By Bradley Dobbs
September 12, 2003

Head Coach Cindy Dayley set foot on the Seattle Mariner’s Safeco Field on
Friday, September 12th with six other women in the Celebrating Women
recognition ceremony sponsored by Team MedicineTM of Virginia Mason
Medical Centers.

The ceremony was created to honor women in the community that have
made impact on the lives of others. Dayley and the other nominees were
recognized in a pre-game ceremony before the Seattle Mariners/Anaheim
Angels game for their community involvement and leadership.

Each nominee was invited down on the field, individually recognized in
front of the mass Mariner crowd, and presented with a beautiful glass
award. Each nominee was also welcomed into the Virginia Mason’s
private suite to watch the game.

“I am very honored to receive this award. It was a huge surprise, and I
had no idea that I had been nominated,” said Dayley. “Winning this
award was a team effort. The success of the Husky Hockey team is not
one person’s effort. It is the efforts of many.”

“Being on the field was a great experience that I will never forget,” said
Dayley about the ceremony. “Virginia Mason treated us wonderfully, and
everyone had a great time at the game.”

Nominated by Assistant Coach Zoë Harris, team physician Dr. Mark Juhn,
and Academic Advisor Jason Boyd; all call on Dayley’s success with the
team over the past five years, and how she has worked tirelessly in the
sport of ice hockey. On top of all of this, Dayley volunteers her time. She
does not receive payment for the countless hours she donates to run the
program, and to coach and mentor the young men of the Husky Hockey
Team.

Boyd thinks very highly of Dayley, and sees her as a possible bridge to
equality regarding gender issues in hockey, and sports in general.

“…Women are not always treated as they should be; for women to be
coaching men's sports, well, the barriers are huge. Yet, here she is,
having built a tremendous program, gaining respect, knocking down
boundaries for other women in sports,” says Boyd. “Many will look back
to Cindy Dayley as the one who not only took a place at the table, but
one who showed everyone else how to succeed with class, and one who
helped make it possible for others to break down prejudicial barriers in
sports.”

“Coach and I do not feel like pioneers. We feel like coaches working with
players, and players working with coaches,” said Harris. “Gender
disappears because we all have a job to do and we do it. Gender is not
what we are thinking about when we work with the team. Whether or
not we are setting the groundwork for future women to coach men, who
knows, however, it is not the reason we do this. We are here to be
involved in the sport we love, which means coaching players, and they
just happen to be male. At the end of the day, we look at what we did
right on the ice, and what we need to improve on to reach our team
goals. Just like any coach.”

Dr. Juhn sees how large the time commitment is and how hard this would
be for someone that is not receiving payment for coaching. However,
Dayley continues to volunteer, no matter what the hurdle or challenge.

“I have seen Cindy so exhausted from her full time job, then having to
dedicate herself to the volunteer work she does with UW Ice Hockey. No
matter what anyone says, ice hockey takes something more than most
other sports or volunteer work,” says Juhn. “How many sports or jobs
out there involve practices twice a week at the midnight hour?
Not many. Few people would do it for pay, let alone volunteer.”

Dayley has compiled an 87-31-1 record with the Huskies in the first five
years. Her best season was in 2001-2002, when the team went 27-0 in
the regular season, and she was named the 2002 PAC8 Conference and
American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) DII West Region Coach of
the Year. She directed the team to three Athletic Awards I-5 Club
Championship titles, one Intercollegiate PAC8 Collegiate Hockey
Association (PAC8) regular season 1st place finish (2001-2002), two 2nd
place finishes, and two PAC8 Championship Tournament 2nd place
finishes, and one 4th place finish. Among 30 teams, Dayley marched the
team up the ACHA West Regional ranking from off the charts into single
digits.

Coach Dayley works for Washington Mutual as a Project Analyst in the
Credit Planning and Development Department. She volunteers
year-round for the Husky Hockey team, donating between 5 and 30
hours a week coaching, recruiting, scheduling, and managing the non-
profit, non-varsity team.

The other nominees of the Virginia Mason honor were Marlys Davis, one
of the pioneers in setting up the 911-telephone system in the Seattle
area. Jan Colby is a kindergarten teacher of over 25 years on Bainbridge
Island. Marilyn Scott is a tribal leader that fights for health related issues
dealing with Native Americans. Fayelynn Hollenbaugh is involved in
working overseas with the underprivileged and setting up shelters. Susie
Teeters is fighting colon cancer and has not been to a Mariners game
until last Friday.

The season opener for the Huskies is against Central Washington
University on Friday, October 10th at 9:45pm at Olympicview Arena in
Mountlake Terrace.