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

Jan. 27, 2003

	Coale

When my kids were babies I can remember simultaneously asking God to not let them grow up so fast and hurry up and make them sleep through the night.

Motherhood makes you crazy, but it's the best. Little ones test your nerve and challenge your intellect. They frustrate you to the point of madness because they have absolutely no idea how to ask for what they want or even what they need. They're unpredictable and they're messy and they vacillate between making you so proud your buttons pop off and embarrassing you so completely that you'd like nothing better than to disappear in your own skin. They suck the very life out of you and yet each day is an adventure you couldn't plan for and you wouldn't want to miss. It's obvious that God knew exactly what he was doing when he made children grow so fast. Most mothers are superhuman, but no one could keep that up forever.

Having a young team is a lot like having young children. They require great, great attention and a degree of patience that arrives just in time for you to use it when you absolutely need it the most. They spend the vast majority of the time confused and mostly what you see when you look at them is a mess. But they don't stay that way forever. Young teams grow up just like my kids. (Thank Goodness!) Our staff celebrates a perfectly executed extra pass the way our family celebrated my son's first steps. And the day Chelsi slid over to take a charge and Maria dropped to the depth of the ball to help the helper, we ran around the gym like my husband and I did the day our firstborn first pooped in the potty. The little things are the big things and if you're not really, really careful you can miss the best stuff wishing for an easier day. The big, fat full moon over Norman last week reminded me to see it all.

Our players are learning to work at a certain pace and they're learning why they need to do certain things at certain times and they're getting better every single day. But shedding old habits and fitting into new skin is never easy and for the longest time uncomfortable is your life. I remember (like it was yesterday) watching Phylesha Whaley figure out that it was not only OK for a freshman to lead, but that sometimes it was essential. We had a young team back in Whaley's day -- a young team that was trying to learn how to be something they hadn't ever seen. Phylesha stepped out across the proverbial line in the sand and said, "Follow me. I'm going to the Promised Land." She was our Moses even when most of those around her didn't realize they were in the wilderness. She figured it out and had the guts to walk the walk and never look back.

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

I see a little of Phylesha, on the back side of the line, in a bunch of our players right now. The similarities between then and now are occasionally uncanny. When the winds blow and the storms rage, we all look at each other and wait, just like we used to before Phylesha made her move. I watch us get close and then back away; and I watch us waver in the wind desperately yearning for someone to raise their hand and calm the storm. The day Phylesha did was the day our five-year march to last year's national title game began. And it's a day that I, as her coach, will never forget. When Phylesha took that step, said "Get on my back, I'm going and you're coming with me," she began to grow -- so fast her skin barely fit. Little makes coaches and parents so proud as watching the ones they are responsible for stretch themselves into who they were meant to be.

When my first child was an infant, I used to worry about a lot of things. Particularly when he cried and I had no idea what was wrong. He just ate, so he couldn't be hungry. He just woke up, so he couldn't be tired. He didn't have a fever. He wasn't cold. He wasn't wet. Why was he crying? By the time my second one came around, and she cried when she wasn't cold or wet or hungry or tired, I didn't worry. She was crying because that's what babies do. Sometimes they just cry. And you let them and you all move on.

When I see my young team struggling -- players trying to lead and players trying to follow and most of them doing neither very well -- I am reminded that that's just what they do. They wallow and fidget and hide and cry and eventually they see the line and someone steps over it and we all move on. It's not a whole lot of fun getting there, but getting there together is what cements you in a way little else can. It's why 65-year-old men find their way back to Owen Field to celebrate seasons gone before. And it's why I feel like I feel when I see my college teammates -- my post player who caught every pass I threw to her and my backcourt buddy who was always there to take a charge when I couldn't stay in the front of the ball. We grew together living through the good and the bad and holding one another accountable for not settling for the in between. Any athlete knows that's at the crux of why we play.

I really like our team. And I know that as tired as I am right now, this too shall pass. Just like 3 a.m. feedings and dirty diapers. My young guys won't require such attention forever. They'll learn to ask for what they need and they'll learn to supply it for each other. They'll move about with less confusion, and they'll grow up out there on the floor with each other. I'm thankful that raising children has taught me to enjoy it all. It's the bad, the ugly, the messy, the difficult that makes the good so good. I will feel about this very young team, one day, the way I feel about Des, and Jen and LaNeishea and Talbert and Sunny and Shannon and Roz -- the alumni crew who can be found sitting courtside at almost all of our home games -- and the long list of others who bared their souls inside the lines to have a chance to be their best outside of them. I will be so proud.

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