Toughness and poise. That's what 12th-year Kansas State women's basketball head coach Jeff Mittie preached to his young team inside the visitor's locker room at United Supermarkets Arena shortly after noon on a Saturday that the Wildcats won't soon forget.
The phones didn't work. Aaliyah Foster tried them again. Silence. Another time. More silence. The storms on a path for Jamaica always seemed to veer off course, preserving the beautiful north coast, keeping Doctor's Cave Beach and Walter Fletcher Beach undisturbed along Montego Bay, the capital of Saint James Parish — Aaliyah's home. Yet here she was, a 20-year-old track star, a junior who is regarded as one of the finest long jumpers in the United States, settling into her college home at Kansas State University, eager to make waves again on the college circuit.
You ask Sean Gleeson about his work ethic. He points to his family. The 41-year-old Gleeson, a native of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, is the grandson of an Irish immigrant and the son of a devoted father who spent 20 years as a chef at the Holiday Inn before becoming an educator and coach.
Here sits Thad Ward right after he gets his pictures taken on Tuesday afternoon. He wears a purple Powercat quarter-zip and thick black glasses, but it's the cellphone that he places upon the table that first catches the eye. The cellphone is noticeably worn. It's probably been used a million times to call a thousand coaches, parents and prospective players. It's worn, all right, from calls to his wife, Jocelyn, before games and after games and periodically throughout each day. The clear plastic protection case on Ward's cellphone? It's seen better days.
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