Married . . . With Players : USF Co-Coaches Bill and Mary Nepfel Share Life (and a Bench) in a Successful Program

Meet Bill and Mary.

They see a lot of each other.

They eat breakfast together, drive to the office together, coach basketball together, eat lunch together, coach some more basketball, eat dinner together, watch a little practice or game video together, then sleep together.

That’s Bill and Mary, as in the Nepfels. They are believed to be the only co-coaches in NCAA basketball who are married to one another.

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In 1985, Bill Nepfel married Mary Hile. At the time, Bill was the women’s coach at the University of Hawaii. Mary was the assistant athletic director at Chaminade University in Honolulu.

“We’d never even discussed the possibility of being co-head coaches someplace,” Bill recalled. “It’d never even occurred to us.”

Then in 1987, the University of San Francisco, where Mary had been an All-American in 1980 and ‘81, needed a women’s coach and an assistant.

The athletic director at the time, Father Bob Sunderland, called Mary, who still holds the school’s scoring record, for women and men.

He wanted to hire Mary, but learned she was now Mary Hile-Nepfel.

He wound up offering the job to the Nepfels anyway, in whatever structure they chose--Bill as head coach with Mary the assistant, vice versa, or as co-coaches.

They took the third option, and when the Nepfels passed through Los Angeles last weekend, they won their 10th and 11th consecutive games, beating Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount.

Their Lady Dons are 19-4, 11-1 in the West Coast Conference and headed for the NCAA tournament.

Do the Nepfels at least take separate vacations?

“Coaches don’t get conventional vacations,” Bill said.

“We get days, not weeks. I’ll go to the Washington state high school tournament soon for three days while Mary goes to Colorado’s.

“And Mary has said she’d like to spend a few days alone at the Sonoma Mission Inn. But that’s about it.

“We work very well together. But we knew we would, even when we were offered the job in 1987. We had 48 hours to make a decision and the things we talked about were our futures, the finances, the working arrangements.

“Eight years later, we still work well together and we change all the time, adding and deleting things.”

Certainly, there are no arguments over the often sticky issue of gender equity in their compensation. The salaries for the head and assistant coaches were combined when they came aboard, split down the middle, and they are paid the same.

Former players and assistant coaches say the Nepfels rarely disagree on basketball matters--at least, not within earshot of players. But Mary concedes there is a basic difference of philosophy.

“Bill likes a physical, low-post offense, and I like a fast, up-tempo offense, but both of us can live with doing it either way,” she said.

When they differ over a basketball matter, Mary says, with a grin, “I’m right more often than he is.”

In the case of substitutions, there is no discussion. One simply stands up and sends in a player. Saves time, both said.

When they do differ on a basketball matter, assistant coach Molly Goodenbour is asked to break the tie.

“Sometimes we’ll disagree in recruiting,” Bill said. “Mary will really like a prospect, I go to see the player and I just don’t see what she’s seeing, or vice versa.”

Actually, they have more arguments over non-basketball matters, say the Nepfels.

“When we can’t agree on where to go out to eat, now those are big-time arguments,” Bill said.

As coaches, their styles are opposites. Bill is far more active, barking at officials, yelling at players.

Actually, Mary has to play a cop’s role here, because of a quirk in the rules.

A second technical foul gets a coach ejected. But in the case of co-coaches, if Mary gets a T and then Bill gets another, they’re both gone. And they’re both gone even if Bill gets one, and Goodenbour gets one.

Goodenbour, a former Stanford All-American, was MVP at the 1992 Final Four.

“Molly may get head-coaching experience faster than she thinks,” Mary said.

At the USF-Pepperdine game recently, Bill leaped off the bench to challenge what he considered a bad call. Mary grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him back into his seat.

“Even as a player, I ignored bad calls,” Mary said.

“It would take a really horrible call to get me out of my seat like Bill. But the referees do need to hear you. I’d probably be a lot more vocal if Bill wasn’t around.”

Goodenbour, they agree, has hastened their decision-making.

“Molly thinks we over-analyze things,” Bill said.

They also agree that being married gives them a big edge in the recruiting arena.

“We fit into parents’ comfort zones, when they’re worried about sending their 17-year-old daughter off someplace,” Bill said. “They like the idea of their daughter playing for a married couple.

“But sometimes the players aren’t so keen on it--you know, playing for Mom and Pop. But we think it’s made the difference in getting some of our better players.”

Former players Tami Adkins and Dawn Baker agree.

Adkins said she was recruited by 13 colleges but that the Nepfels were the difference.

“There was just something I really liked about Mary and Bill,” she said. “The main reason I went to USF was because of them. It’s so important to play for people you like, because you spend so much time with them.”

Said Baker: “They are very nice people, and when they recruited me I just didn’t want to go anywhere else. In their office, they have a couch between their desks and I always just liked walking in there and flopping down on their couch.”

Bill and Mary decided they liked each other in the early 1980s, when they were assistant coaches at Long Beach State.

Bill is fond of telling about the day he met Mary, after she had enrolled in the school’s graduate program. She stopped by the women’s basketball office to introduce herself.

After she had left, Bill said, he turned to a friend and said, “I’m going to marry that girl.”

Over the years, however, he has embellished the story. And at each telling, he gets an elbow in the ribs from Mary.

“Of course, I used to say that a lot in those days,” he said.

Rib shot.

“But that was the only time I said it that day.”

Rib shot.