Manfred Tschan pressed the phone against his ear that summer in 1980.
Henriette Heiny, Oregon’s women’s gymnastics coach, was on the other end, telling Tschan that there was a coaching job available at the University of Oregon.
Tschan was 5,000 miles away in Switzerland, watching a track meet on TV.
“They need an assistant,” Heiny said over the phone.
“I’ll do it,” Tschan responded.
Tschan, who had already planned on attending grad school at the University, canceled an earlier flight so that he could work with the men before fall classes began.
But when Tschan stepped into the athletic department at McArthur Court, a staff member there told him he was in the wrong building.
“You need to go to Gerlinger Hall,” he said. “That’s where the women’s sports offices are.”
Tschan had never coached women.
“My first inclination was, ‘Do I even want to do this?’” said Tschan, who laughs about the miscommunication now.
It only took a practice at Autzen Stadium one early, wet morning for Tschan to see just how good the women were.
“They started juggling with the balls and I knew I wanted to coach them,” Tschan, now entering his 19th season as the head coach of the men’s soccer team at George Fox University.
Since then, Tschan has never regretted his decision. In fact, he looks back at the teams he coached in 1980 and 1981 and wishes they could have stuck around longer.
“They were some of the best soccer players in the world,” Tschan said.
Tschan knew it. His players knew it. But, up until recently, not too many others realized the Ducks even had a soccer program in the 1980s.
“It seemed every trace of us ever existing had been erased,” Tschan said.
That is, until this summer.
Michele Potestio, who played for the Ducks and who now coaches soccer and teaches social studies at Wilson High School in Portland, returned from a summer trip to Italy to find her message machine blinking. Therese Bottomly, one of her old teammates, left a message telling Potestio to call Oregon athletics Sports Information Director Greg Walker.
“Greg told me that he was researching into our teams,” Potestio said. “They wanted to set the record straight and recognize all we did.”
And today, the University will honor the 1980 and 1981 women’s soccer teams during halftime of the Ducks’ match against No. 10 Portland at Papé Field. At least 24 of the 29 players are expected to attend.
The athletic department will also formally recognize the varsity status of the 29 women who played for the Ducks.
The Forgotten Seasons
In 1980, the Ducks finished 14-1-3 overall and 10-1-3 in the Northwest Collegiate Soccer Conference. However, they missed the first-ever American Intercollegiate Association for Women national postseason tournament because it began during their regular season.
A year later, the University announced it was dropping women’s soccer, along with baseball, women’s golf and men’s gymnastics, from varsity status.
But Tschan, then a 25-year-old graduate student, convinced the former Athletic Director Rick Bay to give the squad one more season.
The athletic department could not, however, provide any financial support.
The team, which was given just more than $2,000 from the club office, cleaned Autzen Stadium to raise money.
Bottomly and many of her teammates biked in the dark to the stadium every morning for 7 a.m. practices, where Tschan knew just how to push them.
“He was very strategic,” said Bottomly, now the managing editor of Readership and Standards at The Oregonian. “He would run you for two, three hours and then have you take penalty kicks. So, come game time, we were ready.”
Head coach John Feeney carried the balls in his Buick station wagon, but Tschan was calling the shots.
“Whenever we took a water break, he would come over and say, ‘Keep going, that looks good,’” Tschan said.
The Ducks crammed into a 12-person club sports van nearly every weekend and slept in dorm rooms and gym floors. They wore rugby shorts and tattered green shirts – and they won.
Oregon finished the regular season 12-0-2 and 8-0-2 in the NCSC and won its regional tournament.
Without defender Meg Metz and Oregon’s second-leading scorer Sue Strinski, who both suffered knee injuries during the tourney, the Ducks set their sights on Chapel Hill, N.C., where the national tournament was being hosted.
Nike donated brown canvas travel bags and green sweats for the event, but the women had to buy their own airplane tickets to get there.
“We didn’t have a travel agent,” Bottomly said. “So even just getting there, traveling there, finding a restaurant for 22 people, it was tough. We were 19 year olds trying to manage all the logistics of moving 22 people across the country without any athletic department.”
The Ducks lost to Connecticut 3-1 in overtime, defeated Massachusetts 1-0 and then lost in a consolation final to Harvard 4-3 in overtime.
The Reunion
Charlene Carter, another player who is now president of Carter and Carter Financial, said that, off the field, the women were very different. They had different majors, different interests, different hobbies – but on the field, they were one.
“It was like magic,” Carter said.
Still, Carter wonders why the program had to be cut.
“I know it was a lot about money, but we were the cheapest sport,” Carter said. “We were Oregon’s best value.”
But Carter, Bottomly and Potestio all agreed: Now matter how long it took, it is nice to finally be recognized.
Tschan, who will have to leave Friday to coach his team in a rival game against Linfield tomorrow at 2:30 p.m., said he doesn’t want to take credit for anything the women did.
“It was all them,” Tschan said.
[email protected]