A new look for Orange Coast

Rick Devereux

First in a series.

Things are changing for Orange Coast College athletics. The soccer

fields have been given a new surface. Legendary LeBard Stadium is

undergoing reconstruction. And the school has a new athletic

director.

Well, kind of new.

Barbara Bond was the assistant athletic director under Fred

Hokanson, who resigned after four years as AD for the Pirates and 35

years as a faculty member. Plus, Bond has been a coach at OCC since

1975, so ‘new’ is a pejorative word. She is a fixture at the college

and in the community.

“Barbara is just OCC through and through,” men’s soccer coach

Laird Hayes said. “She was the best choice. She bleeds OCC colors.”

The first color that Bond had to deal with was green, as in money.

One of her first duties was to rally the school for portions of the

more than $200 million bond, Measure C, which passed in November

2002. Thanks to her hard work and fortuitous circumstances, the

athletic and physical education department will receive major

upgrades and renovations.

“Physical education had all its ducks lined up and ready to go

when the bond passed,” Bond said. “We were lucky enough to get our

projects approved. Part of that is the soccer field was going to be

replaced with a soccer field. The rest of the school is if you take

down a building you don’t really know what type of building is going

to go up in its place. So for us the footprint was already there. The

soccer field was going to be a soccer field. Because the footprint

was already there, we’ve been the first ones out of the shoot.”

Bond is very familiar with the conditions of the soccer fields.

She has been the school’s only women’s soccer coach since its

inception in 1979. She said the field has such a crown to it that

people on the opposite side look like they’re kneeling because the

crown cuts off the view of their feet. Coincidently, the soccer field

will be the first facility to make use of the renovation and the

women’s soccer team will be the first to host an event on the new

facilities. Bond will be present at the dedication Aug. 31 before the

game against Mt. San Antonio College but won’t be able to coach on

the new field. She said a similar situation happened to her

predecessor.

“They redid the track and [Hokanson] was the track coach for like

32 years,” she said. “They get a brand new track and he never coached

on it. It was finished the year he became athletic director.

Ironically enough, the same thing is going to happen for the soccer

field. I’ve been the only soccer coach in the history of the school,

I think we’ve had soccer for 23 years, and the brand-new facilities

will be completed and I won’t be able to coach on it. So it’s pretty

funny. It’s still exciting, though. I can’t wait for the opening

day.”

Other renovations involve adding a synthetic surface to the soccer

and football fields, called FieldTurf. It is the same surface

installed at state-of-art stadiums for the Detroit Lions and Houston

Texans, built in 2002.

“Every time I go out there I get excited,” Bond said. “It’s

exciting to see the first tree go in. It’s exciting to see the logo

on the field. How can you not be excited about something new?”

Many people are excited about Bond as the new athletic director

because she has been at the college for so long.

“I have all the confidence in the world that Barbara will do a

great job,” Hayes said. “Se was hired the year before I was and she

has coached everything. It’s been a no-brainer. The transition has

been smooth and seamless.”

Bond graduated from Santa Ana Valley High and went on to play for

the volleyball and swim teams at Long Beach State. She then became

the field hockey coach at OCC in 1975, but suggested it be replaced

with women’s soccer in 1979 because of lack of interest. She guided

the Pirates to six conference championships and two state titles in

22 years at the helm and was named the Orange Empire Conference Coach

of the Year five times and the 2002 National Soccer Coaches

Association West Region Coach of the Year.

She has also coached the basketball, softball and badminton teams.

She said coaching was all the same, no matter what type of equipment

is used or how the score was kept.

“It doesn’t make a difference what the sport is, it’s all about

your coaching philosophy and your teaching, sportsmanship, character

and values,” she said. “It’s all the same from sport to sport. Maybe

the fundamentals and the advanced skills are a little bit different,

but you coach it all the same. I think, overall, I’ve been fairly

successful in my career as a coach. You hope the students will

develop character and ethics and all the stuff that you would hope

that an individual will learn. And that’s how we treat it, as an

outdoor classroom where we’ve got real important life skills to

teach. That’s how I look at it. It’s more of an education than a

win-at-all-cost situation. That’s never been the bottom line.”