Editor's note: Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale will share a diary with ESPN.com throughout the 2002-03 season.

Dec. 11, 2002

	Coale

On Tuesday, Nov. 26, in an otherwise uneventful shoot-around, our most productive freshman -- our leading 3-point shooter, our basketball savvy guard from Westmoore -- received a pass off of a flare screen, took two dribbles to the baseline, quick-stopped to shoot and landed in a heap on the northeast baseline of the Lloyd Noble Center floor.

If you watch much basketball, you know. You don't have to wait for the regimented thumbs on patella pull down. You don't have to wait for the doctor's decision. You know. There is a way they look. A way they fall. And a way everyone associated with women's basketball feels when it happens.

Erin Higgins was three months released from ACL recovery on her other knee. She'd been in rehab since January after tearing her left ACL during her senior season of high school. She told me in September that sitting on the sidelines had reminded her of how much she loved to play.

That realization is still one of my favorite things about her -- it emanates from her when she's on the court, whether someone's keeping score or she's in the gym by herself. And she had spent hours in the gym alone in her young career. I went up to the office late one night in September and heard a lone ball bouncing in the practice gym. It was Erin, shooting from Mars, relishing the opportunities that awaited her this season.

As I sat there on the floor last Tuesday, holding her hand as she tried to breathe, I ached at the thought of her doing leg lifts and hamstring curls for another six months. Rehab is monotonous at best; horribly painful and monotonous at worst. There seemed at that moment to be no justice in the world.

I told our team at pregame meal that what we had hoped with the half-hearted faith of those who know too much was in vain. Erin was out. I reminded them that the best thing they could do for her was play. Play well, play hard, play with abandon. They had to take advantage of the opportunity that they had; the one which had been taken from her. They sat drippy-eyed and I walked to my car in a fog.

Approximately three hours and 40 seconds later, during the second possession of our Sam Houston State game, (senior) Caton Hill closed out to deny the trailer and crumbled on her deflection. Two players stood between her spot on the floor and mine on the bench, so I didn't actually see her fall. I watched Dionnah Jackson race to the loose ball and score a layup, and tried to deny that out of the corner of my eye I had seen Caton roll over toward the bench and mouth the words, "my knee."

Our trainer helped her off the floor and up the tunnel and you could have heard a pin drop in our arena of 6,000 Sooner faithful. It was all I could do to breathe. The next 38 minutes are a blur to me now. I remember it all in a foreign sort of way. Very little of that 25-point blowout is sharp or clear in my memory, but I will never forget the heaviness of the air.

Undeniable treasures
We refer to Nov. 26 as "Dark Tuesday" now. We laugh about a lot of things connected to it, to keep from crying I suppose. And we press on. We talk about how good next year's team just got and how geriatric Caton will be the senior leader next season of players who were in middle school when she was in high school. And those tough 11 who remain keep battling and learning and getting better every day in a gym where feeling sorry for yourself is not allowed. To everything there is a season and we have no intention of canceling this one.

		I laid on the beach in Hawaii the next day, incredibly proud of our players and pleased with our performance in the tournament. But I knew that the sun and the surf had masked a lot for all of us. The reality of a season on the sideline would strike Erin and Caton when their tans began to fade ....

The Wednesday following "Dark Tuesday" found us on a plane at daybreak headed to Hawaii. While the typical exuberance associated with such a terrific road trip was obviously absent, there are certainly worse places to go even if your bags are heavy. Our first workout in Honolulu was breathtaking. It had a pop we hadn't had all season. Caton actually said, "Where has that been?"

Dionnah took over. She didn't make every shot or pull every rebound but she had a presence about her that seemed to say, "I'm here. Everything is going to be OK." Watching kids transform themselves in that way is one of the undeniable treasures of a job like mine.

Caton and Erin were largely responsible for our bounce that day. They are the lion's share of the reason we sit at 6-2 as I write. Their injuries removed them from the court but not from our identity. They did squat sets on the sidelines in Honolulu while imploring their teammates to rotate on the backside and drop to the depth of the ball. They enjoyed Waikiki Beach and kept us all in constant stitches with a side show that could air on any episode of Saturday Night Live. They did the best thing they could do -- for themselves and for us. They just continued being who they are.

As good as it gets
We beat Fordham in round one. Then we charged toward North Carolina like a squad on a mission. The Tar Heels were big and athletic and talented beyond belief, and we were undermanned. But we took the floor fueled by emotion, and at times, we played better than we were. We made every play we had to make. Hit every shot we had to hit. And we laughed and cheered and spent ourselves in the catharsis of competition.

That 40 minutes on the floor of the Wahine Classic was one of my most enjoyable games ever as a coach. We scratched and clawed and uglied our way into an upset of the No. 11 team in the country and a spot in Sunday's championship game against Connecticut. That night is about as good as it gets.

Opportunity to grow stronger
We labored valiantly in the championship against UConn, re-entering the locker room at halftime down only two. In typical Connecticut fashion, however, the Huskies stormed out of the locker room and promptly outscored us 15-1. When Diana Tarausi wants to take over a game, there is not much anyone can do about it.

	Sherri Coale, with LaNeishea Caufield, led OU to the best Big 12 season in history in 2001-02.

We went 5-for-27 from the field in the second half, and though our effort was consistently there, we ran smack into the wall. We were just depleted -- physically, mentally, and emotionally. With 6:27 remaining in the game it hit me, too. I just began to mourn. It washed over me like a tidal wave and I was angry and sad and confused and exhausted. I searched for something to tell my players that could keep them from feeling like me.

I laid on the beach in Hawaii the next day, incredibly proud of our players and pleased with our performance in the tournament. But I knew that the sun and the surf had masked a lot for all of us. The reality of a season on the sideline would strike Erin and Caton when their tans began to fade and they returned to the pattern of their lives as student-athletes. The collective responsibilities accepted by all of our players would somehow seem larger and heavier in the climate we were accustomed to as well. We had weathered an enormous storm with courage and grace and I was proud of our team, but at the same time cautiously protective of them as a rough road lay ahead.

Hemingway once said, "Life breaks us all and we grow stronger in the broken places." I've had a really easy, really blessed life. And yet, I know that to be true. I know it from my own experiences, trivial though they may be; and I know it from witnessing the phenomenal events of our nation over the past decade. I watched Oklahoma respond to the unthinkable act of April 19, 1995, with kindness and compassion and immeasurable courage. I live among a people who are better and stronger and wiser and happier than we were before Timothy McVeigh and the madness.

I have watched this incredible country in which we live react and recover from the greatest act of terrorism ever on American soil and in so doing make Mr. Hemingway a prophet. Basketball is a little, tiny thing. A blip on the radar screen of a bunch of stuff that's real important. A knee injury doesn't compare to a building being blown up or a daddy never coming home from work. But it gives us opportunity to grow stronger just the same.

For more on coach Coale and the Sooners, visit Oklahoma's official athletic site.