Editor's note: Cheryl Burnett coached Southwest Missouri State to two Final Four appearances and more than 300 wins in 15 seasons before resigning in April 2002.

At Centralia High School in Missouri in 1973, we wore hand-me-down jerseys from the boys team and had a six-game season. At college, 20 of my University of Kansas teammates and I crammed into an 18-passenger van as our coaches drove all night to our game. Later, when I first coached at the college level, we were lucky if more than a hundred fans showed up to watch Southwest Missouri State play.

	Cheryl Burnett was the first woman awarded an athletic scholarship at Kansas.

But oh how the times have changed! SMS, which led the nation in attendance in 1993, averaged nearly 8,500 fans a game in 2001, and colleges around the country, especially Connecticut and Tennessee, sell out games throughout the season.

But as women's college basketball, and the national attention it receives, have changed dramatically over the past few decades, so has coaching the sport. While resources that support the women's game have improved, recruiting is much more limited. Marketing and promotion of women's college basketball, higher visibility and even technological advances such as e-mail also have changed the scope of our jobs.

As ESPN.com salutes the best coaches in the game, we also pause to take a look at how coaching has changed over the years.

Recruiting
Years ago, when you'd talk to the parents of a potential recruit, their first question was what my school had to offer their daughter academically.

Now, many parents' first two questions often are, "How many times will my daughter play on national TV?" and, "How are you going to help my daughter get to the WNBA?"

So as women's college basketball has emerged as a big business, the sport has seen some good and bad effects.

The biggest changes in recruiting are the increased exposure and numerous opportunities athletes have to showcase their talents. Despite the dozens of camps for the athletes to participate in, however, it has also become increasingly difficult to outwork other institutions and coaches because of the limitations of the recruiting guidelines.

Under NCAA rules, major colleges first have contact with a player typically by letter her junior year of high school. In the past, you could watch a recruit play as much as you wanted and whenever you wanted, and talk to her in person or call her on the phone as often as you liked. There was once a player who ended up at Southwest Missouri State that I'd seen play about 25 times. NCAA rules now limit us to five total visits, which includes watching them play, in-home visits, and essentially any face-to-face contact. Coaches are allowed to call athletes once a week; keep in mind, though, that faxes and e-mails are considered mail and instant messaging is considered as a phone call.

In the past, you could watch a recruit play as much as you wanted and talk to her in person or call her on the phone as often as you liked. There was a player who ended up at SMS that I'd seen play about 25 times.

The rules are in place to protect the great, blue-chip players, but they sometimes are a disadvantage to the "good" player. We used to be able to contact freshmen, and over the course of their high school careers, we'd develop a long-term relationship with them and their families. Over those four years, they'd find out all about the program, get to know the coach as a person and see what we represent. Now, by the time prospective student-athletes are getting calls as juniors, all they know is what they see on TV. The teams who play on national television, or whose men's programs also are high-profile teams, have an advantage.

In essence, the rules have created an atmosphere where the players and families don't always have as much data to make informed decisions as they used to. They don't know everything they should about the institutions they commit to, and perhaps that's why we're seeing some transfers these days.

While accessibility to the athletes seems limited in the recruiting process, the players themselves have more opportunities to play than ever. Long ago, AAU was the best opportunity for players to be nationally recognized. A lot of great players who should have been subject to some major recruiting battles slipped through the cracks.

Now, there are dozens of elite competitions to play in every summer that are guaranteed to attract college coaches, from AAU tournaments to Nike and adidas camps. The shoe-company camps attempt to bring in the truly elite kids, with 250-plus players attending the adidas camp and the top 100 recruits participating in the Nike camp in Indianapolis.

When I was a high schooler, there was only one summer camp in the entire state of Missouri. Now, every university has a camp, and several WNBA players and even some ex-great college players are running their own camps. At SMS, we not only took pride in our summer camps to help players define their skill, which we felt was an important part of the progression of the sport, but we also knew it was the best window into our university and basketball program for recruits, their families and high school coaches.

So the opportunities have greatly improved. The only downside is burnout -- the year-round playing can have a negative effect on some players by the time they reach high school. But the really gifted player now has the opportunity to play 12 months of the year and to get exposed to some great coaching. And that usually translates into some big-time recruits.

