the wrongreasons, doing it because my salary
was going up at that time andexposure was going up. There were a
(26:32):
lot of good things about coaching intwo thousand and five, but I just
could feel my passion for doing itsliding a little bit, and I felt
like I'd rather get out when Ican call the shot that as opposed to
somebody else. And did you also, you spent so much time at that
school over two decades, did youwant to try and help them get right
again? I always had that interestin administration. I thought this will be
(26:52):
great. I won't oversee women's basketball, but I could help volleyball, soccer,
tennis. Those coaches that I hadrelationships with and Kelly Nicole Kenneely Bill
Hempen, who was a soccer coachat the time, PEIU, all those
coaches that I knew that if Iwas kind of had a hand in administration,
and I thought it would be interestingand a little more challenging to take
(27:17):
what we did in women's basketball andhelp make a difference in the other sports.
Do you feel like it did well? My goal was I wanted to
see women's basketball, volleyball, soccer, and lacrosse all make the NCAA tournament
the same year. That never happenedin the fifteen years I was an Administrator's
a that's a tough goal. Aright, that would have been my goal
(27:37):
on the women's side of things.But do you feel like the strides you
made when you were in the administrationdefinitely was in a better place when you
left than it was when you started. I think administratively, yes, I
didn't really realize the emotional drain thatbeing a senior woman administrator in an organization.
It's really a business that football isdriving the bottom line. And there's
(28:00):
a law called Title nine, andmy job is gender equity in Title nine
also embrace sexual harassment and sexual assault. So you're kind of the point person
for all things bad when you goto a meeting. Tennis has porta potties
at their courts. You know,women's cross country has one sports brought and
they run sixty miles a week.I mean, the kids will walk in
(28:22):
my office and they'd let me know. And I thought, boy, with
this job, you have job securityfor the rest of your life because always
something to fix, no question.Even now, they're building lights. Soccer
is the only Division one school inthe state of Colorado that doesn't have permanent
lighting in the soccer stadium. Onlyonce YESSU has. They to College Northern
Colorado. And when we hired Dannyfrom Metro, we said we're going to
(28:45):
get lights. Well they're going toput up lights this summer. So wait,
and you left when High left threeyears ago. Yeah, but when
I see that nowadays, I readit in the paper, I'm excited.
I'm excited for Danny because I rememberthe meeting. I remember sitting there saying
we will have lights. But youknow, it's a process. So you
(29:06):
do that for tell July of twentytwenty, and then you retire fifteen years
at sixty five. So fifteen yearsThat was the hardest thing, I think,
the transition from running your own program. I had all the direct reports
in women's basketball, my assistant coaches, strength, coach media, all those
(29:26):
reporting to me. So you feelas if you either get it right or
you don't. And I like thatpressure, right, I like it bring
it. It was different to besomeone else's direct report and to be so
excited about so many things that needto get done. There's so many things
that in it felt slow, yes, and so it was a little frustrating,
(29:51):
But in retrospect it was probably beneficialfor the student athletes. I think
I could make a different and probablygood for me to kind of stare step
it down to full retirement. Iguess, did you miss coaching after you
left it? Though I did,I really did by the time I finished,
I did not. Fifteen years later. I did not miss coaching probably
the first five to seven Yes,you know, I couldn't go to practice
(30:15):
sometimes, or I really made aneffort. I really made an effort not
to. Yeah, probably when LindaLappy was the coaches when I went more
often because she was a player ofyours and that makes more sense, and
she probably wouldn't be I would.I mean, I would think anybody that
would go in if you're coming topractice, there's a slight intimidation factor,
right, And I didn't want themto think or the players. You don't
(30:36):
want the players to think those stealshere, something's wrong, you know.
I didn't want to do that.But Linda, I was real proud.
In twenty thirteen, we had notbeen to the NCAA tournament since oh four.
In twenty thirteen, Linda took theteam to the first NCAA tournament since
what nine years? So I wasreal proud of her. Yeah. Well,
I love Linda and she's now theexecutive director for Sportswoman of Colorado,
(30:59):
which is really deciding to have herin that role. So is it fun
to see? And you said youstill have great relationships with your players.
