Coach eager to lead women’s track team into London

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Amy Deem will not win a single medal at the London Olympics, certainly won’t be breaking any world records and, if she has her way, will generate no attention whatsoever.

Fat chance of that, given what she’s taken on.

Miami’s longtime track coach, whose office walls and shelves are loaded with some of the trophies and plaques she’s helped the Hurricanes win over the past 21 years, has what will likely be a once-in-a-lifetime side job: She’s USA Track and Field’s women’s head coach for the 2012 Olympics. Her selection was formally announced in February and she has been consumed by the challenge ever since, especially this week with the national championships taking place in Eugene, Ore.

A kid from West Virginia whose competitive career was cut short by a bad knee is going to lead the red, white and blue onto the sport’s biggest stage.

And when presented with the story in those terms, even she can find it a bit overwhelming.

“It’s not about me,” Deem said. “When I get on that plane to come home, I want to feel like I did everything possible for the success of the U.S. team. Whatever I can do to help ... us to get the medals and bring home the medals, for me, that’s what it’s about. It’s not about me. Obviously, I’m representing the United States and I want to make them proud.”

Deem has been a part of USATF programs since the late 1990s, and her resume on the collegiate level simply sparkles. Miami’s track program was fledgling at best before she came along — almost by accident, she explains — and took over. She’s had at least one All-American in every season with the Hurricanes, and has quietly built the program into a fixture among the NCAA’s elite.

There will be nothing quiet about how the U.S. women fare next summer, not with the eyes of the world watching.

“I think it is really cool that she never really wants any kudos or recognition for what she’s accomplished,” said U.S. Olympic sprinter Lauryn Williams, a Miami alumna who still has Deem as her personal coach. “But I think that’s what makes any person good at their jobs. If you really love what you do, you’re not doing it for money. You’re not doing it for recognition. You’re doing it for the sheer fact that you love it and you want to make a difference in someone’s life.”

That’s why the Hurricanes say they’re fortunate to have kept Deem so long.

Turns out, Miami was lucky to get her in the first place.

Deem graduated from Ohio University — her career ended there after two surgeries on her right knee — and was studying for her master’s degree in sports administration. A friend who helped with her knee rehabilitation at Ohio had taken a job at Miami, so Deem drove down for a visit over spring break and wound up landing an internship for later that year. She watched a Miami-LSU football game on television on the night of Nov. 19, 1988, the Hurricanes won 44-3, and she was so excited by the outcome that she loaded up her car late that Saturday night and started the 1,100-mile drive to Coral Gables.

“I never left,” she said.

She interned with Miami’s compliance office, also finding a role as an assistant track coach. Faced with a decision on her future in 1990, the job of head women’s track coach for the Hurricanes just happened to open. Deem was hired that summer, and the Hurricanes have been rising ever since.

She’s had offers to leave, plenty of which would have paid more money. Miami had become home, so she stayed, and in 2008 the Hurricanes made her director of track and field and cross country — for men and women — meaning she is one of just a half-dozen or so women to oversee a men’s Division I running program.

“I have a world-class track coach,” Miami President Donna Shalala said. “We’re very excited and very proud of Amy. She’s just an extraordinary coach and everybody tries to steal her away, every time.”

They try, and they fail.

Even now, with the Olympics a year away, Deem says she isn’t letting her work at Miami get pushed aside by her work for the U.S. team, or vice versa. Miami typically lands some of the nation’s top high schoolers every year anyway, but the prestige of Deem’s role leading the Olympic team seems like an added boost for the Hurricanes. In short, Miami is already reaping benefits before the first medal is even awarded.

“Obviously, in recruiting, you need every advantage that you can get,” Deem said. “Recruiting, like anything, is cyclical. Believe it or not, my peer coaches also say, ‘Well, she doesn’t have time for you. She’s too busy with the Olympics.’ It’s like anything in life. You go, you sell your university, you sell your program and you let the chips fall.”

This isn’t her first time in the pressure-cooker that is leading the U.S. team.

Deem was the head women’s coach for the Americans at the 2007 world championships in Osaka, Japan — and although the world isn’t tuned in for those meets like they are for an Olympics, to the athletes themselves, a world meet is just as big a deal as the once-every-four-years event. She’s worked with the junior national team, Pan American Games teams, and it’s all pointed to what looms next summer in London.

“I didn’t know I could be an Olympian until I got to the University of Miami,” Williams said. “She got me there.”

Deem got herself there as well.

The process of becoming the national coach, which included clearance by both USA Track and Field and the U.S. Olympic Committee, was lengthy. (“I’ve done more background checks in the last five years than people do in their whole lives,” Deem says.) She was the choice of the athletes’ advisory committee as well, which meant as much to her as the formal nomination itself.

Rarely does she take vacations. When the Hurricanes were off one weekend this spring, she jumped on a plane and headed to Puerto Rico for a meet with Williams. There’s no timeshare, no summer house, and she says that doesn’t bother her at all.

Especially now.

“For a lot of athletes, the Olympic Games is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Deem said. “We’ll be fortunate that we’ll probably have a very veteran squad next year. But we want to make it the best possible situation we can for the athletes. And, again, it’s not about me. It’s very overwhelming. I’m so excited about it. When they announced it, it was like 18 months away. It’s coming fast. But it’ll be over before I know it. So I want to do the best I can.”