The players
Our coaching staff at SMS always looked for that player who loved being in the gym before and after everyone else was gone, the player who played just for the love of the game.

The student-athletes of today, however, can also be the town hero filling the local sports pages with their stories, play on national television, get their education paid for through an athletic scholarship, and have a profession as a women's basketball player before they use their academic degree. That is bound to change the socialization of why girls and women play college basketball, and it does make today's athletes different than in the past.

One of the most visibly noticeable differences in the high school and college women's basketball player is physical. The year-round strength and conditioning programs that high school players can now participate in are light years ahead of when I first became head coach. Back then, in 1987, most college and high school programs were just beginning to implement programs, and many high school players entered college without ever lifting a weight. Players now come to college stronger, faster, and more experienced in understanding the benefits of conditioning programs.

Resources
When I was first hired at SMS, I had one assistant coach. That was it. No secretary. No team manager. No weight coach. In fact, we didn't have much of anything and pretty much had to do everything ourselves, from designing the team's weight lifting regimen to recruiting.

We worked around the clock, seven days a week and until midnight every day. The only time I wasn't working was when I was at church on Sunday.

When I was first hired at SMS, I had one assistant coach. That was it. No secretary. No team manager. No weight coach. We pretty much had to do everything ourselves. We worked around the clock, seven days a week and until midnight every day. The only time I wasn't working was when I was at church on Sunday.

A lot of my time was spent on administrative tasks. The athletic department employed one secretary for the entire women's sports programs, so we had to type and mail every letter that had to be sent.

The demands of recruiting were one of the toughest things for a small staff to juggle. Back then, you could go watch potential recruits play dozens of times, and you had to find time to squeeze in all those games, let alone phone calls to the recruits.

But all that has changed. Nowadays, programs have three full-time assistants and a restricted earnings coach (can do everything but on-court coaching), and some programs also employ an administrative assistant. Each team has an athletic trainer and sports information director (handles all media needs, from setting up interviews to releasing recaps and box scores) specifically assigned to women's basketball. Also, many head coaches have their own secretaries, and the athletic department's marketing and promotions department and weight coach give equal attention to the school's women's basketball players. Most major schools also have team psychologists and nutrionists available.

Many major programs have also seen big changes in transportation. Remember the 18-passenger van with 20 people? Someone always had to sit on the console in between the two bucket seats up front, with our luggage loaded on top. We'd cram into those vans, and our coaches would drive all night to faraway destinations such as Old Dominion in Virginia, or Immaculata in Pennsylvania. Of course, at the time, we didn't complain. We were just grateful for the opportunity to play, especially against such great programs.

Again, that has all changed. Some programs, especially the ones that generate money for their university, charter planes to travel to away games while others use commercial airlines. Plush buses with VCR or DVD players are used instead of old, rusty vans that often broke down.

Long road trips by bus are now replaced by quick flights. At SMS, for example, a short flight put an end to our nine-hour drive to Northern Iowa. We felt like we'd just won the lottery the first time we got to fly there and fly home.

Visibility
For many years, we struggled just to get the local paper to run our box score. Now, you can turn on TV and see your team featured on the local news, and get women's Top 25 scores every day and catch an occasional highlight on ESPN.

Coaches work in a much hotter spotlight. Beat writers follow our every move and press conferences capture every word in print.

As a result, and because so many of us have our own radio and TV shows these days, coaches work in a much hotter spotlight. Beat writers follow our every move and press conferences capture every word in print. In Springfield, Mo., women's basketball is discussed over morning coffee and afternoon radio shows.

For years, women's basketball has fought for comparable coverage, but quite honestly, SMS almost had too much media coverage locally during the Final Four runs. Players had a hard time going to the mall or to the local Wal-Mart because of all of the autograph requests. To go from trying to get your score in the paper to rock-star status is a bit overwhelming, especially because it happened in such a short time, but we of course appreciated every fan.

Technology
Technology has also changed the face of coaching, especially in terms of recruiting and scouting. Cellular telephones, computers with capabilities to e-mail, scan and instant message, and satellite television are allowing coaches to stay on the 'cutting edge' of technology.

