North Carolina State University Athletics
A Coach's First Season: Feature Story Part three
4/9/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
The Red & White for Life blog is the official blog of the NC State Alumni Association.
When she accepted the women’s basketball coaching job at NC State, Kellie Harper knew she was following in the footsteps of a legend and taking over a team that was hurting. Would she—and the team—be up for what it would take to move forward?
by cherry crayton ’01, ’03 med
Part Three of Three
All week redshirt junior Amber White has thought, “We can’t lose this game.” It’s Feb. 14, and it’s Hoops 4 Hope, an event that Yow created five years ago to raise awareness for breast cancer. The showcase: NC State—in pink jerseys, pink socks and pink shoes—versus Miami, in Reynolds Coliseum, for a nationally-televised game. Coming off their worst loss of the season, 70–39 to No. 7 Duke, the Wolfpack stand 13–11 overall and 3–6 in the ACC. They need to win to have a chance at post season play. Even more so, White says, they want to make Yow proud.
White scores 10 of her 13 points in the first half to help NC State cut into an early 12-point deficit and go into halftime trailing 35–29. And even as the Pack trail Miami 48–40 with 13:45 left, Harper sees fire in the players’ eyes. “They did not want to lose this game, for so many reasons,” she says.
Junior Brittany Strachan hits a three-pointer. Kastanek adds another one. Sophomore Bonae Holston makes several baskets. Beal scores all six of her points in a two-minute span. And Gartrell nails a short jumper with 1:52 left to tie the score at 64–64.
White drives the lane and puts up a floater. Kastanek, on the opposite side, hears assistant coach Richard Barron yell, “Go rebound!” She darts to the paint, grabs the ball in midair, and without landing, puts the shot back up. Good! NC State up 66–64 with 1:05 left.
The Pack foul, sending a Miami player to the line for a one-and-one free throw with 51 seconds left. Most of the announced crowd of 6,450 stand to cheer, hoping to distract the free-throw shooter. “Wow,” White thinks, “there are so many people here . . . and to support this cause is amazing.” Harper thinks, “I’ve never heard [Reynolds] this loud.”
The player misses. Kastanek grabs the rebound. The Pack commit a turnover. Miami runs the clock down to about nine seconds and calls a timeout. Harper asks her players what defense they would be most comfortable playing in the final seconds. NC State comes out in a man-to-man. Miami misses a contested shot, and White grabs the defensive rebound. The buzzer sounds. NC State 66, Miami 64. After the game, the team huddles at center court. They clap their hands three times and yell, “Together!”
In January 2010, a year after Yow’s death, Harper brought her entire staff together for a meeting. She wanted to pay tribute to Yow, and she asked for their ideas. The result: On Feb. 14, during the Miami game, nearly 40 former Wolfpack players unveiled three banners hung in the rafters of Reynolds. The banner in the middle includes an image of Yow and her years of service to NC State (1975–2009); the two side banners recognize her 2002 induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and her number of career victories (737). “Kay Yow is and will always be a legend,” Harper says.
Among the former players in attendance that day was Debbie Mulligan Antonelli ’86, a basketball analyst for ESPN and Fox Sports Net and a three-year starter under Yow. “I think Coach Yow would have been proud,” Antonelli says. “But she’s still here.” At halftime of every game, for example, White echoes one of Yow’s expressions: “When you get down, don’t give up. When you get ahead, don’t let up.” And Antonelli points to the Pack’s play to defeat Miami. “Resiliency. Coming back. Fighting to the end,” she says. “That’s Coach Yow. And that’s how she would define this team.”
The Pack entered the season picked to finish ninth in the ACC. During one stretch of league play, they lost six of ninegames. Then, despite losing key reserve and post player Tia Bell to a knee injury, they won four of five games to finish the regular season 17–12 and tied for fifth in the ACC with a 7–7 league record. As the sixth seed in the ACC Women’s Tournament, they won three games in three days to advance to the championship. Though they fell 70–60 to Duke in the title game, they put themselves in position to earn their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2007, when the seniors were freshmen and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. Kastanek, whom Harper says represents “what I want this program to be about—that heart, that hustle and that desire”—was also named the ACC Freshman of the Year. “It’s a long season, and a lot of times a team will hit a wall. At that point they can bounce back or stay down,” Harper says. “[The players] kept fighting. Most of them have been through a lot these past few years, but they have shown resiliency.”
Harper once met Yow. When she was at Western, she and the Catamounts came to Reynolds in December 2007 for a game against NC State. Before the game, which NC State won 72–53, Harper shook Yow’s hand near mid court and told her, “It’s an honor to play you here.”
“There was such a feel about [Yow] when she stepped onto the court—her court,” Harper says.
