PRINT THIS PAGE | E-MAIL THIS PAGE

Wednesday, December 17, 1997

Granbury coach to be second woman at 1,000-victory mark

By TROY PHILLIPS / Fort Worth Star-Telegram

GRANBURY, Texas -- They came to play each Sunday afternoon -- never sooner than church let out and chores were completed -- from Granbury, Tolar, Lipan and other outposts of Hood County.

The court was a rutted, gravel surface at the Rains farm near Granbury. There, pickup basketball games in the 1940s and early '50s were as common as church socials and trips to the soda fountain.

Back then, the unstoppable Rains sisters, Leta Mae and Shirley Ann, were poised to take on all comers, boys or girls. Leta, a 5-foot-4 dribbling prodigy, and Shirley, the 5-foot-8 inside presence, were a formidable pair.

Leta and Shirley grew up to be girls basketball coaches, each coaching for more than three decades. Leta, the most fiery of four Rains children, should add a historical highlight to the family legacy of coaching this week.

In her 36th career season and 10th at Granbury High School, Leta Rains Andrews is poised to become the nation's 12th high school basketball coach to record 1,000 career victories. She could hit that mark Friday against Waco Midway.

"I've been blessed with good health, a supportive husband and family and good parents," said Andrews, 60. "When I started out, I knew I wanted to work with young people. My first degree was in elementary education, but I found out real fast what I really wanted to do."

Andrews leads the nation's active girls coaches in career victories and will be only the second woman to reach 1,000. Bertha Teague of Byng High School in Ada, Okla., compiled a 1,152-115 mark from 1928 to 1970.

To family members, former players and colleagues, Andrews' impending milestone is recent news. They were unaware of it until word spread through newspaper stories.

But conversations with her peers steer more toward Andrews' long, marvelous career, and its effect on her children, relatives and players. Everyone is proud of the milestone. But everyone knows there's more to Leta Andrews than an impressive win-loss record.

Clyde Rains, whom Leta calls the hardest worker she ever knew, instilled a fierce competitiveness in his two daughters and younger sons Walter and George. Their mother, Alba Rains, had grown up with four brothers. That her daughters would be competitors only seemed natural.

Clyde Rains says Leta was the consummate "go-getter." He held Shirley, now 61, out of school one year so the girls could play together through all four years of high school.

In the days of half-court, six-on-six girls basketball that allowed limited dribbling, Leta and Shirley led Granbury to the state tournament in 1954 and 1955. Both times, the Pirates lost to Dimmitt in the Class A championship. Leta later went on to play at Weatherford College as a rover, a player who could move freely on both offense and defense in six-on-six games.

Decades later, Clyde Rains, who still runs the family's 250-acre farm, isn't surprised that Leta became a coach.

"She learned early in life how to work and she's been working ever since," said Clyde Rains, 85, who along with his wife, Alba, 80, attends every Granbury home game. "It's determination, I guess. She's just willing to stay with it and work at it."

The coach expects nothing less from her players, many of whom tower over her when she stomps her feet and yells at the top of her lungs, "No, no, no! Do it again! Do it again!"

And they do. While many coaches try to cover as much ground as possible in a workout, Andrews will break down the simplest fundamental skill and practice it 100 times if that's what it takes.

During practice, her voice pierces the air. Only her players' full attention will do, and forget playing for her if your mind is elsewhere. She dresses down players with the best of them.

"My first two years were the toughest of my life," said Granbury senior guard Tori Hasty. "I've never been asked to work so hard. Just last year, I figured out how to push through it. She'll tear us up and then give us a big hug.

"It makes us so strong. You're definitely pushed to your limit. With her, she doesn't accept anything else."

If not always popular, Andrews' methods are proven. Her teams at Comanche High School (1965-76), Granbury (1976-80, 1992-97) and Corpus Christi Calallen High School (1980-92) have made 26 playoff trips, appeared in 14 state tournaments, produced six state runners-up, and won a Class 4A state title (Calallen, 1990).

"I was taught early that you don't whine, complain or make excuses," Andrews said. "That's total life."

She doesn't apologize for being physically and mentally demanding, especially toward certain players who might need it.

"Where there's failure, there's always success," Andrews said. "If being in my doghouse is failure, then they can work themselves back to productive life.

"Yes, I am demanding. I want them to be able to drain their bodies, mentally, physically and emotionally for their program. I want the purple and gold (Granbury's colors) to come to the boiling point."

In a day when coaches play some athletes to calm parents or ease political tensions, Andrews won't budge an inch.

Andrews' second daughter, Sissy Randle, played for her mother in junior high and high school and played one year at the University of Texas. Randle later coached and now teaches elementary physical education in Granbury.

"At Comanche, I think her contract got renewed every year by a 5-4 vote," said Randle, 40. "There were people who didn't like her. Mother plays to win, and she's going to play the best ones out there, which is only fair. We're cheating so many kids by being nice. Society's not nice. So many coaches let kids play because of their parents, not hard work."

Said Andrews: "I didn't get into this to win a popularity contest. I did it to teach young people to have a successful peace of mind. It comes from the satisfaction of knowing you became your best."

Linda Waggoner's basketball career at Texas almost never was. Waggoner, the oldest of Andrews' three daughters and one of the state's best players her high school senior year, planned to stop playing when she graduated from Comanche in 1975.

