Given the chance to have just one more conversation with Skip Prosser, Wake Forest basketball player Harvey Hale said Thursday that he first would update the late Deacons coach on the team's defensive progress during the 2007-08 season.

"That'd probably be the thing he'd want to know about most," Hale said, chuckling. "We finally [got to the point that] we stopped somebody, because we sure didn't his last season. He definitely wanted better defense, and we got better for him. I'd have to tell him we beat Duke, too. But what I'd really tell him is how much everybody misses him."

Great quote, Harv.

It's been almost a year since the popular Prosser died from a heart attack in his office on the Winston-Salem campus. It happened on a Thursday, July 26, at approximately 1:30 p.m.

The Wake Forest sports information department held a media teleconference on Thursday at 1:15 p.m. Hale led it off, followed almost exactly at 1:30 by Dino Gaudio, the former Prosser assistant and his successor as Wake head basketball coach.

Even among the thick-skinned sports writers participating in the question-and-answer period, it was not an easy interview. In this business, you're not supposed to like anyone more than anyone else, even if one party is impossible to like and another is impossible to dislike.

Prosser fell into the second category.

Folks liked him, and the only things that sports writers usually like are late deadlines and early game starts.

But one of the many things I'll always remember fondly about Prosser is that he understood the dynamic of that equation.

One day a few years ago, Wake beat North Carolina in a big game that went into so many overtimes that they rivaled the count of Tar Heels' national championship banners in the Dean Smith Center. When it finally ended in a 119-114 win, Prosser left the court and, dripping sweat, said to me, "Think they've still got enough time left to work the final score into your sports section?"

We both laughed.

And a year after his death, the one thing I remember most about Prosser was his ability to laugh, win or lose. The laugh was purely theatrical, of course, after a loss.

"He hated to lose a game more than anyone I've ever seen," Hale said. "If we won -- no matter what the game -- it was just a 'W.' If we lost, he really worked us. He told me one time that when he stopped yelling at me, that's when I should really worry [about playing time]."

The other side of Prosser was that he called in his players to discuss life issues, as well as basketball.

"Skip really cared, and that's what made him so special in my opinion," Gaudio said. "He had as much time for the average person as he did for a player or coach. That's a special trait. He never got to the point that he thought he was more important than anyone else. There are so many things I'll remember about him, but nothing more than that one thing. He was just the same person day after day."

It's right that the ACC and the folks of North Carolina should cherish the memory of Prosser this weekend. He didn't win a national title, and he won't be held in the same level of basketball esteem as Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, Roy Williams, Everett Case, Frank McGuire and Gary Williams.

But Prosser is worth remembering. That's because he lived a life worth remembering. He understood there can be a lot more to a coach's legacy than what gets printed in the record book.