Before game tapes existed, coaches had to physically be present to evaluate a player. You had to travel to small towns and sometimes to places you'd never heard of just to get a glimpse of the recruit.

Of course, technological advances also have added a lot of work. After our Final Four appearance in 2001, potential recruits flooded e-mail boxes and sent game tapes. Sifting through it all and following up on every lead was time-consuming, but worth it.

Lastly, it's also very convenient to turn on your computer and find scores for any team in the country, and to be able to access any team's official athletic site, which provide up-to-date stats, scouting information and live radio broadcasts.

Attendance
Women's basketball is now considered a revenue sport by most athletic departments. And the potential to increase revenue streams by increasing fan support is now a priority for many of them.

	Jackie Stiles of SMS cemented her place in history books during her senior year when she became the NCAA's all-time leading scorer.

Attendance and fan support are a crucial part of recruiting. There's nothing better than bringing in a recruit to a packed house, and I'm convinced that's one of the reasons Jackie Stiles came to SMS. When she came on her official visit, we were playing Drake, and Hammons Student Center was absolutely full. The environment was incredible and electrifying. High school athletes can't help but get excited at the thought of playing in front of that sort of crowd day in and day out.

SMS led the nation in attendance during the 1992-93 season, but early on we never sold out games. In fact, during my first year in Springfield, Mo., we drew about 900 hundred fans. Hammons has two courts at the end of the main arena, and during our games, the student recreation center remained open. Sometimes they were playing intramural games alongside us. Long, blue curtains that hung down from the ceiling separated the two courts and closed off the upper bowl of the arena, but you could still hear them playing up there.

That all changed one very memorable day during our 1990-91 season. The crowd was as noisy and energetic as ever as the pre-game introductions got under way, but a slow, unfamiliar hum began to reverberate throughout the arena. And then slowly, the blue curtains began to rise. For the first time, the lower bowl wouldn't accommodate all the fans. They needed extra seating, and so the blue curtain went up.

That was a ground-breaking day for our program. We started selling season tickets shortly after.

Marketing and promotion
When I first arrived at Southwest Missouri State, it was clear we needed to do more to promote the game. Eventually, a group of local, influential women formed the Fastbreak Club, a volunteer group that dedicated itself to market the game we loved.

We embraced the Chicago Cubs' philosophy to win over young fans. Our motto soon became "Get 'em young and they'll live and die as Lady Bear fans."

These women went to CEOs and company vice presidents, begging them to come to our games. We brought in Texas coach Jody Condradt to help jumpstart our efforts. She had recently led the Longhorns to the national title and Texas had been bringing in a lot of fans for years, and we figured she'd be one of the best people to help show us how it was done.

The Fastbreak Club came up with many promotions, some unique and some borrowed. We embraced the Chicago Cubs' philosophy to win over young fans, and our motto soon became "Get 'em young and they'll live and die as Lady Bear fans." We invited elementary school students and Girl Scouts to attend the games for free, knowing that their parents would have to buy a ticket to take them. The Elementary School Day promotion was a huge success, and we always drew more than 6,000 fans for those games.

In the early 1990s, we decided to sell season tickets, and by coincidence, one of our first home games that year was also an Elementary School Day. The arena was packed, and space was tight. Most people had to head up toward the bleachers. But as tipoff neared, the new season-ticket holders waltzed in and sat down in their empty, reserved premium seats.

Other fans immediately grew jealous and wanted to know how that was possible, and it wasn't long before they said goodbye to the bleachers and became season-ticket holders themselves.

Eventually, other major colleges were calling us for advice on marketing, and trying to model their efforts after the Fastbreak Club. Over time, the university took over our promotions and marketing campaigns. At SMS, women's basketball became the top corporate sponsorship and advertising sell.

The marketing demands require the coach to be a constant salesperson for the program. And the players are asked to get out and meet the community, too. We put a premium on that, hoping the fans would get to know our student-athletes and their unique personalities.

Because that's what this really is all about -- the players. Working with them, and seeing them grow and mature and benefit from all the progress and change, is the thing that keeps most of us coaches going.