After only one day at the Final Four, you get sick of hearing coachspeak. Summitt, Auriemma, Izzo, Krzyzewski, Olson, Williams -- even some casual sports fans would recognize these kings and queens of the sound bite.

Maybe we should be more grateful. There's a coach visiting St. Louis for the weekend who would give anything to have her own players recognize her voice. Debbie Ayers, a former coach at Cal State Northridge, has spent the last four years coaching high school girls at the California School for the Deaf.

Ayers resigned from Northridge after four mediocre years. She always had an interest in working with high school students with disabilities, even though she never knew anyone who was deaf and didn't know sign language. She showed up at the Fremont school in '97 with impressive credentials, including a turn as a graduate assistant under Pat Summitt. She got the job with no idea what she was in for.

Cheerleaders at the school literally went through the motions without making a sound. Fans clapped and hopped around, but never chanted or sang. And players did not want someone from "the hearing world" telling them what to do. "They don't allow many non-deaf people in their world," says Ayers. "It wasn't just a coaching challenge. It was a culture challenge."

But Ayers adjusted. At first, she had to mouth her words to partially deaf players, who would then sign instructions to the rest of the team. She had to wave her arms to stop a drill in practice instead of using a whistle. She had to stomp a foot on the floor during games to get players' attention -- they would feel the vibration under their feet and know to look over at Ayers. She had to teach them how to warn each other about screens, since yelling "Help!" was not an option.

But four years later, Ayers is fluent in sign language and the team is coming off a 15-win season -- its best ever. At the year-end banquet, Ayers dissolved into tears when thanking her seniors. She told them that even though they have come such a long way, she herself has changed the most. "I never wanted to get out of big-time coaching," Ayers says. "But this is an experience I'd never trade."