Harper knows how to win

RALEIGH -- New head coach Kellie Harper has an ambitious vision for the N.C. State women's basketball program.

"Right now I envision this program becoming consistent and then consistently competing for championships," she said. "Then becoming a team of national prominence, going to the Final Four consistently. Winning a national championship."

Harper says that goal might take some time, but in the six months since State hired her as the third coach in the program's history, she's worked to establish a foundation for such success.

She follows a legend in Kay Yow, the Wolfpack coach who spent 32 years building the program from scratch and who died in January after a long battle with breast cancer. Harper's mission is complex, considering she's trying to build her own program while paying homage to the Hall of Fame coach who helped shape the modern game of women's basketball.

Harper was chosen by N.C. State athletic director Lee Fowler over Yow's hand-picked successor, Stephanie Glance, and has the task of engaging players, courting alumni and satisfying a loyal fan base.

Harper, 32, understands this delicate balancing act.

"We're learning as we go," said Harper, who spent five seasons at Western Carolina as a head coach and is best known as the pony-tailed point guard for the Tennessee Vols when they won three consecutive national championships.

On Monday, when the ACC hosts its women's basketball media day, Harper officially becomes the face of the Wolfpack program and will try to take the next step in establishing herself as an elite collegiate coach.

The first goal will be rejuvenating a Wolfpack program devastated by the death of Yow and worn down by a coaching search. In addition, she inherits a program that has seen some success over the past 10 seasons, reaching the NCAA Tournament round of 16 in 2006-07 and regionals in 2001, but has not consistently competed on the national stage as have nearby rivals Duke and North Carolina.

The Pack made its only Final Four appearance in 1998.

With recruiting as the bloodline for all competitive programs, the Pack has landed many skilled players, including one current McDonald's All-American, but has not snagged the nation's premier talents.

In the few months on the job, Harper has jammed her schedule with meetings, scouted recruits, listened to marketing pitches, greeted board of trustees members and courted fans at N.C. State games.

More important, she interacted with players, sitting in on academic meetings and hosting them in her office. The coach assesses the situations and huddles her players, making sure their needs are met as the game plan is implemented.

"She definitely cares about us as people and our emotions because we've been through a lot in the last year," State junior Tia Bell said. "And now ... it's back to business."

Harper's plan is to use a high-tempo, fast-breaking, full-court pressing style. Harper believes in a multiple-attack offense, where lots of players are substituted. She likes an aggressive man-to-man defense. She's hardest on her point guards.

She will pursue the nation's top recruits, but she's not waiting around, saying she will mold a system around current players.

Chip Smith, the Western Carolina athletic director who supervised Harper for five seasons, said the coach was specific from her first day about the type of team she wanted.

"She has this intense desire to win and she transferred that to her players," he said.

A winner

Most women's basketball fans know Harper won three national championships at Tennessee when she played for Pat Summitt from 1995-1999.

They probably do not know about the nine flag-football championships she won after graduating. Or about the three AAU national championships she won as a high school player in Sparta, Tenn. Or the T-ball championships as a youth.

"It's in my make-up," said Harper, who still recalls details about full-court one-on-one victories over her brother Brent Jolly.

Winning is at the heart of anything Harper does.

"I don't want to wait until next year," she said. "I want to win now. Maybe that's realistic, maybe it's not. Unfortunately, that's how I'm wired."

In Harper's first season at Western Carolina, the Catamounts won 18 games, captured the Southern Conference title and reached the NCAA Tournament.

She was often heard saying, "I hate to lose, more than I love to win."

"I think she said it over a million times when I was there, to the point that that's what I say all the time," said Monique Dawson, a former Western Carolina point guard who is now an assistant coach at Presbyterian College in South Carolina.

Dawson described Harper as a laid-back person with a knack for unearthing the competitive spirits of players. She explained how Harper and her husband, assistant coach John Harper, would challenge each other over who could stand on a piece of sidewalk the longest.

Eventually, team members challenged each other.

As a team, they were "brainwashed," Dawson said, to be the best.

Players at State have told her they want to win.

"I believe them," Harper said. "They will have a chance to prove how much they want to win. ... You can tell me you want to win, but I want to see it."

First-name basis

Back in July, after a long day of Wolfpack summer camp, a group of State players talked with their new coach into the morning.

"Past our bed times," Harper said.

Sitting outside of dorms, they laughed and swapped stories about music, movies and clothes.

"That was huge," State junior Emili Tasler said.

Those who know Harper foresee more team-bonding moments. They say it's all in how she runs a program.

There's discipline, yet there's a commitment by Harper's staff to enjoy the game of basketball without any pretense.

For example, she allows players to call her by her first name.

"Kellie has said all along, if Pat Summitt's players can call her Pat, then guess what: We can go by our first names, and it's not an issue," John Harper said. "It builds a comfortable level with them. You hope they don't take it the wrong way."

It's difficult to confuse intentions when the head coach attends preseason conditioning sessions and completes crunches with the team.

"She's so sincere. She's not putting on an act," State senior Amber White said. "I feel real comfortable talking to her. I don't feel intimidated in any way. And it's nothing she's said or done, it's just her demeanor."

Taking from her experience as an assistant under Joe Ciampi at Auburn and Wes Moore at Chattanooga, Harper runs her team as part dictatorship, part democracy. There is structure but also freedom.

At Western Carolina, players grew comfortable enough to suggest plays and then draw them on the board.

This coaching philosophy evolved from the system she played in at Tennessee where Summitt nurtured an orderly yet free-wheeling style of basketball. "Throw it to the All-American," was how Harper saw her job.

That style can still be detected in her loose body language on the basketball court. She grabs and pats the ball as if she were ready to pass. Sometimes she dribbles.

Harper is not looking for robotic players. She wants players who run down the court smiling like first-graders.

"It is very important for me that when these kids walk out on the court they enjoy what they do. It needs to be fun," Harper said. "We're not going to goof off, but if something funny happens in practice, I will be the first to laugh."

Adding to legacy

Harper follows a coach at State who knew the value of laughter.

It was Yow's ability to connect on a human level with players, coaches and fans that made her such a fixture at Reynolds Coliseum. For many State supporters, it's important that the new coach protect the tradition she established.

As Harper enters her first season, she's sensitive to Yow's legacy and has tried to make the transition seamless. It's part of her plan to build on that legacy, she said.

"We're not overhauling the whole program," Harper said. "We're not taking down pictures. We're going to continue Hoops 4 Hope."

That was a relief for players like Tasler, who were concerned about a new staff erasing old traditions.

"I'm not worried about that at all now," Tasler said.

Still, Harper said she must use her own voice in shaping the future of the Wolfpack program. She is not interested in becoming a copycat.

"A lot of people thought she was going to be a clone of Pat Summitt, kind of a screamer and a yeller," Dawson said. "She's actually more laid back and kind of talks you out and teaches you more than anything."

Harper is honest in evaluating State's program in the ACC, calling it "average," though saying that is no knock on the previous coaching staff.

"Average can move up really quickly with consistency," she said, adding, "We really believe in what we're doing. I 100 percent believe if we can get a kid on campus, we can sell them this program, this university and the direction we're going."

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