I'm sure you stay in touch withlots of them, seeing where they go
in life and where they've gone to. Absolutely, that's got to be one
of the most rewarding things I wouldthink it is to see their successes,
successful families and marriages and careers.A lot of them are in the Denver
(31:21):
area. There's teachers, coaches.Linda has done so many good things by
and large, they're all doing reallywell. That's pleased with that. You
have received so many You're a bunchof hall of fames. It's almost too
many to mention, right, ColoradoSports Hall of Fame, Colorado Women's Hall
of Fame, Women's Basketball Hall ofFame, CEU Athletics Hall of Fame.
You've been National Coach of the Year. I mentioned the Big Gate titles.
(31:45):
And then most recently, you're inthe PAC twelve Hall of Honor. I
sent you a text congratulating you onit, and you're like, yeah,
I've never coached in the Pac twelve, but now there. I am right.
Didn't lose one game. Somebody textsmaybe you didn't with losing games in
the PAC twelve. It was agreat ceremony and I was one of the
oldest there. I think three orfour of us were Title nine administrators and
(32:07):
Title nine babies, so to speak. But a lot of the athletes,
the PAC twelve has so many superiorathletes at the Olympic level. Jessica Mendoza
from Stanford the pitcher kind of spokeon our behalf, but track athlete from
Arizona State, a volleyball athlete fromWashington state. They were mostly twenty twenty
five years younger than me, andthey had all benefited from Title nine.
(32:30):
But it was really cool to bearound that energy, in that level of
athleticism. I was never even closeto that good of an athlete, so
it's kind of satisfying to see whata law can do too. And they're
so comfortable in their skin, intheir bodies. These are big, strong
women six foot three, very wellput together and strong, confident ladies.
(32:52):
It was fun. We were togetherall weekend, so the ceremony was outstanding.
Do you lose count of how manyaccolades you've had and how many places
your name is hanging somewhere you havea big award shelf somewhere, seal that
you have everything displayed well, asyou know, I don't have any children,
being from a large family, Igot about fifteen nieces and nephews,
and I think not one of mynieces and nephews is you don't want this
(33:15):
plaque or want this trophy, SoI'm not sure what I'm gonna do with
it. Right. Yeah, yousplit time now in retirement between two places.
You come here in the summertime toBoulder and then you winter. Now
in Florida. Yeah, what's thatlike enjoying retirement. Well, I was
searching for a place. A goodfriend of mine LPGA US Open three time
champion, Hollis Stacey. I playedgolf with her out at Riverdale Dunes and
(33:39):
she said, Seal you you knowyou're looking for a place, want to
be warm? My family being fromFlorida, I wanted a place a little
bit closer to them where they couldenjoy it and come down. And she
said, you ought to look atAnna Maria Island. So Anna Maria Island
is north of Longboat Key. It'snear Bradenton, Florida. So I look
down in that area and that's whereI found a place. I think the
(34:00):
big challenge in retirement is to stayhealthy. I've had torminiscus, a torn
calf, a bad back just sinceretirement, broken toe. I've never had
anything. Well, you sit ata desk all day, you go out
there and try to play pickleball threehours a day, and though you got
the pickleball bug. Yeah that's thething. Yeah, I bet you're pretty
(34:22):
good. Well. I spent alot of time in Holi Dumps with my
players. We'd play Friday Sunday allday Saturday. We would play ping pong
in Holi Dosh to keep the playersoccupied and keep them And I'd love playing
ping pong. I have five brothers. Well to me, pickleball is ping
pong on steroids. Yeah, onsteroids. So yeah, your brain thinks
(34:45):
you can get that ball. Youthink you're seventeen, and you go and
you lunge and you go, youhave I haven't done a lunge since.
Hence the torn calf, A torncalf, you name it, I just
dial it back. That's so funny. So you bring up the Holodome and
gosh, we used to stay atthe Holodome up in Dylan when I was
a kid, and we loved goingthere and we played ping pong every time,
(35:07):
you know, the other pool andthe ping pong right there. And
speaking of Title nine and just thewhole traveling thing, how was it when
you know you're taking over these programsand they're just kind of still in the
emphasy of not having the charters ornot having all of the amenities that all
of the guys had. How didyou work through some of those? And
I love hearing the stories of thisis how we did it, and so
(35:29):
people that do it now don't complainbecause it was like this back then.
