Goodrich: Architect of success
Published 9:00 pm Monday, February 9, 2004
BELLINGHAM – The smartly dressed woman sitting across from me in the restaurant used to be a stablehand at Longacres racetrack. “What a different way of life,” she mused.
Up before the crack of dawn mucking stalls seven days a week. Hard, smelly, backbreaking work.
Later, she got a job as a groom, hotwalking horses for 50 cents an hour in the morning and for $1 an hour after they’d raced.
A different way of life and a hard way of life. That’s how Lynda Goodrich put herself through college. “That’s where I learned to work,” she said.
Often, she’d be at the track until late at night. Which fully prepared her for the job she has now – athletic director at Western Washington University. “We put in some late nights here, too,” she said.
Long days but interesting days. “No two,” she said, “are alike.”
But then, if they were, she might get bored. She needs variety. She needs challenges. She needs projects.
Like the old house she renovated. Or as the contractor labeled it: The Money Pit, after the movie of the same name.
“He’d call me up and say, ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news first?’ “Goodrich said with a laugh. “I’d quit coaching about that time so I traded one pastime for another.”
The house, which stands on five acres, is more than 100 years old and needed a lot of work. Some problems caught her off guard. Like the pipes that froze one year, then burst. “I remodeled half of the house, then two years later the rest,” she said.
The finished product, they say, is something to behold and has been featured in a magazine, along with the garden she put in. “I built a lot of the structures, the arbors, the deck,” she said. “That goes back to my old days in Lake Stevens on my dad’s little farm. I put in a lot of fenceposts in my day.”
The contractor who used to kid her about “The Money Pit” got married in her garden. And Lynda has hosted the President’s Club summer barbeque there.
She is a woman of many talents. And numerous accomplishments. Her resume reads like a “Who’s Who.”
WWU Administrator and Women’s Coach of the Century (1900-99). WWU Sports Impact Person of the Century. WWU Distinguished Alumnus Award (1988). Member of the NAIA Hall of Fame, the WWU Athletic Hall of Fame and the Northwest Women’s Hall of Fame. Three times the conference/region Sports Administrator of the Year.
Soon, she’ll have another honor bestowed upon her. On Feb.17, she’ll be one of the first two inductees into the Lake Stevens High School Hall of Fame. Her co-inductee will be Marv Harshman, former PLU, Washington State and Washington basketball coach.
“I’m really honored to go in with Marv,” the 58-year-old Goodrich said over lunch last week. “What could be better? He’s a legend.”
That he is. And so is she.
She has dedicated more than 30 years of her life to Western, first as an undergraduate, then as the women’s basketball coach, and for the last 17 years as the athletic director.
And what a basketball coach she was, posting a 411-125 record over 19 years, 18 of which the Vikings made the postseason. She was only the third women’s coach in NAIA history to win 400 games.
“She was really driven,” said Jo (Metzger) Levin, a two-time, first-team All-American and the only Western athlete in the NAIA Hall of Fame. “She was one of those women who got into coaching and found her niche.”
Until she became athletic director, that is. “That was a huge step up,” Levin said. “All of a sudden, she just took off.”
Early on, though, Goodrich’s confidence was shaken.
A few months after she took the job, the person who had hired her, Western president G. Robert Ross, was killed in a plane crash, which also took the lives of two other administrators.
“Bob hired me in May and he died in November,” Goodrich recalled. “He was my support person. I didn’t know if I wanted to keep doing this. I had doubts.”
Bob Ross didn’t. His wife told Goodrich at the memorial service, “You’ll do a good job. Bob believed in you.”
And so, she has done a good job. Like everything else she’s ever attempted.
Whether she was mucking stalls, hot walking horses or rubbing them down; setting fence posts; building decks; playing field hockey or basketball; teaching kids how to attack a zone defense or how to conduct themselves, Lynda Goodrich has always striven to do it well.
There was no reason to believe she wouldn’t be a success as an athletic director because much of the job entails working with people, leading them, inspiring them, letting them do their jobs without micro-managing.
In short, it’s knowing people and how they tick.
“She is just an outstanding person, highly respected on campus and by her staff and the athletes,” said Dr. Karen W. Morse, the university president. “We’re just lucky to have her.”
“She’s a very good leader, very good at managing people,” Levin said. “As a coach, she’d say, ‘This is what we’re going to do, this is how we’re going to do it’ and, by god, that’s how we did it.”
One of her strengths is her intuition. She’s hired some coaches using that ability.
Three of them – Rob Smith (football), Carmen Dolfo (women’s basketball) and Diane Flick (volleyball) – had never been a head coach when Goodrich hired them to take over programs.
“With Rob and Carmen, they’d been in the program as assistant coaches, so I had a sense of what they’d be like as head coaches,” Goodrich said. “Diane spoke well and presented herself well.”
So how have they fared? In 15 years, Smith has a 99-52-1 record; Dolfo – on a leave of absence this year – is 278-105 in 13 years and Flick is 95-19 after four years. Still, it was somewhat of a risk. But that’s Goodrich. She’ll take a gamble every now and then.
“She’s willing to take risks, but she also looks at the fine print,” Dr. Morse said. “Her risks are very well considered.”
Take “The Battle in Seattle” for example.
This was a football game pitting Western against its arch rival, Central Washington, last fall at Seahawks Stadium. The idea had come from a marketing person at Central. After a careful study, Goodrich went along with it.
Good move: The game drew a crowd of 16,392 and each school took home $75,000, a piddling amount to a UW, a windfall to a school such as Western with an athletic budget of $2.7 million a year.
They’ll play “The Battle in Seattle” again this year.
Another project that has been a successful fund raiser during the Goodrich regime is Viking Night, a dinner/silent auction that nets around $80,000 each year. “Viking Night has become a fall event in Bellingham,” Dr. Morse said. “People really want to come to that.”
Besides the triumphs on the playing fields, Morse applauds Goodrich and her coaches for recruiting good students, as well as good athletes. The Vikings boast the highest graduation rate in the state and in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, 72 percent. It’s also higher than the national average in Divisions I, II and III.
“She has standards, both for performance and ethical approach,” Dr. Morse said of her AD. “She’s very much a university person, promoting athletics within the context of the central mission of education.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge Goodrich has faced was moving Western from the NAIA into NCAA Division II six years ago, a giant leap forward. “That transition was hard,” she said. “The competition level was much higher.”
Viking teams have responded with national appearances in seven sports. The women’s basketball team reached the semifinals in 2000, the men’s team did it in 2001. The women’s crew team placed second in 2002 and 2003.
Goodrich watchers say she isn’t satisfied unless she’s taking on a big project. “What would really get her going is a new gym or a new (football) stadium,” said Paul Madison, the sports information director.
Yes, she says, she has some building plans, but no money to fund them. “My immediate goal is to get the softball field finished,” she said. (The softball team, incidentally, brought Western its first national championship in 1998.)
She has been called a visionary. “I like to think of what could be,” she said.
Has she ever thought of being the AD at, say, a place like the UW?
“Nooooo,” she said. “I can say I’m very glad I’m not athletic director at the UW.”
No more mucking stalls for Goodrich.