Now this is Harper’s program and her home court is Kay Yow Court. When she first met with the NC State players, she told them that she had big shoes to fill, and as much as she would like to be Kay Yow, she couldn’t be her. “The best person I can be is me,” she told them. “I have to be me, and in my opinion, that’s the best way I can honor her.”
Being Kellie Harper means being a winner. So at NC State, she envisions coaching tough, winning teams that contend for championships. “I think we could be competing for championships in three or four years,” she says. “Does that mean we won’t win before then? No. . . . You’ll never win if you don’t expect to win every time you take the court.” Did the players buy into that mindset? “She’s won three national championships,” Gartrell says. “How can you not?”
In November, Harper walked into the locker room before a practice as the players were watching A Cinderella Season, an HBO-produced documentary that followed the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team throughout Harper’s sophomore season. Harper started watching with them. When they got to the Final Four scenes that showed Harper and her teammates celebrating their second of three straight national titles, Harper turned to her players and said: “You’ve got to do that. You’ve got to experience a Final Four. It’s that powerful.”
“Dream it. Believe it. Do it,” she says.
On Feb. 21, in Chapel Hill, the Pack find themselves trailing UNC 50–42 with about 13 minutes left. Time out. Harper doesn’t like her players’ body language; they look like they’ve already lost. “Change it,” she tells them. “Be confident. You can do it.” They outscore the Tar Heels 32–13 the rest of the game and win 74–63. The last time they beat the Tar Heels was in Reynolds Coliseum on Feb. 16, 2007, the day its court was named after Yow.
Immediately after the game, as the players head to the locker room, Harper sits courtside for a postgame radio interview. After she finishes, she waves to a group of about 40 NC State fans on the second level of Carmichael Auditorium who are chanting her name. She heads to the locker room to speak to her team. A few minutes later she enters the media room for a post-game press conference. Holston, who scored a team-high 20 points, and Kastanek, who scored 17 points, attend it, too. The Weeble Wobble Harper gave them weeks ago may seem silly, the players say, but it made a difference. It’s a reminder that their coach believes in them, and if she can believe in them, then they should believe in themselves, too.
Within 30 minutes, all the players and coaches have taken their seats on the team bus. But as it pulls away from Carmichael at about 5 p.m., Harper—with a bag over her shoulder and a dark, pin-striped suit in her hand—stands alone on the side of the road in front of the arena, waiting for her parents, who have driven eight hours from Tennessee to be there.
“I am,” Harper says, “exactly where I am supposed to be.”
the other harper
In the summer of 1997, Kellie Jolly was sitting in a meeting for basketball-camp counselors at the University of Tennessee. In walked the 6-foot-7 Jon Harper, then a student at Auburn University and a manager on the Tigers’ women’s basketball team. Kellie noticed him immediately. “Who is that?” she asked a friend. The friend didn’t know. “Well, that is the type of guy I could go for,” Kellie said. They married in May 1999. Today, he’s a volunteer assistant coach with the NC State women’s basketball team. They’re one of eight couples in the country who coach together at the college level. “He’s in a position that can’t be easy at times,” Kellie Harper says.
How did you and Kellie end up coaching together?
She was at Auburn as an assistant [in 2001]. I was working at a golf course, and I was about to become a teaching pro. [Chattanooga women’s basketball coach] Wes Moore called and inquired about Kellie. During the process, he asked, “What does your husband do?” She said, “Well, he works at a golf course, but he wants to coach college basketball.” He had his third assistant position open at the time, and he did [a] background check on me. He’s very thorough. There’s no doubt that the opportunity came up [because of Kellie].
How are you two able to work together and maintain a healthy marriage?
We have a lot of respect for each other. I respect her background and her knowledge for the game. And I think she does mine, too. I don’t have the accolades she had as a player. But I think she knows I’ve been around it enough that I have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. We’re both pretty laid-back and like to have a good time. We’re not too serious [except about basketball and about winning with good people]. There are times she doesn’t agree with me and times I don’t agree with her, but when it’s all said and done, we’re going to go with her decision. She’s the head coach, and I understand that.
Because of state and university nepotism policies, you’re a volunteer. Why work without pay?
Everybody has way more in them than they think; you’ve just got to figure out a way to get it out of them and to motivate them to get at that point. Last year, the team we had [at Western Carolina] struggled midway through the year. We were 11–11 and won 10 straight games to make it to the NCAA Tournament. When it was over, one of [the players] thanked us and said, “We were miserable going through this, but you kept telling us that it was worth it. And it was absolutely worth it.” When something like that happens, that’s why I do what I do. Now, the ultimate goal is to win a national championship. But more than anything, if you can get a kid to reach her potential, that’s awesome.
