UA News

One of the nation's most highly regarded softball coaches, Candrea says coaching is about helping players develop as people more than it is about winning.

Name
Mike Candrea

Position
Head Coach, Arizona Softball

Number of years at the UA
24

Favorite part about working at the UA
"The people. I think there's just a tremendous amount of good people here."

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University of Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea has a long list of athletic achievements under his belt. He has led Arizona's softball team, one of the top collegiate softball programs in the country, to 21 Women's College World Series and has had numerous coaching honors bestowed upon him, including 10 Pac-10 Coach of the Year awards.

In addition to coaching the eight-time national champion Wildcats, he also coached the USA Softball team to an Olympic gold medal in Athens in 2004 and the silver in Beijing last year and was presented with the United States Olympic Committee's prestigious Olympic Shield award.

When he's not coaching his own team, Candrea shares his passion for the sport through youth softball camps at the UA and clinics with coaches and players throughout the United States and the world. His instructional DVDs are used by coaches and players of all ages.

Candrea has enjoyed a successful coaching career despite a few curveballs thrown his way in his personal life, including the sudden death of his wife, Sue, who suffered a brain aneurysm in 2004.

He says his religious faith and the support of the softball community helped him through the tragedy. He has since remarried and says his wife, Tina, whose two sons play rugby at the UA, has been a blessing for him and his two children – Mikel, 30, and Michelle, 28.

Yet, Candrea's family is much larger than just his wife and kids, as evidenced by the collage of photos atop his desk in his McKale Memorial Center office. Former players, many holding their babies, beam up at him from under the glass desktop as a reminder of the extended family he's developed during his 24 years at the UA.

Candrea recently took time to talk with Lo Que Pasa about some of the proudest and toughest moments of his professional and personal life.

You've had a lot of success in your coaching career. What's your secret?
For me I think it's just having a passion for what you do. I always tell young coaches and players, if you can find something that you thoroughly love to do you never work a day in your life, and I kind of feel that way. I've grown up on a diamond my entire life, and when I got injured in college I knew that I wanted to go into teaching and coaching and never really dreamed of coaching females, to tell you the truth. I was a baseball coach and just kind of got talked into it and fell in love with it, so sometimes you don't know where your career's going to take you. But it's been a lot of fun and I have a lot of pride in what we've built here at Arizona. We've had an opportunity to bring in some great athletes but I think, more importantly, just being a part of the lifelong process is the neatest thing for me. ... I always tell young coaches, you don't just coach for four years here; you coach for a lifetime.

You never expected to coach women?
I didn't because I was a baseball coach and got talked into it. I was (coaching) at a junior college (Central Arizona College) for many years before I came here and I remember the day when George Young (CAC athletic director) asked me to take over the women's program and I said I'd try it for a year but I really want(ed) to coach men. I tried it for a year and then kind of fell in love with it. ... I always tell people one thing that I've found is that men have to play good to feel good; women have to feel good to play good. So you tend to spend a lot of your time trying to make young women feel good about themselves, and the more they feel good about themselves the more productive they become and the more successful they become.

You do a lot of work educating other coaches. What are some of the common mistakes young coaches make?
I think not understanding the process; maybe putting the ultimate prize before developing the person. ... You can do everything right and still not win a championship, so you can't coach just to win. I think you need to coach to be able to develop young people to be successful in life. And I've always tried to use many lifelong lessons to bridge the things that we do in sport with the things that happen in life.

Did you ever dream of winning an Olympic gold medal?
No, I never really expected to be in the Olympic arena. In '96 they brought softball into the Olympic Games but I dropped out of the coaching pool in '94 because my son and daughter were just getting into the high school levels and I just kind of found that I needed to spend more time with them (rather) than traveling around the world. ... The opportunity (to coach the national team) came up again in 2001 and it was right for me and I decided to do it, and from 2001 to 2008 I was actually doing two full-time jobs, (coaching) two teams that expect(ed) to win, so it was a challenging but it was a great opportunity to see many places around the world that I probably would never have had the opportunity (to see).