Despite their disappointment, Andrews and her husband, David Andrews -- who after 36 seasons still drives the team bus to away games -- supported their daughter's decision to be only a student at Angelo State University. But Waggoner missed basketball and her mother's regimen more than she knew.

Waggoner couldn't make ASU's team as a walk-on that first year. Andrews called up a coaching friend named Jody Conradt, who in 1976 was moving from UT-Arlington to Texas.

Conradt signed Waggoner and her sister Sissy Randle as part of the inaugural Texas recruiting class. Waggoner eventually became Texas' second-leading all-time )career scorer with 2,256 points. She holds school records for career steals (346), field goals attempted (2,247) and games played (161).

"Her daughters were extraordinary shooters," Conradt said. "Their fundamentals were incredibly sound. Linda is the best shooter to this day I've ever coached. If there had been a 3-point line, she would have the scoring record today."

Waggoner now coaches girls varsity basketball and volleyball at Glen Rose. Another sister, Lisa Parker, played at Calallen and Texas before knee problems ended her career in 1988. Last season, Parker accepted her first varsity coaching job, at Crowley.

Parker, Waggoner and Randle say years spent being "the coach's daughters" are full of memories, mostly character-building ones.

"I had her through junior high and high school, and I'm still alive," Randle said. "She wanted perfection. She didn't want you to just win. She wanted you to win and look good doing it."

Parker said all the winning made it easier.

"As much as I like to deny it, I'm probably the most like Mom," Parker said. "We're both very intense. To have played under her and coach Conradt, there's not a light moment on the court. When you tend to be around those type of people, it just becomes part of you."

Today, the Rains clan has 31 members through offspring and marriage. Most of the family has seen the grainy home movies of the Rains sisters' playing days.

Andrews' sister, Shirley Rains Hayworth, retired in 1993 after 33 years of teaching and coaching girls basketball at all levels. Becky Hayworth, 37, played for Andrews at Granbury from 1976 to 1978, later married into the family and is Andrews' assistant coach and niece by marriage.

Becky Hayworth's daughter, Mandy, played for Leta Andrews, her great-aunt, at Granbury until 1996 and is now a sophomore forward at Baylor University. Andrews' granddaughter by Waggoner, Miranda, plays for her mother at Glen Rose.

Basketball might never die in the family.

"When I was young, I went to her camps and my mom put her on a pedestal," Mandy Hayworth said. "My dream was for her to be my high school coach, but she was at Calallen. All of a sudden, I got to play for her and my mom."

Each summer, both Waggoners, Parker, Randle, the Hayworths and Walter Rains' daughter Shelley Rains -- a softball and basketball coach at Godley -- help run Andrews' basketball camps.

"We're related and we're very good friends," Becky Hayworth said. "But it has to stay on a professional level. Coaching under her is tough, but anything you do well is tough. If I'm sick, I come to work anyway. If you're not here, you'd better be dying. I've learned to work through things."

Becky Hayworth came to her first high school practice in 1976 with purple laces in her shoes. Immediately she found out that makeup, jewelry, nail polish, wild hair and colorful shoelaces were banned by Andrews.

Until three years ago, Andrews outlawed the common practice of rock or rap music during pregame warmups. Becky Hayworth said Andrews has adapted somewhat to the social environment of today's players but has compromised nothing in her coaching style.

"It's hard to argue with what she does," Becky Hayworth said. "What she does works. I think she's more extreme in her coaching. She'll jump down your throat and give you a big hug five minutes later."

Andrews downplays being the second woman to reach 1,000 victories, saying only that she has been blessed with a long career. More significant might be a state and national reputation as one of several coaches credited with helping raise the girls game since the 1960s.

"It took that many years for people to observe that females can play this game, and play it with enthusiasm and competitive greatness," Andrews said. "It doesn't matter if a woman can dunk. We know she can run an offense, execute it and play defense."

Life hasn't been all laurels for Andrews en route to 1,000 victories.

In 1993 and '96, Andrews applied for but didn't get the Texas Christian University women's coaching job. After 12 seasons of 26 or more victories, Andrews left Calallen in 1992, citing bitter differences with the athletic administration. She returned to Granbury the next season.

Coaching within "rock-throwing distance" from her daughters is comforting but has its drawbacks. Andrews has had the displeasure of beating Linda Waggoner's Glen Rose teams about 10 times. Andrews hasn't yet coached against Parker and figures they might be enemies afterwards.

Rewarding friendships have been forged through clinics with former coaching giants John Wooden (University of California-Los Angeles), Dean Smith (University of North Carolina) and Adolph Rupp (University of Kentucky), as well as current University of Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, builder of the most dominant women's program ever.

And in 1993, through a mystery nomination, Andrews won the Disney National Teacher of the Year award. No awards, though, are bigger than all the people Andrews says have helped make her a success.

"I do think she expected more from us many times than we could give her," said Odessa Permian High School coach Linda McMillan, who played under Andrews at Comanche from 1974 to 1976. "I've learned the more you expect from girl athletes, the more you get. I'd like to think I learned that from her."

Currently ranked No. 1 by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and considered a Region I powerhouse, Granbury's girls look to push Andrews well beyond 1,000. Retirement? The energetic coach has no such plans.

"She's always told everybody she'll be coaching long after we are," Linda Waggoner said. "I think she means it."

------

Distributed by The Associated Press