Barbara Hedges -- In The Pink -- New Husky Ad Cut From Same Cloth As Lude

"It will be tough because the money sports are masculine in nature."

- Mike Lude, former Washington athletic director, on the day Barbara Hedges was hired as the only woman to oversee a college football program. --------------------------

The moment Barbara Hedges steps from the elevator into the lobby of a University District hotel, it becomes clear the next Washington athletic director, indeed, is no Mike Lude.

Her blazer is hot pink.

Probe beyond the fashion differences of the sexes, though, and choice of color gets trivialized by a far more ironic impression: that Hedges seems cut from the same cloth as Lude, whose life is a testament to the values of loyalty and iron will.

The last of nine children from a Depression-era family, she grew up in rural, conservative Arizona as the daughter of the local gas-station owner. Like Lude, she took her small-town values uptown, forging alliances with a dedication to hard work. She pushed the boundaries until, at age 52, like Lude, she was offered the top job at Washington.

"One of the things my father always told me was, `Barbara, you'd make a great general because you really like to tell people what to do,' " Hedges said, and laughed. "That is a quote I will always remember."

The military option was never pursued because, well, there were few military options for women back then. Hedges never thought of herself as the soldier-type anyway. What she did consider herself,

however, was an athlete and teacher. So, with blind faith, she set off into the sporting arena, no less of a male-monopolized and mythologized domain than the armed forces.

Hot pink stands out against the forest of blue blazers that run college football and basketball. But among those who know Barbara Hedges, no one questions the resolve and skill of the only woman in charge of an entire NCAA Division I athletic program, including one whose "money sports" are so scrutinized by alumni and media.

"I know the natural reaction is to wonder whether a woman can work in that environment and not be taken advantage of," said Ted Tollner, former USC football coach now with the NFL's San Diego Chargers. "But I worked with her for five years, and she's a tough and fair person. I've seen her make the hard decisions.

"She'll be a good AD on the Division I level."

Stan Morrison, former men's basketball coach at USC who worked with Hedges seven years, gives Lude the benefit of the doubt on his opinion about masculinity and revenue-producing sports. "That's true," he said. "I don't know of any Division I AD or men's basketball or football coach that's a woman."

In the same breath, Morrison qualifies his statement.

"Honestly, I never thought of her as a woman," Morrison said. "She was bigger than that in my eyes. I saw her as a boss, as a colleague. I can appreciate that Don James and Lynn Nance may have apprehensions, but it won't take long for her to be elected mayor in that town - and Don James will be leading the parade."

Flowery, overdrawn compliments tend to follow Hedges, whose tenure as senior associate athletic director at USC ends Aug. 1, when she begins her UW duty. The reviews seem almost too idyllic, as if some key drawback were missing.

But Tollner insists the only downside to Hedges is that she has not actually run the football end of the program. In 17 years with the Trojans, she inched about as near as an assistant administrator could to the real thing, taking responsibility for every sport except baseball, football and men's basketball.

She traveled to all the Trojan football games. As her USC title grew to a dozen syllables, she served on the NCAA television committee, again peeking over the ledge. Confident in her ability to handle major-college football, she promised herself she would leave USC only to become an athletic director at a Division I school.

"The skills I'll be using are not that much different," said Hedges, whose three-year UW contract pays her $110,000 annually. "Running the football program, interacting with coaches - it's dealing with people, it's managing money, it's negotiating contracts, it's hiring people. It's the same thing as the smaller sports, just on a larger scale."

Hedges manages 17 sports and a budget of $4 million to $6 million at Heritage Hall. At the UW, she will oversee a 19-sport program and $21 million budget. Football pays the bills at both schools, and involves a dimension of booster and media relations not experienced in the minor sports.

But Tollner said handling football is not rocket science.

"She's got Don James, so he knows how to run football," Tollner said. "It's a matter of communication and she has the skills there. Whether she knows X-and-O football doesn't matter. Some ADs may think that does matter, but I think those are the ones who cause more problems for you."