What was your favorite place you visited?
Italy. Of course, I'm Italian, so obviously that was an easy one. I've been there three different times and had a chance to see the Tuscan Valley and Florence and Rome and Venice and all the tourist spots.

How have you maintained a work-life balance?
I guess I can go back to the '90s, '94, when I dropped out of the coaching pool. ... My son, Mikel, was a sophomore in high school and he said, "Dad can we talk?" Of course my ears perked up and he said, "Dad would you consider dropping out the coaching pool so that you can watch me play baseball?" That hit me with a ton of bricks and really made me realize that maybe I was losing that balance in life, and I think if there's one thing that I preach to young coaches and players it's that we all have to have some balance, and balance to me is balance between your family and your profession. And then I think we all need some spiritual help in our life and you can't wait until something happens to get it; it's got to be a part of it. I know when I had the balance that I was a happier person and a more productive dad and a more productive coach. ... I got back to achieving that balance that I was brought up to have as a young kid. Obviously my mom was a huge part of that. My dad was a jazz musician – played in New York, New Orleans – and my mom was the backbone of our family. She's the one that drug me to catechism every Saturday and church, and now I thank her for doing it because it is a part of my life that's important to me. ... I think my upbringing allowed me to probably get through some tough times.

What was the Olympic experience like?
It's a lot of work. I always tell people it's kind of a different adventure in sports because usually when you're coaching a team you have a championship at the end of each year to kind of finalize things. Well, in the Olympic Games you have four years to prepare for one moment. ... But Greece was a very phenomenal experience. I had gone through a lot of tough times in my own life and lost my wife during the tour in 2004 and I didn't know whether I was even going to finish out, but I did and it was probably one of the best performances by any team in Olympic history.

How did you overcome the loss of your wife to continue coaching?
It was probably my faith. When something like that happens in your life you sit around and you wonder "Why me?" ... Sue and I, we lost a child when we were very young. We had a baby girl that was born and died three weeks later, so I'd been through that – that was kind of my introduction to the "real world." And then I lost a player here at Arizona in 1997 that played in the championship game in May at the College World Series and in June she died from diabetes – Julie Reitan. So I had been through that many times, and of course this (Sue's death) was so unexpected because one minute she's perfectly healthy and the next minute she's gone, and it was a brain aneurysm. ... I was, at the time, 49 years old, 48 years old, and I didn't know what color our checkbook was. I never had to worry about paying bills, I never had to worry about the kids (who were 26 and 24) having what they needed. And it really made me wake up and say, "Boy, Sue did a lot." So there was a void in my life and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't be Mom, but we got through it all and the good Lord was looking out after me. ... I guess the other thing that kind of prepared me for that – I don't think you can ever be prepared for it – but I've always been the one that has been there to comfort all these kids who have gone through things. Obviously when you're the leader of the group – you've got 17 or 18 kids – you can imagine there's a lot that can happen. I think another thing that got me through it was just the support of a web that was created underneath my own eyes – I didn't even know it was being created over these years – and that's the game of softball, not just at Arizona but through my work around the country and around the world. It was just amazing to see this outpour of support and help. It was unbelievable.

With all the success you've had as a coach, do you feel the pressure to win?
I always tell young coaches I wish I could give them all a championship and then I think they would settle down and become a better coach because I don't (feel that pressure). The pressure that I feel is to make sure that I have a good process. ... If you ever watch me, (when) we win a championship I sit in the dugout and kind of watch everyone jump up and down because that's what it's all about.

What's the most rewarding part of your job?
I think the rewarding part is the phone call you get 10 years after the kid leaves and (she) says, "Coach, thanks for making me who I am." I think that's probably the reward that you get in coaching, and the contact that we have with one another – I think that tells you something when kids stay in contact with you. You know you've made an impact in their life.

Do you know someone who has an interesting job at the UA? Send his or her name and contact information to lqp@email.arizona.edu for consideration for a future Employee Q&A.