July 8, 2008

Editor's note: The following feature appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of the Cal Sports Quarterly. Shellie Onstead, who will be in her 14th season as Cal's field hockey coach this season, will serve as an assistant coach for the U.S. women's Olympic field hockey team in Beijing.

Shellie Onstead has been affiliated with Cal field hockey for nearly 30 years, but her family's association with the school dates back more than half a century to when her father, Sheldon, was a member of the Golden Bear diving team in the mid-1950s.

Yet, growing up in San Jose, attending Cal for her collegiate experience didn't necessarily seem to be in the cards. Not only was the Onstead home near the Stanford campus, but her mother, Mona, earned her degree from The Farm and had an early influence on Shellie's rooting interests.

"My household as a child was crazy," Shellie said. "I was the youngest and only girl, so I sided with my mom as a Stanford fan, and my two brothers sided with my dad. We always had season tickets to Stanford football because there were several families on the block that were Stanford fans or grads. As a result, I grew up wanting to go to Stanford."

Outnumbered by Cal rooters in her own household, Mona encouraged Shellie to cheer for the Cardinal.

"I had her dressed in red and white all the time," Mona said. "At 3, she would have her pompons and sing the `Dirty Golden Bear' for company all the time. We were very connected to Stanford, sports-wise."

Luckily for Cal, Shellie didn't attend the university up the street. Instead, she enrolled at UC Davis for a year before transferring to Berkeley because of its field hockey program under then-head coach Donna Fong. Onstead helped Cal to three Top 5 national finishes, and in 1982, she became the first Golden Bear field hockey player to earn All-America honors.

Following a stellar playing career, Onstead, who graduated with a degree in physical education in 1983, continued her close association with the team. She served as an assistant until Fong's retirement in 1994, and this year marks her 13th season as head coach.

"I knew the program was going to be in good hands," said Fong, who headed the program from its inception in 1976 and led the squad to seven postseason berths and three conference titles. "It was natural for Shellie to take over. She had all the tools to be a successful coach, and she's also involved in the international game. That's a good diet. It helps to be involved."

Said Onstead: "I didn't leave here expecting or hoping to be a head coach. I started out helping out as an assistant because I wanted to give back. I did that for 12 years, then one day, Donna said she was going to retire. At first, I said I can't afford to do this. Then I thought about it, and I knew I couldn't not do it. It's been the best job in the world."

Now a six-time NorPac Conference Coach of the Year who has guided Cal to nine conference titles and five NCAA Tournaments, Onstead has elevated the Bears to elite status and has made them a virtual fixture among the country's Top 20 teams.

The feat is particularly remarkable considering that only three Division I field hockey programs remain in California - Stanford and Pacific are the others. Still, Onstead's drive has brought the Bears a high degree of national respect and placed the team on par with some of the most established programs in the country.

Last season, Cal completed its best campaign since Onstead was playing for the Bears in the early 1980s. Behind national scoring leader and first-team All-American Valentina Godfrid, Cal finished 17-5 overall, swept through its NorPac competition with a 6-0 mark and earned a final ranking of 12.

The results hark back to the days when Onstead suited up in Blue and Gold. During her initial season in Berkeley in 1980, Cal qualified as the 16th seed in the national AIAW Tournament - the precursor to the NCAA for women's athletics - and before they knew it, the Bears found themselves in the championship game against Penn State. Cal held a 1-0 lead with eight minutes to go, but the Nittany Lions spoiled the Bears' upset dreams with a 2-1 win.

"I keep wanting to go back and right that wrong," said Onstead. "You can feel it like it was yesterday. We had some significant players on that team; Marcy Place ended up being an Olympian. I'm still very close with a lot of those players, and they are very interested in the program. Now I keep saying that I want to get back to that title game."

Although the number of field hockey teams in the West dwindled, support from the Cal administration has not wavered, especially under current Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour, who was a four-year field hockey player as an undergraduate at Wake Forest.

"When I started in January 1995, I took baby steps," Onstead said. "I had one scholarship and a whole lot of respect for what my mentor had done to that point and with the mindset that I was going to bring the program back to when I was in school here and we were a Top 5 team. I knew that I had to learn to sell a program and make it not just about scholarship money. I started trying to create something that would perpetuate year to year. I was really conscious of the type of person I was recruiting. Slowly over the years, every season the incoming class has been upgraded a little bit, and they've gradually built on each other."

Onstead has also remained connected to the sport at the national team level. She is one of a few females on the men's U.S. National team coaching staff and was the first woman ever to be named head coach of a men's national team (Under-16) at any level.

This past offseason, for example, Onstead served as head coach of the San Francisco men's regional team, which feeds players for the senior national team. She also took the women's U.S. Under-19 Olympic Development Select team on a tour of Argentina in April, and was an assistant coach with the women's U.S. National team that played a four-nation tournament in Chile in May.

"Where I can fit it in, I absolutely jump up and go," Onstead said.

Onstead's international connections have clearly helped her Cal program advance. Godfrid, a three-time conference player of the year, joined the Bears from her native Argentina. Onstead has also had stars from Germany (Nora Feddersen and Elke Popp) and the Netherlands (Ilse Akkermans), all of whom developed into conference players of the year.

Even with her busy schedule of games in the fall, national team work in the spring and summer and recruiting throughout much of the year, Onstead ensures that she carves out time for herself. A certified skipper for boats 50 feet and longer, she often includes water in her vacations, whether that includes sailing trips, houseboats or wakeboarding. She's even led a number of sailing excursions in the Caribbean.

"I was asked to go to Azerbaijan with the women's national team for the six-nation Champions Challenge this past June," Onstead said, "but I was already booked to take seven grandmothers on a canal trip in France. My poor dog (an Italian greyhound named Bella) has seen more of my mother than me!"

With both mom and dad proud of what she has accomplished with the Cal field hockey program, Onstead can rest assured that Bella won't be converted to a Stanford fan anytime soon.

- By Herb Benenson