Athletics

Kragthorpe: Carr is SLCC's driving force

Athletic director and administrator of the year rattled the boys' club.

By Kurt Kragthorpe

Tribune Columnist

Updated: 10/07/2009 09:25:03 PM MDT

(Jim Urquhart / The Salt Lake Tribune)

Taylorsville

After reliving the challenges of building a multi-sport program with nice facilities, making athletics a major part of Salt Lake Community College and establishing herself in a role not traditionally open to women, Norma Carr comes to the end of her story and smiles.

"This is when it's getting good," she says.

Having spent 20 years as SLCC's athletic director, Carr is beginning to look toward retirement, just when everything's finally working in her favor. There's now a healthy appreciation of her department's value on campus, a 2009 national championship in men's basketball has validated her approach to competing in junior college athletics and she less frequently has to convince callers that the female answering the phone actually is the athletic director.

When she's honored Tuesday as a national administrator of the year, Carr can celebrate a career of struggles in the interest of women's sports -- with the added dimension of being the only woman to oversee men's athletics in Utah.

Such an undertaking could best be described in one word, with raised eyebrows: "Whoa." That was Fern Gardner's reaction in 1989, when Carr told her University of Utah mentor that she was taking the SLCC position.

Let's review: The school fielded only basketball teams, and the men's program was facing NJCAA sanctions. Many campus figures wondered why the school needed sports at all. Rival schools' athletic directors, mostly former men's coaches, hardly welcomed a woman into their club.

Aside from that, it was a dream job.

"More than one time, we shed a tear together," said Mike Jacobsen, the longtime athletic director of Utah Valley University, then a junior college. "I had to stick up for her. She stuck up for herself, don't get me wrong."

No surprise there. Having graduated from Davis High in 1965, Carr later became a teacher and coach at the school. She fought for acceptance of girls' sports in a climate of the early 1970s when "the ones fighting back were very aggressive and protective," she said. "So those wars -- and they were wars -- were very bitter and very personal."

By the time Carr moved to the University of Utah in 1975, girls' sports were on the way to having state championship competition. She then helped the Utes' women's softball, volleyball and basketball programs develop before tiring of coaching after 14 years, leading her to look into the SLCC opening.

Skip ahead 20 years, and the job she described as "pretty lonely" in the early days is more enjoyable now. SLCC boasts a No. 5-ranked volleyball team and successful baseball and softball programs, while basketball players compete in the modern Lifetime Activities Center, far removed from the high school gyms of the past.

And while she still campaigns for the credibility of community colleges and junior college athletics, Carr finds satisfaction in the Bruins' winning a national title their own way. "We're not a win-at-all-costs place," said Norm Parrish, SLCC's men's basketball coach for 18 years. "That's kind of her theory."

The result is a blending of sports and scholarship at the school, reflecting Carr's impact. "She knows what she wants and what athletics can do for an institution," said SLCC Vice President Deneece Huftalin, who in various roles on campus has seen Carr's style evolve.

Citing "a little bit of a rough edge," Huftalin added, "As a friend, I've watched her lighten up and show other dimensions. ... She always had her guard up a little bit. She was waiting for people to say she couldn't do it. Eventually, they figure out her passion is so endearing that they get on board with her."

After his long association with Carr, Parrish likes to say, "If you're going to battle with her, you'd better have your army lined up."

Carr's battles are fewer now. Not that the job is easy, amid budget issues and a changing junior college landscape, with former rivals Utah Valley, Dixie State and BYU-Idaho having become four-year schools. But as her career winds down, it is better than ever.

kkragthorpe@sltrib.com