Hedges has more than a cursory understanding of sports. As a teenager from Glendale, Ariz., she toured the country with a semi-professional softball team, the A-1 Queens. She turned to tennis in college, playing for Arizona State, and later coached gymnastics on the junior-highlevel.

Tennis helped her gain respect at USC from male colleagues unable to keep up with her backhand or dilute her competitiveness. She plans to learn golf in Washington, where the white ball gets more business mileage than the yellow one. But she plans no challenge to James' authority.

"I want everyone to understand that my role as director of athletics is to assist Don any way I can," she said.

Besides, said Judith Holland, her counterpart at UCLA, Hedges is too politically astute to wrestle with James and the Old Boys Club at Montlake - the Tyee Center members who form the foundation of the athletic department's $5 million-a-year contributor program.

"She knows how the world works," Holland said. "She knows which people to talk to, and she doesn't waste much time. You can't be at USC as long as she was and realize that you can't be naive and survive around there."

Raised by her father after her mother died when she was an infant, Hedges inherited a world that was already top-heavy with men. She had five brothers. She married young, at 20, and she and John Hedges had two sons. Both are grown and living in San Luis Obispo, Calif. (John owns a manufacturing-equipment business in Los Angeles but plans to move to Seattle).

Upon arriving at USC in 1974, she quickly ingratiated herself into the "Trojan family." She was a finalist for the AD job there in 1984 and was promoted to her present post in 1989.

If being a woman in a male-dominated profession troubles her, she keeps her feelings largely private. Her sister, Flossie Ballard, says she rarely makes much of an issue about it, even with her closest sibling.

And Hedges is not known for witholding an opinion. Tollner said he was involved in departmental in-fighting with Hedges, sometimes on the opposite side, and "she will stand up for what she thinks is right."

Hedges, though, avoided turning adversaries into enemies.

"That's where her communications skills come into play," Tollner said. "She can be hard but without being abusive."

Hedges was known as a master fundraiser at USC, where she designed a $2 raffle for a Mercedes that brought in more than $100,000 each year for women's sports. She created "Women of Troy," a group of more than 300 donors who give $1,500 each annually to the program.

But in terms of what she brings to Washington, her most impressive venture may have been a failed promotion.

In 1985, she and Holland jointly marketed USC and UCLA women's sports. Not enough fans bought the single-season pass to both Trojan and Bruin games, but as a concept it was a success. If Hedges can bring together two legendary Los Angeles rivals, maybe she can negotiate the gulfs between President William Gerberding and James, the boosters and the faculty and students.

"Washington was unbelievably perceptive in selecting her," Morrison said. "Now all she has to do is walk on water, right?"

A her siblings, only Herb, now 68 and retired, stayed in Glendale. All of the rest wanted something more. Her sister Shirley, 56, lives in Nashville and writes religious books. Sister Katherine, 60, lives in Salem and works for the state of Oregon. Brother Tom was a newspaper publisher and editor in Arizona until his death two years ago.

The youngest went the furthest in life - and still has the most to prove.

"I feel pressure because I think I will be very intensely scrutinized as a female in what's been a male-dominated profession," Hedges said. "I'm not anxious for that scrutiny at all, but I know it will be there. I know there will be people watching what Barbara Hedges does all the time." ------------------------------

THE BARBARA HEDGES FILE

-- Position: Hired as University of Washington's 15th athletic director, effective Aug. 1. -- Education: Bachelor of arts, Arizona State; master of arts, Arizona. -- Employment history: Senior associate director of athletics, assistant professor of physical education, Arizona, 1968-1973; coached and taught gymnastics, Carey Junior High, Cheyenne, Wyo., 1967-1968; head of girls' physical education department, West Denver High, 1963-1967. -- Age: 52. -- Family: She and her husband, John, are the parents of two grown sons. -- Quote: "One of the things my father always told me was, `Barbara, you'd make a great general because you really like to tell people what to do."'