—Cherry Crayton ’01, ’03 med
When she accepted the women’s basketball coaching job at NC State, Kellie Harper knew she was following in the footsteps of a legend and taking over a team that was hurting. Would she—and the team—be up for what it would take to move forward?
by cherry crayton ’01, ’03 med
Part Three of Three
All week redshirt junior Amber White has thought, “We can’t lose this game.” It’s Feb. 14, and it’s Hoops 4 Hope, an event that Yow created five years ago to raise awareness for breast cancer. The showcase: NC State—in pink jerseys, pink socks and pink shoes—versus Miami, in Reynolds Coliseum, for a nationally-televised game. Coming off their worst loss of the season, 70–39 to No. 7 Duke, the Wolfpack stand 13–11 overall and 3–6 in the ACC. They need to win to have a chance at post season play. Even more so, White says, they want to make Yow proud.
White scores 10 of her 13 points in the first half to help NC State cut into an early 12-point deficit and go into halftime trailing 35–29. And even as the Pack trail Miami 48–40 with 13:45 left, Harper sees fire in the players’ eyes. “They did not want to lose this game, for so many reasons,” she says.
Junior Brittany Strachan hits a three-pointer. Kastanek adds another one. Sophomore Bonae Holston makes several baskets. Beal scores all six of her points in a two-minute span. And Gartrell nails a short jumper with 1:52 left to tie the score at 64–64.
White drives the lane and puts up a floater. Kastanek, on the opposite side, hears assistant coach Richard Barron yell, “Go rebound!” She darts to the paint, grabs the ball in midair, and without landing, puts the shot back up. Good! NC State up 66–64 with 1:05 left.
The Pack foul, sending a Miami player to the line for a one-and-one free throw with 51 seconds left. Most of the announced crowd of 6,450 stand to cheer, hoping to distract the free-throw shooter. “Wow,” White thinks, “there are so many people here . . . and to support this cause is amazing.” Harper thinks, “I’ve never heard [Reynolds] this loud.”
The player misses. Kastanek grabs the rebound. The Pack commit a turnover. Miami runs the clock down to about nine seconds and calls a timeout. Harper asks her players what defense they would be most comfortable playing in the final seconds. NC State comes out in a man-to-man. Miami misses a contested shot, and White grabs the defensive rebound. The buzzer sounds. NC State 66, Miami 64. After the game, the team huddles at center court. They clap their hands three times and yell, “Together!”
In January 2010, a year after Yow’s death, Harper brought her entire staff together for a meeting. She wanted to pay tribute to Yow, and she asked for their ideas. The result: On Feb. 14, during the Miami game, nearly 40 former Wolfpack players unveiled three banners hung in the rafters of Reynolds. The banner in the middle includes an image of Yow and her years of service to NC State (1975–2009); the two side banners recognize her 2002 induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and her number of career victories (737). “Kay Yow is and will always be a legend,” Harper says.
Among the former players in attendance that day was Debbie Mulligan Antonelli ’86, a basketball analyst for ESPN and Fox Sports Net and a three-year starter under Yow. “I think Coach Yow would have been proud,” Antonelli says. “But she’s still here.” At halftime of every game, for example, White echoes one of Yow’s expressions: “When you get down, don’t give up. When you get ahead, don’t let up.” And Antonelli points to the Pack’s play to defeat Miami. “Resiliency. Coming back. Fighting to the end,” she says. “That’s Coach Yow. And that’s how she would define this team.”
The Pack entered the season picked to finish ninth in the ACC. During one stretch of league play, they lost six of ninegames. Then, despite losing key reserve and post player Tia Bell to a knee injury, they won four of five games to finish the regular season 17–12 and tied for fifth in the ACC with a 7–7 league record. As the sixth seed in the ACC Women’s Tournament, they won three games in three days to advance to the championship. Though they fell 70–60 to Duke in the title game, they put themselves in position to earn their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2007, when the seniors were freshmen and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. Kastanek, whom Harper says represents “what I want this program to be about—that heart, that hustle and that desire”—was also named the ACC Freshman of the Year. “It’s a long season, and a lot of times a team will hit a wall. At that point they can bounce back or stay down,” Harper says. “[The players] kept fighting. Most of them have been through a lot these past few years, but they have shown resiliency.”
Harper once met Yow. When she was at Western, she and the Catamounts came to Reynolds in December 2007 for a game against NC State. Before the game, which NC State won 72–53, Harper shook Yow’s hand near mid court and told her, “It’s an honor to play you here.”
“There was such a feel about [Yow] when she stepped onto the court—her court,” Harper says.
Now this is Harper’s program and her home court is Kay Yow Court. When she first met with the NC State players, she told them that she had big shoes to fill, and as much as she would like to be Kay Yow, she couldn’t be her. “The best person I can be is me,” she told them. “I have to be me, and in my opinion, that’s the best way I can honor her.”
