The Capps File

Hometown: Crandall, Texas
Age: 48
Family: Husband, John, a captain in the Mesquite Fire
Department; daughter, Tiffany, 21, graduated from Texas A&M in December; son, Chad, 18, a freshman football player at Hardin Simmons University.
Education: B.S., M.S.,
Texas A&M-Commerce
High school record: 510-188
Coaching philosophy: "The players don't work for me; I work for them. It's my job to prepare them for battle, to give them every weapon and tool I can so they can be successful."

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A Proven Winner

In October, less than two weeks before the start of practice, Donna Capps left top-ranked Crandall High School to become the seventh head coach of the Lady Mavericks. She had compiled a 510-188 record since taking her first head coaching position at North Mesquite High in 1978. After 12 seasons at NMHS, she served as girls basketball coach and athletic coordinator at Mabank High for a year before moving into the same position at Crandall High, her alma mater. Every team Capps coached since 1980 reached the playoffs.

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Back Where She Started

Geographically, Capps' career has come full circle. Her first job came in 1974 at Arlington's Carter Junior High, where she coached girls basketball, track and volleyball. She then became the assistant basketball coach and head track coach at Bowie High School in Arlington. In her two years at Bowie, she worked alongside a youthful athletic trainer named Pete Carlon. "We were all young and energetic," recalls Carlon, now UTA's athletic director. "I remember that she was dedicated, professional, and an outstanding teacher of the game"

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Skins on the Wall

In 1988, Capps led North Mesquite to a 36-1 record,
losing to Duncanville in the state championship game. Following that season, she was named Coach of the Year by The Dallas Morning News, Dallas Times Herald, Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, Texas Girls Coaches Association and Baden Sports, Inc. The Morning News also named Capps its Coach of the Year in 1983. She served on the board of directors of the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches from 1992 to 1997 and was chairwoman of the Texas Girls Coaches Association in 1988.

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Well-Connected

Coaching legends Jody Conradt of The University of Texas at Austin and Marsha Sharp of Texas Tech recommended Capps for the UTA job. Her reputation, both locally and stateside is paying dividends. "She's opened up more doors in three months in the local high schools than we've opened in the last 10 years," Carlon says. "She can pick up the phone and talk to someone in Brock or Tahoka or Corpus Christi— everybody knows Donna." Capps already has signed five recruits for next season.

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Family First

Prior to accepting the UTA job, Capps had several opportunities to jump to the college ranks. She turned down the head coaching position at East Texas State (now Texas A&M-Commerce) and the top assistant's job at Stephen F. Austin State. "Family was the whole reason," says Capps, whose two children lived at home at the time. She was runner-up for the SMU job in 1991 and a finalist when UTA hired Mike Dean in 1992.

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