Oregon daily emerald., March 05, 1980, Page 6, Image 21

Dick Gould
continued from page 5
have enabled him to cope with
what many coaches consider a
nightmare.
His players are so good that they
often leave him after a year or two
to seek their fortunes in the pro
ranks. With such Cardinal alums
as John McEnroe and Roscoe
Tanner grabbing headlines and
first-place checks, Stanford cannot
help but be a force in tennis, but it
pays the price.
McEnroe lasted two semesters
at Stanford. Tanner left after his
junior year. “1 tried to talk him out
of it,” Gould says of the latter. “It
was because 1 felt we had started
this thing (a winning program)
together in 1970. We had never
won the NCAAs." As it happened,
Stanford took its first national title
in 1973, without Tanner.
Gould admits he mellowed a lot
after that championship. “1 guess
it’s an ego thing until you win it,”
he says. “After you do, you can
look at things from a different
perspective. But you feel you have
something to prove.
“1 was obsessed with the idea of
win, win, win, and I think it hurt
my coaching. I only hope I’ve
improved both professionally and
personally.”
That would seem a foregone
conclusion, as shown by Gould’s
approach to McEnroe's departure
and, to a lesser extent, to Matt
Mitchell’s midseason decision to
turn pro in 1979.
“John is a better person for
having been in college even for a
year,” Gould says. “It served as the
bridge between home and the pro
circuit. 1 certainly didn’t recruit
John McEnroe knowing that he
intended to turn pro. But if he can
make S800.000 as a professional.
how can you say he shouldn’t turn
pro?
“He played his freshman year
for us (1978) because he had made
a commitment, and I’ll tell you, he
was an excellent team player. He is
controversial and extremely vola
tile, but you rarely if ever see
McEnroe downgrade another play
er or be malicious.”
Gould says he is bothered when
a player like Mitchell leaves in the
midst of a season, because his
scholarship could have gone to
someone else. But he realizes there
are mitigating factors in each deci
sion. “When someone leaves the
team, it always hurts you personal
ly and you wonder why,” he says.
“But you can’t take it personally.
Maybe it’s impossible to make the
program so good that no one will
want to leave to turn pro.”
The departures of McEnroe and
Mitchell, the 1977 NCAA singles
champ, coupled with some injuries,
debilitated the 1979 varsity squad
to the point that no one in the top
five from the year before was
around. Despite such setbacks, the
team still finished third in the
country.
“That was very gratifying,”
Gould says, “to see someone like
Peter Rennert go from our No. 6
spot to No. 1. Then suddenly he’s
ranked 80th in the world and is
moving up.”
The 1980 season finds Gould
busy with plans for trips, benefits,
and the school’s eighth indoor
meet with UCLA in Stanford’s
Maples Pavilion. When Gould de
cided to hold the dual meet indoors
in 1973, he was rewarded with a
two-day attendance of 15,000 spec
tators. It’s just another of the
coach’s enterprising schemes that
paid off. “Stanford’s administra
tion has always allowed me the
flexibility to experiment with the
program,” he says.
He clearly enjoys his work and
believes in what he’s doing. “Tennis
is thought of as an individual
sport. I like to think we can devel
op not just a camaraderie among
the individuals, but a respect and
tolerance for people’s quirks and
idiosyncrasies, a feeling that we are
all in something together,” he says.
“I hope our kids 20 years from
now who have been in the pro
game can say, ‘Hey, 1 enjoyed
being there. College tennis really is
good for you.’” ■
THE UNBEATABLE
BEACH BOYS OF UCLA
Same script,
different sport: The
Bruins create a
volleyball dynasty.
AI Scates plays the
role made famous
by John Wooden.
BY LEE GREEN
UCLA. The name suggests
nothing so much as basket
ball. Even though the Bru
ins haven’t won a national bas
ketball title since coach John
Wooden retired five years ago, 10
NCAA championships in 12 years
have etched an indelible image.
But people at UCLA like to
think they play a pretty good game
of volleyball, too. Indeed, the
school’s domination of the game
constitutes what is perhaps college
sports’ greatest living dynasty: seven
national championships in the 10
years the NCAA has been con
ducting title tournaments. And the
beat goes on. Last year, the Bruins
became the first volleyball team in
NCAA history to go undefeated,