Well, you know what, I'mglad you asked this question because I am
not a complainer. I'm not aperson to knock on the door of the
AD and say we need charter buses, we need charter flights. And I'm
not sure why, because I onlyhave so much energy. And if I
was going to complain, it wasgonna because we didn't block out or we
(35:52):
didn't get back on defense. That'sjust me. I thought, if we
win, they're going to be proudof us winning and they're gonna want us
to keep winning, and they beingthe administration. So I just thought we're
going to get just win and thatthe rest will happen. It did.
It gradually happened. You know,the men had charter buses before we did.
(36:14):
Seven years later, we got totake a charter bus to d IA.
We got to have a charter buspick us up at Kansas City and
take us over to KU and kState. Those were big things. And
every year the players, I stillalmost want to call them the kids.
I could tell them that this yearwe're going to get this. This year
we're going to get two sets atuniforms, three sets at uniforms, warm
(36:36):
ups, more shoes, whatever itis. But being the accountant, it's
not realistic to think you're going tobe equitable with the men's team in three
years. You're not. It's gonnabe a gradual thing. We always got
a little present at the end ofthe year. We got something new for
the next year. That always happenedat see you as you look back on
your career, seal and you haven'tbeen cut, traded or fired, but
(36:57):
you are now retired, but youhave had ups and downs. Just because
you haven't been fired doesn't mean thatyou didn't have some years where you know,
you didn't always win. And there'salways that stress as a coach to
win and to perform. And sowhat is your advice to people when they
have the setbacks, they're down andtrying to figure out how to kind of
get back up and move into thatnext phase. And then I think a
great example of as you saying,at the age of forty nine, I'm
(37:22):
kind of done here. Let mego on to the next thing. You're
never too old to reinvent yourself.I told one of our coaches, I'm
not going to say who You're alwayson an island. As a head coach,
you're on your own, so youneed a go to person. Mine
was my dad. He was mygo to. Ironically, when I did
retire, I retired No. Five. He passed away in twenty ten.
(37:44):
I knew he was in the laststages of his life and I wanted to
spend a little more time with him. But you have to have a go
to person that you trust, thatyou can be vulnerable with. You can't
all the time be vulnerable with yourstaff, assistant coaches, they report to
you. You know, that's areal fine balance. That would be another
(38:05):
conversation your staff. Half of themwant your job. They want your job.
They're ambitious people. But being vulnerableand being able to have someone to
be a sounding board that you trust. It can't being an opposing coach somebody
else in Division one. It can'tbe friends that you meet along the way.
I love Tara Vanderveer, but shewas not going to be my sounding
board. She wanted to beat myrear end, right, you know,
(38:29):
So mine was my dad And you'llappreciate this. One of my lowest moments,
and you'll probably laugh. We losta CSU at CSU, and we
were really good. We were rankedand they weren't. And we go up
there and you know how they crankit up with a ya, and you
know, and you know, becauseyou're CU, you're supposed to beat Wyoming
(38:49):
and CSU. And I had somethingin my head that I'm going to schedule
them every year because we should beable to go up there home in a
way, and we're going to schedulethem. We lost, and I couldn't
get over it. In twenty fourhours later, I called my dad from
the training room, Well, Ihad to go out to practice, and
I was I had tears in myeyes, that's how much I cared.
(39:09):
Wow, And he got you know, my dad's pretty easy going. He
got me going and he said,come on, you go ahead, to
get up and get going because they'reout there so you can do this.
And the other thing. I losta recruit and I had put countless hours
and I stood in my kitchen whenshe told me she was going to cal
(39:30):
Berkeley and I cried on that one. That's how much passion and care I
had for the program and for theteam. You put your blood, sweat
and your tears, so you haveto have somebody other than your staff,
I think, to lift you up. I think that's great advice. You
have to be careful who you chooseas your support people choose wisely. Absolutely,
(39:53):
Seel, this has been so muchfun. I've enjoyed getting to know
more about you. I mean,I knew all about you you from your
your bolder time, but just knowingmore of your roots and where you came
from. I love it. Well, Thank you, Susie. I've always
respected you and like you, andso it's I really enjoy being down here,
all right. Thanks Seal. Whata treat. Thank you, Seal.
(40:14):
New episodes of Cut, Traded,Fired, Retired come out every Tuesday.
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(40:36):
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