USF Hoops Coach Azzi Deepens Mill Valley Ties

For nearly two decades, Jennifer Azzi was a dynamic blur on basketball courts from Palo Alto to Saint Petersburg, Russia, on her way to a stellar career that saw her nab an NCAA Championship, an Olympic gold medal and a spot in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

On a recent afternoon on the campus of the University of San Francisco, Azzi’s thumbs were a blur atop the keys of her Blackberry. She’d just finished her first season as USF’s women’s basketball coach and was racing to lock down verbal commitments from recruits in advance of the regular signing period, which begins Wednesday.

“It’s a non-stop world here right now,” said Azzi, who moved to Mill Valley in late 2006.

Hoping to revive USF’s long-moribund women’s basketball program, Azzi said she’s trying to change the culture in the program, which became synonymous with losing. After finishing 4-25 and 1-13 in West Coast Conference play this season, that turnaround hasn’t happened on paper, but according to USF’s interim athletic director, Gary Nelson, also a Mill Valley resident, it’s absolutely happening.

“The easiest way I can say it is that the team that finished the season would have beaten the team that started the season by 30 points, and it was all the same players," Nelson said. “Jennifer has changed that culture."

Azzi seems steadfast that a turnaround is possible, and doesn’t view it solely through wins and losses.

“When you’re in a situation where historically it’s been losing after losing after losing season, it becomes a mindset,” Azzi said. “There’s no secret to success - it’s a lot of hard work. But we want to get them to stop focusing on the scoreboard. Whether you’re winning or losing, you have to focus on doing your best, and not spiraling with the game going in one direction or the other.”

Azzi said it starts with the current players.

“The quicker they can turn themselves around, the quicker the program can turn itself around.”

But she also knows that an infusion of talent is vital, and has set out to use her vaunted reputation and “a great school in the best city in the world” to convince quality players to become Lady Dons.

Nelson said Azzi has raised the bar in terms of the talent level of the players she’s been eyeing in advance of the regular signing period.

“Our teams haven’t had the quality of recruits that Jennifer is talking to now,” Nelson said. “These are some Pac-10 level players who are well above the mid-major threshold.”

As for her own long-term goals, the young coach isn’t quite ready to follow in the footsteps of her Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, who was elected to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame earlier this month.

“I don’t have any personal goals,” Azzi said. “I took this on because I think I can help. I want to help these young women get better on and off the court – I want to help them understand how this experience they have as a student athlete can make them better people.”

While Azzi has been sprinting to land some recruits, she maintains her long-held love for running, which was one of the big reasons for her attraction to Mill Valley.

“I run almost every day and I love being outside,” she said. “I just love the open space. – I love, love, love Mill Valley. I feel lucky every day I wake up there.”

Mill Valley is no mere place to rest her head for the former Stanford star. She’s a regular at , knows the well and she’s made a point to dig into the local community, particularly in an effort to do what she can to foster growth in the town’s love for basketball.

Azzi recently spoke at an awards banquet for the , while her fourth annual Azzi Camp at Tam High is set for June 27, with Golden State Warriors Coach Keith Smart and former Marin Catholic and Stanford Star Brooke Smith set to appear. The camp has sold out every year.

“It’s been great to become part of the larger community in Mill Valley,” she said. “That’s meant a lot to me.”

Azzi, who grew up in Oak Ridge, Tenn., credits and Tom Keane, former and current Mt. Carmel athletic directors, respectively, for creating “a culture of excitement around basketball” in Mill Valley in recent years that she recognizes from her hometown.

“It’s absolutely growing,” she said of the local basketball community. “It was not like this when I got here. Now it’s just amazing to me. The kids are starting to play younger and they’re learning to love the game at a younger age so that their skill set is better and they’re understanding how to play.”

Azzi said maybe she'll one day pluck a youngster from her own backyard for the Lady Dons roster.

“Now I see a lot of the girls growing into the game around here,” she said. “They’re getting younger and younger. It would be great to get a local Mill Valley kid over here at USF.”

With a sly grin, she added: “There are a couple on the sixth grade team that I might need to start recruiting now.”