Controversy surrounds women’s coach honors

Tuesday, March 9, 2004 | 10:24 a.m.

Jeff Judkins, the women's basketball coach at Brigham Young, was telling the Mountain West Conference media that Wyoming's Joe Legerski deserved to be mentioned as a coach of the year candidate when he was informed that Lergerski had indeed received the honor about an hour earlier.

Then Judkins' tone told the real story.

"Joe Legerski won?" he said, sounding a bit incredulous.

Judkins was asked if that surprised him.

"Yeah," he said, trying to remain politically correct. "Yeah. Yeah."

Legerski, whose Cowgirls will bring a 10-17 record into the Mountain West tournament that begins Wednesday, was the most surprising of the award winners were announced Monday after the ballots of the league's coaches were tallied.

Also feted were the UNLV duo of RanDee Henry and Sherry McCracklin, named the MWC newcomer and defensive of the year, respectively, with McCracklin sharing the defensive laurels with Wyoming's Brenda Pickup. Kim Smith, Utah's smooth sophomore forward, was named player of the year for the second year in a row.

Smith, Henry, McCracklin, New Mexico's Lindsey Arndt and Wyoming's Ashley Elliott were named to the all-conference first team, with Sheena Moore, the Lady Rebels' high-scoring guard, picking up a second-team selection.

Many observers felt that New Mexico's Don Flanagan, whose Lobos were picked for third place but wound up tying Utah for the regular-season title, or Regina Miller, who guided the Lady Rebels to the third slot after being projected as a fifth-place team in the preseaosn poll, might have received the nod for coach of the year ahead of Legerski, whose team got off a 4-2 start in the MWC before fading.

"I thought that one of those three (would) probably win it," Judkins said, who was matter-of-fact when asked if there was an anti-New Mexico bias around the conference.

"Yes," he said. "Everybody thinks the reason Don has done well is because Don has 18,000 people at his games. But the reason Don wins games is because Don is a great coach."

Colorado State's Chris Denker said Miller also should have been strongly considered for the award.

"I think Regina did a great job," Denker said, "and the evidence was last weekend, when they had their backs against the wall to an extent. They could have slipped to a No. 4 seed but then they go on the road for the toughest trip in our league (Utah, which had won 27 in a row at home, and BYU) and sweep it. So I think she deserved consideration as well."

Miller chose not to involve herself in the controversy.

"No, I really don't have a comment," she said, adding that she was just happy to see Henry, McCracklin, both juniors, and Moore, only a sophomore, honored by the coaches.

Henry is the MWC's leading scorer with an 18.5 average while McCrcklin tops the league in rebounding with a 10.2 norm. Moore is third in the MWC in scoring with a 16-point average.

"It was nice to see RanDee win newcomer of the year hands down and Sherry is just a tremendous rebounder, and she's able to play defense on the perimeter, so it's good to see them recognized ," Miller said.