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Leaves Georgia Tech to jump-start basketball program

Friday, May 02, 2003

By Chuck Finder, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

The new Pitt women's basketball coach introduced herself at a news conference yesterday with a sermon.

	Agnus Berenato is Pitt's new women's basketball coach. (Lake Fong, Post-Gazette)

She spun a tale of how her upstart Georgia Tech once nearly upset top-ranked Virginia in a game for the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship, an NCAA tournament berth and a championship ring -- and, as she puts it, you know how women love nice jewelry.

She talked of opportunities, various styles of play, community involvement, recruiting homegrown talent, bringing crowds to the Petersen Events Center and "eventually we'll be on TV and radio." She spoke powerfully for 11 uninterrupted, unscripted minutes to an audience of media members, Panthers coaches and Pitt administrators.

It seemed to be a glimpse into what Agnus Berenato can bring to a moribund Pitt program: verve, vitality, promotion, preaching.

After 90 minutes of their interview together a week ago, interim athletic director Marc Boehm said: "I was already sold. I wanted to talk to her more. And more. And more. Her enthusiasm for the game and enthusiasm to get out in the community and [sell] women's basketball, that's what we need right now."

"I don't see any reason why it can't be the level of Connecticut," Berenato said of home attendance, which essentially was double Pitt's -- at roughly 1,500 -- toward the latter stages of her 15 seasons at Georgia Tech (223-209). "Absolutely. We feel we have a viable product.

People will want to come to this beautiful facility to see the team perform."

Pitt administrators apparently feel comfortable enough with Berenato's viability to award her a seven-year contract. She apparently will make $200,000-plus a year, a significant upgrade from the salary of predecessor Traci Waites, who went53-85 in five years before Boehm released her in late March. Salaries for Berenato's staff likewise will rise.

"I will say this," Boehm said, declining to site specifics. "We're putting an investment in the women's basketball program. For too long, we have discussed only the wonderful possibilities our program holds."

Leaving Atlanta and Georgia Tech wasn't easy for the Berenatos, who raised five children there. Husband Jack managed the Atlanta office of a global marketing company from Germany. Agnus spent two seasons as an assistant to her sister, Bernadette McGlade, now an assistant ACC commissioner, then became head coach in 1988-89. She produced 11 all-ACC players and two WNBA draftees. She nurtured a program that reached the postseason in each of the past four seasons, including the Yellow Jackets' second NCAA bid this year.

Her 20-13 team is losing just one senior and adding a ballyhooed recruiting class, too.

So why Pitt?

"I never thought about leaving," she said. "I thought I was a lifer at Georgia Tech. Pitt called me, and I really was not interested. But [senior associate AD] Carol Sprague and Marc Boehm were very persuasive."

The fertile Division I recruiting area, the new arena, the allure of the Big East and the urban setting were all factors. This is closer to home for the Berenatos, with Agnus from Philadelphia's New Jersey suburbs and Jack from the Atlantic City area. Their eldest, Theresa, 20, attends Loyola (Md.) University, only a four-hour drive away. Andrew, 18, plans to attend Georgia Tech, while Joey, 14, Clare, 13 (who celebrated her birthday Wednesday by hearing from her mother that they were moving), and Christina, 9, are middle-school and elementary-school age. Jack expects to open a Pittsburgh office for his company.

"I feel like I can get it done here," Berenato, a former Mount St. Mary's player who went 60-55 coaching at Rider previously, said overlooking the Petersen court. "This is just ready to explode."

She spoke with three Panthers team members who attended the news conference -- she looked at them in front of the cameras and gushed, "I hope you're so fired up, because we're going to do some good things next season" -- and planned to talk to the rest by telephone. Her next order of business is to recruit and compile a staff. Her top assistant at Georgia Tech, MaChelle Joseph, has Berenato's endorsement as her successor but could well join her at Pitt if she doesn't get the Yellow Jackets' job.

"Her intensity, I think that will motivate us and get us going," Pitt guard Amy Kunich said of the new coach. As for Berenato's recruiting ability in a talent-rich WPIAL, added Kunich, of Oakland Catholic: "We miss out on some good players. If we get this program moving, they can start coming here."

Pitt interviewed assistant Alvis Rogers, Tulsa coach and former Pitt assistant Kathy McConnell Miller, Maine coach Sharon Versyp and Berenato.

"A lot of people told me, 'You're crazy.' 'What are you doing?' " Boehm said of Berenato's recruitment to Pitt. "But she thought it was the right time for a change. We are so fortunate to get her."