April 28, 2002

Dwight Chapin, Chronicle Senior Writer

When Sue Enos O'Meara ponders the passage of time since she made athletic history, her first thought is, "That can't be right."

But she ultimately realizes a quarter century can almost flash by, and she remains very much aware and proud of her pioneering role at the University of San Francisco.

As Sue Enos, a two-sport standout from Drake High School in San Anselmo, she became USF's first female scholarship athlete in 1976.

She's a teacher and athletic administrator now, at Mt. Tamalpais school in Mill Valley, and she says, "It's just been amazing to see the progress on the part of girls and women in all athletics -- the opportunities that are available to them, and the skill they have at young ages. My focus in my current job is sixth-to-eighth graders, and they're doing things athletically that I didn't even attempt until high school."

O'Meara, who lives in San Rafael with husband John, whom she met in college on the Hilltop, and sons Douglas, 14, and Mark, 12, will be among those honored Saturday at USF's fourth annual Night of Champions auction dinner, this year saluting the first 25 years of Lady Dons sports. Reservations are available through Greg Sempadian, (415) 422-6891, or by e-mail at sempadian@usfca.edu. That sort of honor would have seemed like more than a bit a stretch when O'Meara, now 43, was in elementary and junior high school.

"There were no girls' sports then," she said. "Girls could be cheerleaders, but they didn't play."

Her first real competition came at Drake, against other girls she said "were in the same situation I was -- we were all kind of starting fresh."

Coach Anne Scott was her first major influence, in basketball and volleyball, and boys' basketball coach Pete Hayward took her under his wing, too.

"The girls and boys played different seasons," she said, "and he invited me to work out with the boys' varsity my junior and senior years."

Her talent was obvious. On her way to a spot in the Marin County Athletic League of Fame, she was team MVP and all-league her junior and senior seasons in both basketball and volleyball. She set a league scoring record in basketball with a 46-point game, breaking her own mark of 41. Woman Sports magazine honored her as an athlete of the year in 1975, and she attended the 1976 U.S. Olympic basketball trials.

All of that, however, might not have earned her a college scholarship, if it hadn't been for the help of two referees, Gene McGillicuddy and Dale Aman, who worked her prep games.

"They found out USF was starting a basketball program," she said, "and had Gene Bugler, the new coach, come and scout me. He offered me a scholarship, and that was so exciting. But, in my naivete, I didn't think about how much it really meant. My mother was a single, working mom, so paying for college would have been tough. This kind of solved all our problems in one fell swoop. It was like a fairy tale."

O'Meara played three years of basketball and three of volleyball for the Lady Dons. She led the basketball team in scoring in 1976-77, and was a teammate of current USF women's coach Mary Hile-Nepfel for two seasons.

She then went on to Stanford, earning a master's degree in education in 1981, got her credential and has been teaching and coaching ever since, at the high school, middle school and now elementary school levels, working with an array of young female athletes.

The girls she guides now probably don't realize it, but she's one of the reasons they don't have to settle for being cheerleaders.