ATHENS — Danna Durante got to feel what it was like to be the Georgia gymnastics coach for about half a day this week. She and her husband, Joe Durante, flew in from California on Tuesday night, spent all day Wednesday looking at houses in Athens and Oconee County, met with her new staff for an hour or so Thursday morning, handled some media obligations in the middle of the day, then flew back to Berkeley, Calif.
If that sounds like a whirlwind day, multiply it by two weeks and you’ll get an idea what Durante’s life has been like since UGA executive associate athletic director Carla Williams called her and told her the Bulldogs wanted to talk to her about their job opening.
Durante filled it, and a couple of cross-country excursions and a six-year, $1.225 million deal later, the 39-year-old has to wonder what she got herself into.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Durante talked about the transition to Athens and insisted she is up for the job and is anything but intimidated by it.
Q: So what have the last two weeks of your life been like?
A: Obviously they've been emotional. Certainly it's been exciting. We did just move last year [from Nebraska], and so that was a challenge to break that news to my children again. [She has three children: daughter Samantha, 12; and sons Jaxson, 10, and Jordan, 9.] We're really not the moving type; we want to stay put. We were in Lincoln for nine years, and we really saw ourselves staying there forever. But becoming a head coach became something I wanted to pursue, and we knew that meant possibly moving.
Q: What are your impressions of Athens so far?
A: The exciting part of moving to Athens and to this community is we're in a small town again. That's very comfortable for us. It's much more of the environment my husband and I enjoy raising our children in. So that, for us, is exciting. We can afford to buy a home here. To be able to come here and put down some roots and to have a yard for our children to be able to play and those types of things are really exciting for us, and we were able to share that with our kids.
Q: What can you tell us about your husband Joe?
A: He's a software engineer for a company out of Lincoln, Neb. We were blessed for him to be able to take that work and bring it with him to California, so he'll bring it here as well. He's not somebody to sit around. He wants to work and to coach, so I imagine he'll get involved coaching soccer or something somewhere. He stays very busy with the kids and likes to have his hand in a lot of different things.
Q: What do you think will be the biggest difference in coaching Cal and Georgia?
A: We had a great program at Cal, but this is just a different level. It's evident that there are 10 national titles here and a great history and tradition. But I realize that it was built from a lot of work and that lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into that. The titles and the All-Americans and all the honors are a result of that. So we have to continue the hard work.
Q: What adjustments will you have to make?
A: I think the media coverage for me is something I'm going to have to get used to. I'll do the interviews and whatever is asked of me, but I'm not going to get caught up in what's written and how it's written. ... I know I'm going to have critics. I get it and that's fine. But if I worry about that, I'm not going to be able to do my job. ... Running the program, meeting with the staff, gymnastics is gymnastics and these kids come here to win. They come here because they love what this opportunity provides for them. So I'm just going to make sure I keep my nose pointed forward and do my job and the rest will take care of itself.
Q: Do you have concerns about working where a pretty successful coach by most standards was just let go?
A: There aren't concerns necessarily. I feel like I was brought in to do a job. It's not that [former coach] Jay [Clark] wasn't doing that well; they had a great deal of success for three years. ... I just think they wanted to go in a new direction and obviously they're excited about what they feel I can provide. Again, I'll just keep my eyes forward and worry about working. If I let those other things concern me and focus on them, it's going to make it difficult on me to do what they [athletic director] Greg [McGarity] brought me in here to do.
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