Coaching job still vacant

Cal State Long Beach Director of Athletics Dave O'Brien may soon be talking about the one that got away.

Although he recently had occasion to sharpen his bargaining skills during negotiations that kept coaches Brian Gimmillaro and Seth Greenberg at CSULB, O'Brien met his match Monday morning when he was unable to convince a candidate for a coaching position to take the job.

University of Maine women's basketball coach Joanne PalomboMcCallie decided to stay on with the Black Bears, declining an opportunity to fill the vacant women's basketball coach position at CSULB. Maine officials reportedly agreed to enhance both PalomboMcCallie' s salary and funding for the Maine women's basketball program.

"If anything, the entire state of Maine now knows about Long Beach State and the need to get with the '90s and gender equity," O'Brien said.

Palombo-McCallie and her husband flew to Southern California Thursday evening and toured the campus and met with CSULB officials on April 14. They were scheduled to meet with President Robert Maxson the next afternoon but returned home to Maine Saturday morning.

"When she left she indicated she was very interested in coming here," O'Brien explained. "But the amount of publicity and external support that was generated back home convinced her to stay at Maine."

CSULB offered a $72,000 base contract with incentives that could bring to a total package of $110,000. Those incentives include on-court success, attendance and student-athlete academic performances.

Palombo-McCallie, currently receives $48,400 from the University of Maine but that package is expected to be improved significantly.

Palombo-McCallie, 30, just finished her third season at Maine where she is 53-33 as head coach. After going 9-20 in her first season, Palombo-McCallie's teams went 20-7 and in 1994 were 24- 6. Previously, she had been an assistant at Auburn University for four years.

Another feather in Palombo-McCallie's hat was the attendance figures for the women's team at Maine. In three years, attendance soared from only 900 a game to over 3,600 this season.

O'Brien said a decision could be made within the next two weeks . He said that there are four candidates under consideration to replace Glenn McDonald, who was re-assigned within the athletic department at the end of last season.