When Scott Rueck was hired on as the head coach of Oregon State women’s basketball, it was a homecoming of sorts.
“This is a place that has meant a lot to me from day one, almost 41 years ago. My mom went here so I am a legacy,” Rueck said in his introductory press conference. “To have the opportunity to come back and represent this place as an institution, in this state, is something that I greatly cherish. I am excited to come to work every day and know that I am representing more than just myself and this University but an entire region.”
Rueck (pronounced ROO-eck) earned a bachelor’s degree in exercise and sports science from Oregon State in 1991 and a master’s degree in physical education in 1992. Over the past 14 years, he built the women’s basketball program at George Fox University in Newberg into a national power.
The NCAA Division III Bruins have won seven Northwest Conference titles and made six NCAA tournament appearances since 2000. George Fox won the Division III national title in 2009.
Rueck amassed a 288-88 record (76.6 percent) since the 1996-97 season. He was the NCAA Division III National Coach of the Year in 2009, earning D-III West Region Coach of the Year honors the last three years and Northwest Conference Coach of the Year honors in five of the last six years.
Oregon State had just undergone a drastic overhaul. Of the 14 players on the roster in 2009-10, two remained. The Beavers, who went 11-20 last season and won just two games against Pacific-10 Conference opponents, were on life support.
“I can’t control anything that happened before I got here, or even worry about it,” Rueck said. “When I got here, my job was to put the team together.”
Transfers and firings
One by one, the players left.
Freshman guard Tayler Champion was the first to go, leaving Oregon State just before Christmas. Forward Amaya Gastaminza, a native of Spain, also left the Beavers midseason.
Oregon State lost three players to graduation in the 2009-10 season: guards Julie Futch and Stacey Nichols and forward Anita Burdick. Guard Talisa Rhea, who led the Beavers with 15.3 points per game last season, startlingly announced an intention to transfer after the season. Rhea is now at Seattle University.
Rhea’s departure, it turned out, would be just one more in a disturbing trend. Forwards Kate Lanz and Kirsten Tilleman and guards Kassandra McCalister, Eisha Sheppard, Haiden Palmer and Brittany Kennedy all left Oregon State this offseason. One assistant coach, Kellee Barney, also left. Another, Krista Reinking, was arrested and cited for DUI, among other offenses.
An investigative report published on May 9, 2010 by the Corvallis Gazette-Times detailed a record of player abuse at the hands of then-head coach LaVonda Wagner. Under Wagner, 17 players and four assistant coaches left Oregon State from 2007 to 2010.
“Two common themes emerged in interviews (with members of the 2009-10 Beavers who left the program): A pattern of what the players called verbal abuse and long practice times, including a series of practices over Christmas break that lasted for seven to eight hours daily,” the Gazette-Times reported.
The Oregonian published a story on May 29 with additional details on Wagner’s abusive actions.
“Eight former players and four of their mothers say the coach aims to control players’ lives, and puts the well-being of the women on her team at risk,” The Oregonian’s report read. “They say Wagner, 45, pressures athletes to play through serious injuries, threw a chair during a locker room tirade, ordered players to attend Weight Watchers sessions and once was kicked off a plane in front of her team after refusing to hang up her cell phone. One mother says that her ‘demoralized’ daughter later sought counseling after leaving Oregon State because Wagner inflicted such ‘mental damage.’”
Wagner was fired on June 1, leaving in disgrace after going 68-85 in five seasons with the Beavers. After Oregon State athletic director Bob De Carolis and other administrators reviewed options — canceling the 2010-11 season among them — Rueck was hired on July 1.
Rebuilding from the ground up
Rueck arrived in Corvallis with five scholarship athletes committed to the program, and shortly thereafter added a sixth, forward Earlysia Marchbanks. Oregon State needed more bodies.
“It was a blur of a summer, just assembling all the parts,” Rueck said. “We were just trying to hit the ground running as quickly as we could. It feels like we’re still not caught up.”
Assistant coaches Eric Ely and Mark Campbell were hired, along with director of operations Ashley Shearer and assistant director of operations Claire Faucher. Ely and Campbell have spent a combined 14 years as assistants at the Division I level — valuable experience for Rueck to tap into.
A third available assistant coaching position has not been filled, and will likely remain empty until the offseason.
“There hasn’t been time,” Rueck said, to evaluate candidates and conduct interviews.
Certainly not when the roster remained shorthanded. Beavers coaches conducted a “prospect camp” at the end of August. Three more players were added, including guard Sage Indendi, who played under Rueck at George Fox in 2008-09 before transferring to Oregon State. Indendi, a native of Livingston, Mont., is the Beavers’ second-leading scorer (10.6 points per game) this season.
Rueck got an additional boost from two players in other sports. Beavers soccer player Courtney Wetzel and volleyball player Tami Brown joined the team at the conclusion of their seasons. Brown, a native of Eugene and a Sheldon High School graduate, has averaged 2.0 points and 11.4 minutes in eight games; Wetzel has not played for Oregon State this season.
Rueck has one player signed to a letter of intent, guard Ali Gibson of Woodridge, Calif., and is attracting interest among high school players and parents on the recruiting trail.
“That’s the key to turning this thing around, is players,” he said. “I’ve been really blown away by the reception we’ve gotten.
“This program had been drug through the mud. We had such a poor reputation in women’s basketball circles.”
Oregon State hosted Long Beach State on Nov. 13 in the team’s first game of the season. With no expectations surrounding them, a funny thing happened: the Beavers won, 71-39. Six days later, playing Eastern Michigan at the Jack In The Box Rainbow Wahine Classic in Honolulu, they won again. The following day, against Cal-State Northridge, they notched another victory.
The Beavers are 7-10 overall and 0-6 in the Pacific-10 Conference. Their most dynamic player has been El Sara Greer, the team’s lone senior and one of two returning players. Greer leads the Pac-10 in blocked shots (3.2 per game) and is fifth in the conference in rebounding (8.3).
To Rueck, Greer’s biggest contribution is her leadership, an intangible sorely needed with his roster.
“She was so accepting of everyone and had such a good attitude about the team,” he said.
Civil War
The Civil War is personal for Rueck, a native of Hillsboro.
“When I was a student here, I roomed with some of the guys on the (men’s basketball) team. I felt like I lived it through those guys a little bit,” he said. “It’s a dream come true, in a lot of ways, to be a part of this. I’ve got two cousins (who were) on the Oregon football team. I love those guys, but …” He left the sentence hanging, the mark of a man with investment into the rivalry.
“One of the things I’m going to be looking forward to finding out, is how excited they’re going to be for it. My job is to be educating them in it. I’ve been in it my entire life.”
The Ducks are certainly not taking Oregon State lightly, nor their, well, green head coach.
“I think he’s done an outstanding job with the way that program was, a
t least the number of bodies decimated, to be as competitive as they’ve been,” said Oregon assistant coach Dan Muscatell, who met with Rueck several times over the summer. “He’s got a teaching manner about him. He’s a teacher of the game, and a good one at that. In some respects that’s a great situation to be in for a teacher like him.”
“They’re playing pretty well. They’re playing better than a lot of people maybe have thought,” Ducks point guard Nia Jackson said. “They’re going to come to battle us. They’re going to come and work hard.”
The Beavers have less depth and foot speed than the Ducks and enter the game as heavy underdogs. A loss would be painful for Rueck, but he believes in something greater for his team.
“My philosophy is to make it enjoyable every day,” he said, “to make it as fun as possible. That’s my goal.”
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