UCI gets a name to tout

The Chichester family is a big fan of watching the annual Thanksgiving Day parades on television, so when Bob Chichester missed a big chunk of this year’s parade coverage for a phone call, the kids knew something was up.

“My kids said it must have been a pretty important phone call,” the UC Irvine athletic director said.

They don’t know the half of it.

That 2 1/2 -hour phone call was the first step toward the Anteaters hiring April Heinrichs as their new women’s soccer coach.

Tuesday’s news conference introducing the former U.S. Women’s National Team coach was a big enough deal to bring Los Angeles Times soccer writer Grahame Jones out to Orange County. And that speaks volumes about what Heinrichs’ hiring does for the Anteaters -- not just as a soccer program, but an athletic program.

At a time when UC Irvine has been trumpeting the achievements of its academic stalwarts and bringing in new professors who are stars in their fields, the athletic program has a name it can boast about. Heinrichs’ name brings instant recognition throughout the soccer community, even to the casual fan who just knows that she coached the likes of Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy.

Heinrichs is a significant change for the Anteaters. For years, UCI has filled its positions with low-profile names. Good assistant coaches at strong programs. Talented recruiters. But not household names.

Sure, Marine Cano -- Heinrichs’ predecessor -- was a former national coach of the year and built Cal State Dominguez Hills into a Division II power. The men’s basketball program has had Rod Baker (a former Seton Hall assistant on the Pirates’ 1989 national runner-up team) and Pat Douglass (a three-time national championship winner at Cal State Bakersfield).

But Heinrichs is a name that soccer fans around the country know. They know she coached the U.S. women to a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics. Older fans know she guided strong programs at Maryland, Virginia and Princeton. Even older ones know she was a star at North Carolina back in the 1980s.

Point is, many of UCI’s coaches have a strong regional profile. Heinrichs gives the Anteaters a national one, and don’t think Chichester didn’t consider that when deciding who to hire.

“I didn’t go into this saying, we want to hire April.” Chichester said. “We realized our opening gave us an opportunity.

“Pressure, no? I looked at it as an opportunity.”

Now, all Heinrichs has to do is live up to the build-up.

She took a Maryland team that went 1-17 in 1990 and guided it to an 18-6 mark in 1995. She led Virginia to four NCAA tournament berths. And there’s that whole coaching the national team for five years, winning a gold medal thing too.

She takes over a program that has never been to the NCAA Tournament and has one Big West Conference title, despite playing one of the most soccer-rich areas in the nation.

Step one will be convincing more of Orange County’s soccer talent that staying home is a viable option. Step two will be convincing the rest of the nation that UCI is a viable location for an upper-tier athletic program.

Neither will be easy. None of the previous five coaches were able to do it consistently.

Heinrichs has a leg up because of her name recognition, but she won’t be one to flaunt it either.

“I’ve never traded on my name,” Heinrichs said. “I’m an under-the-radar type of gal. I don’t blow people away with my charisma.”

Fortunately, that’s not the point. Heinrichs doesn’t have to self-promote to bring attention to her program. There will be those who are attracted to UC Irvine simply because of her name, and that’s a start.

And if that means Chichester misses a few more parades, he probably won’t mind too much.

* JAMES LEE is the sports editor. He may be reached at (714) 966-4616 or by e-mail at james.lee@latimes.com.

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