LONG BEACH – Thumbtacked on the wall beside her desk hangs the bright red heart that 5-year-old Jada painted. It reads “I love you Mommy” in black marker, and it tugs at Jody Wynn on some of the busiest, most trying days in the heart of the Long Beach State women’s basketball season.
A rookie head coach in her first season with the 49ers, Wynn, 35, has been trying to do it all, stretching her time and energy like Silly String across all the life, love and basketball that all is.
She’s a coach, wife, mother to two young girls and mother figure to a team that appreciates the family atmosphere and respects Wynn’s balancing act. Even if it all happens on four hours sleep.
On Monday Wynn, formerly the Jody Anton who led Brea Olinda to three CIF state titles in the early 1990s, barely had minutes to enjoy the comfort of tall-backed leather chair in the office with a window perched high above the Pyramid’s floor. She sees her 49ers below, warming up for aftenoon practice.
The assistant coaches, including her husband Derek Wynn, had just had a quick meeting. And there sat Wynn – although she would have probably preferred a nap on the office’s leather sofa she made a bed during a busy fall – reminding herself to call her mother to pick the kids up from after-school dance classes, take them home, make them dinner and get them ready for bed.
“This is Jada, the oldest who made this heart for Mother’s Day, and this is Kaeli, who’s 2,” says a blushing Wynn, showing off the adorable, curly haired duo whose photos sit everywhere, two-deep in bookshelves, atop cabinets in a basketball frame and on her computer’s desktop. This is more like a home office.
There’s also a basketball, recruiting logs and game film scattered around the room. But the place is mostly decorated with the girls who’ve already learned what her parents do.
“Mommy work. Mommy work,” says Kaeli when Wynn leaves their Yorba Linda home for the Pyramid. She wants hugs. Both of them do.
Jada grew up around the game, napping and taking her first steps in a playpen that Wynn often set on a sideline during practices at USC, where both Jody and Derek were assistants for the past five seasons. Now Jada’s old enough to cheer at the 49ers games with her grandparents, know the players by name and number and later ask mom and dad, “Why did the girl have her hands up on defense?”
“Jada loves basketball,” says Derek. “She already wants a scholarship to college. She looks like a forward.”
Jody and Derek Wynn have spent the past 12 basketball seasons coaching together, first as assistants at Pepperdine and most recently with the Trojans. Together, they are attempting to revitalize a 49ers program that hasn’t had a winning record since the 2005-06 Big West champion season and hasn’t danced into an NCAA tournament since 1992 and a Final Four since 1988.
“We want to add to the banners,” says Wynn, who can feel the tradition of the four felt blankets in the Pyramid’s rafters looking over her shoulders. “But there’s a lot of work to do, a winning culture to rebuild.”
She chose “Bring It Back” as this season’s motto. By “It,” she means the 49ers she remembers as a teen, sitting on the sidelines in her green Brea Olinda Ladycats hoodie, watching Coach Joan Bonvicini run practices and All-America players wear down the hardwood during drills. She thought she might coach one day.
Having now landed what she called “my-dream-come-true job,” Wynn makes the call with a roster depleted by injuries and redshirt seasons. She has nine players, including a five from Orange County, and a walk-on who starts at guard.
The 49ers are 7-12 overall, 3-3 in the Big West, “a season that you’d think would have players down in the dumps and coaches miserable,” Wynn says. “But fans sense the improvement and send me encouraging e-mails and letters.”
After all, this season’s seven victories through 19 games are just one victory off last season’s 8-21 mark.
“She’s doing a great job balancing it all,” said a supportive Derek Wynn, who met Jody during college, when Derek was at Cal State Fullerton, and Jody at USC, helping the Trojans to a 1994 Pac-10 title and three NCAA tournament appearances. “We manage.”
And all this begins every morning when they take their daughters to school at Calvary Chapel in Yorba Linda. Derek and Jody take two cars to the office on non-game days so one parent leave early to pick the kids up from school and take them to swimming lessons, dance classes or soccer games.
They both try to be home for dinner. Last week they arrived to glue on the kitchen table from the girls’ making Valentines and smoothie on the walls from Jada’s attempt to use the blender – with the lid off.
Then it’s storytime in bed before the girls – and occasionally the parents – fall asleep. This past Sunday night Jody read “Zookeeper” to Jada; Derek read a Bugs Bunny book to Kaeli. And then they turned out the lights and slipped quietly to the kitchen to make the girls their next day’s lunches.
“An energy drink has become our best friend,” says Jody. “When we get really busy, we miss this. Our parents help out. We couldn’t do this without them.”
On gamedays, the couple carpools, giving the passenger parent a 30-minute headstart on the drive home. Then they go off to bed, which doesn’t mean sleep but having computers on their laps and studying more film.
“And that’s how we fall asleep most nights,” laughs Jody. “Really romantic, right?”
Their joint passion of basketball is their one long date. They don’t have time to watch popular television and haven’t had a date since their May 20, 2000, anniversary. The last movie they saw came two months ago, “The Princess and the Frog,” and, of course, the children came along.
“I don’t know how they do it, but Jody has become a role model to me,” says redshirt sophomore transfer Amanda Sims, who played at Troy High and a season at Texas Christian. “The girls are here all the time, dribbling the ball, bringing cupcakes when there’s a player’s birthday and making ‘Go Beach!’ signs for our locker room.”
Wynn, during Monday’s practice, shouted, “Hustle! Hustle!” to the players. She put them through shooting drills and sprints when they missed free throws. She yawned – once.
After practice, Jody Wynn climbed the steps back to her office. There’s always more work, more season in a life of love and basketball. She’s tired, craves a Diet Coke boost. And then she sits at her desk and finds her heart.
Contact the writer: masmith@ocregister.com
