U.Va. women's coach says she's not done yet

CHARLOTTESVILLE

Two years after the inaugural game was played at John Paul Jones Arena, Debbie Ryan has pictures waiting to be hung on the walls of her office, which sits below the court and just down the hall from the locker room that bears her name.

Still so much to be done, she says, standing inside the lavish Virginia women's basketball suite. That's appropriate, considering that Ryan will tell you, "I feel like I just started myself."

Hardly.

After 30 years as coach at Virginia, the petite Ryan is a giant in her field, compiling a 651-278 mark, 20 seasons of 20 or more victories and two 30-plus-win campaigns.

She has led the Cavaliers to 21 NCAA tournament s, including three consecutive Final Fours. No other team in the ACC has been ranked more times than Virginia.

That consistency is one reason Ryan, 55, was among five inductees this year into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. The 10th-anniversary class will be honored Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn.

"The Hall of Fame is not about me," insisted Ryan, relaxing in warmups and propping up sandal-clad, pedicured feet that barely reach the coffee table. "It's about the people who played the game. It's everybody who's been involved in your career - from the officials to the fans to all the people at your university.

"It's all the people that helped you along the way, from your very first basketball coach to your teachers, people who helped make you who you are. More than anything, I think it's a great honor for the University

of Virginia. For me, it brings great pride to know I brought this honor to the university."

WNBA president Val Ackerman and former Virginia athletic director Gene Corrigan will handle Ryan's two-part induction ceremony. Ackerman was Ryan's first scholarship player; Corrigan, the first athletic director Ryan worked with, is also her uncle.

"It's great to have one of our own in there, the state's first," Old Dominion coach Wendy Larry said. "It's a great thing for Debbie and I'm proud for her."

As honored as she is about a lifetime achievement award, Ryan is equally excited to talk about the upcoming season. Many figured she would have left coaching by now, given her bout with pancreatic cancer and some lean years for the Cavalier program.

Before last season, Virginia had back-to-back seasons without advancing to the national tournament. Player transfers and injuries hurt and many didn't hesitate on Internet message boards to ask if the game had passed Ryan by. The heir apparent - Dawn Staley, one of Ryan's former point guards - was mentioned as a replacement.

Ryan shut herself away from much of what she calls "the negative," though she admitted, "Hearing that was painful for both Dawn and me." Ryan never considered quitting.

"My approach was, 'I need to fix this,'" Ryan said. "People have been saying my career has been winding down for the last seven years and I think the illness started all that. I never said any of those words. I think that going through that was hard, but I'm just the same person as I was before."

That person is still a coach who considers herself in the prime of her career. The rumor mill has gone dry now that Staley was hired to coach South Carolina and Virginia looks to be in its best shape in years.

One preseason poll ranks the Cavaliers in the top 15 for next season. If not for Jazzmin Walters' clutch 3-pointer last March at the Constant Center, Virginia could have been coming off a Sweet 16 trip instead of Old Dominion.

Ryan still loves being in the thick of a growing game. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she has never had a problem relating to the kids she brings into the program.

"I've always been fairly in tune with my players, what they're doing and not doing, what they like and don't like," she said. "I love 'Gossip Girls' and 'The Hills,' but I don't watch those shows to stay current with my players. I watch them because I like them."

It was Ryan's idea to take her team to Africa last summer, a first for an NCAA basketball team. Ryan talks fondly of the Cavaliers' "life-changing" trip, which included four days in Dakar, a tour of Goree Island and Bandia Wild Animal Park.

"I remember driving down a dirt road, heading to the market. We were all dirty because dirt was flying everywhere, but it didn't matter," she said. "Our players just got so much out of watching the people barter at the market. It was an incredible experience watching how people would live in huts with no electricity and women would carry mangoes on top of their head, tons and tons of them, and walk miles and miles where they would sit all day with their children."

Ryan's struggle with cancer in 2000 was also life-altering. Pancreatic cancer kills most within a year of diagnosis. Her growth was small enough to be surgically removed and, after six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, Ryan was pronounced cancer-free. She has since become an advocate for cancer awareness, a role as important to her as coaching.

"There isn't a day that goes by that I don't get a reminder about cancer," she said.

Sometimes it's a letter, like the one she keeps on her bookshelf, from a teenager stricken with the disease. Other times, the nightly news reporting the latest on Sen. Edward Kennedy's brain tumor will provide a jolt. Or it's the doctor chasing her down for that annual blood test.

Ryan never forgets what she survived and how appreciative she is to have survived it. If she fails to stop and smell the roses, she doesn't stray for long.

"It doesn't take me long to realize when I'm getting away from that," said Ryan, who constantly reminds her staff not to stress out over the small stuff. She says her adage is: "It's not going to matter in the long run."

And, while Ryan enjoys the outdoors, particularly boating and fishing, nothing quite compares to coaching. She has a special fondness for the bonds in the ACC among the coaches and was particularly touched when they chipped in to buy her commemorative Hall-of-Fame ring.

"I have great friendships in this league," said Ryan, adding, "I don't know that I enjoy coaching more today; I embrace the opportunities more. Like any maturation process, you get better. You get better at handling the opportunities that come your way."

The crowded landscape that has become women's basketball energizes her and she believes the Cavaliers can return to the elite status that defined them in the early '90s.

"It's changed a lot, but it's remained the same, too. Once you get there, you know what it takes," she said. "And we're not that far away."

Vicki L. Friedman, (757) 477-6874, VickiL120@cox.net