Being Kellie Harper means being a winner. So at NC State, she envisions coaching tough, winning teams that contend for championships. “I think we could be competing for championships in three or four years,” she says. “Does that mean we won’t win before then? No. . . . You’ll never win if you don’t expect to win every time you take the court.” Did the players buy into that mindset? “She’s won three national championships,” Gartrell says. “How can you not?”
In November, Harper walked into the locker room before a practice as the players were watching A Cinderella Season, an HBO-produced documentary that followed the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team throughout Harper’s sophomore season. Harper started watching with them. When they got to the Final Four scenes that showed Harper and her teammates celebrating their second of three straight national titles, Harper turned to her players and said: “You’ve got to do that. You’ve got to experience a Final Four. It’s that powerful.”
“Dream it. Believe it. Do it,” she says.
On Feb. 21, in Chapel Hill, the Pack find themselves trailing UNC 50–42 with about 13 minutes left. Time out. Harper doesn’t like her players’ body language; they look like they’ve already lost. “Change it,” she tells them. “Be confident. You can do it.” They outscore the Tar Heels 32–13 the rest of the game and win 74–63. The last time they beat the Tar Heels was in Reynolds Coliseum on Feb. 16, 2007, the day its court was named after Yow.
Immediately after the game, as the players head to the locker room, Harper sits courtside for a postgame radio interview. After she finishes, she waves to a group of about 40 NC State fans on the second level of Carmichael Auditorium who are chanting her name. She heads to the locker room to speak to her team. A few minutes later she enters the media room for a post-game press conference. Holston, who scored a team-high 20 points, and Kastanek, who scored 17 points, attend it, too. The Weeble Wobble Harper gave them weeks ago may seem silly, the players say, but it made a difference. It’s a reminder that their coach believes in them, and if she can believe in them, then they should believe in themselves, too.
Within 30 minutes, all the players and coaches have taken their seats on the team bus. But as it pulls away from Carmichael at about 5 p.m., Harper—with a bag over her shoulder and a dark, pin-striped suit in her hand—stands alone on the side of the road in front of the arena, waiting for her parents, who have driven eight hours from Tennessee to be there.
“I am,” Harper says, “exactly where I am supposed to be.”
the other harper
In the summer of 1997, Kellie Jolly was sitting in a meeting for basketball-camp counselors at the University of Tennessee. In walked the 6-foot-7 Jon Harper, then a student at Auburn University and a manager on the Tigers’ women’s basketball team. Kellie noticed him immediately. “Who is that?” she asked a friend. The friend didn’t know. “Well, that is the type of guy I could go for,” Kellie said. They married in May 1999. Today, he’s a volunteer assistant coach with the NC State women’s basketball team. They’re one of eight couples in the country who coach together at the college level. “He’s in a position that can’t be easy at times,” Kellie Harper says.
How did you and Kellie end up coaching together?
She was at Auburn as an assistant [in 2001]. I was working at a golf course, and I was about to become a teaching pro. [Chattanooga women’s basketball coach] Wes Moore called and inquired about Kellie. During the process, he asked, “What does your husband do?” She said, “Well, he works at a golf course, but he wants to coach college basketball.” He had his third assistant position open at the time, and he did [a] background check on me. He’s very thorough. There’s no doubt that the opportunity came up [because of Kellie].
How are you two able to work together and maintain a healthy marriage?
We have a lot of respect for each other. I respect her background and her knowledge for the game. And I think she does mine, too. I don’t have the accolades she had as a player. But I think she knows I’ve been around it enough that I have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. We’re both pretty laid-back and like to have a good time. We’re not too serious [except about basketball and about winning with good people]. There are times she doesn’t agree with me and times I don’t agree with her, but when it’s all said and done, we’re going to go with her decision. She’s the head coach, and I understand that.
Because of state and university nepotism policies, you’re a volunteer. Why work without pay?
Everybody has way more in them than they think; you’ve just got to figure out a way to get it out of them and to motivate them to get at that point. Last year, the team we had [at Western Carolina] struggled midway through the year. We were 11–11 and won 10 straight games to make it to the NCAA Tournament. When it was over, one of [the players] thanked us and said, “We were miserable going through this, but you kept telling us that it was worth it. And it was absolutely worth it.” When something like that happens, that’s why I do what I do. Now, the ultimate goal is to win a national championship. But more than anything, if you can get a kid to reach her potential, that’s awesome.
—Cherry Crayton ’01, ’03 med
Coach Moore Postgame Presser (Wake Forest)
Thursday, February 26
WBB Players Postgame Presser (Wake Forest)
Thursday, February 26
Coach Moore Postgame Presser (Syracuse)
Sunday, February 22
WBB Players Postgame Presser (Syracuse)
Sunday, February 22