The new normal for Yelton, UWF
- February 5, 2015
- / Willie Spears
- / training-development
Now in her third year, University of West Florida Women’s Basketball Coach Stephanie Lawrence Yelton has her team on track to defend its conference championship.
It won’t be easy. But Yelton has faced challenges — personal and professional — before.
The Gulf South Conference is loaded with great teams. The Lady Argonauts are in second place behind Union and have a record of 14-5 overall after defeating Shorter College in Rome, Ga., this past Saturday.
They are set to face their biggest rival, Delta State, at 5 p.m. tonight at the UWF Field House. The Lady Statesmen are third in the conference behind UWF.
And they are the team that UWF beat last year for the conference title, 67-59.
The conference tournament is a month away, and Yelton and her players want to finish at the top of the conference as the number one seed.
“Our goal is to finish number one in the conference and win the conference championship for the second year in a row,” said junior guard Jasmine Wigfall.
Yelton doesn’t believe there is pressure to repeat, but there is pressure in changing the culture.
“I feel great about this season,” Yelton says. “I think we have a great group of talented young women. We are still learning about the grueling daily schedule of a collegiate student-athlete. We are still learning to stay focused during the good and the tough times. We are still wanting to do our very best.
“This team wants to make its own history.”
REAL PRESSURE
History is something Yelton knows a little bit about.
While in college, she was part of the greatest women’s basketball team to ever come out of Chapel Hill, N.C.
Though that season, the Lady Tar Heels were 14-2 in the ACC, no one favored them to win a national championship.
On April 3, 1994, the University of North Carolina women’s basketball earned the program’s first national championship on a last-second three-pointer from Charlotte Smith.
Trailing by two with 0.7 seconds on the clock, Yelton inbounded the ball to Smith on the right wing.
No one saw it coming, but they had defeated Louisiana Tech 60-59.
The play is widely regarded as the greatest play in NCAA women’s basketball postseason history.
“My collegiate coach Sylvia Hatchell says it best, ‘that game was the second greatest miracle on Easter Sunday’.
“That team of young women was special…hard working, dedicated, determined. Those ladies are my sisters…they have stood by me, encouraged me, lifted me…not only during our collegiate years, but for all the challenges in my life.”
On April 26, 2012, UWF made Yelton the fourth head women’s basketball coach in school history.
After five years as head coach at Charleston Southern University, the self-proclaimed gym rat whose father was a basketball coach took on a UWF program that had never won a conference championship.
“I was familiar with the success of other sports at UWF and that gave me the confidence to know it could happen in women’s basketball,” Yelton said.
Seven months into the 2013-2014 season, tragedy dealt Yelton a hard blow.
While at a tournament in Georgia with her team, Yelton received a call that her husband of 14 years, Jack, was rushed to the hospital. Days later the doctor delivered the tragic news that her biggest supporter was gone.
“I was a shell of a person…I had never experienced anything so devastating.” Yelton said.
While she struggled to make the adjustment as a single parent, it seemed like fate piled on.
Her mother had a stroke. Her father moved in with her and she ended up hiring someone to help around the house as she adjusted to her new life.
A life that left her without the father of her two young boys. Bobby was 3 and Toby was 4 months old when their father died.
“Bobby has had the harder time of adjusting to life without his dad,” Yelton said. “Jack was very close to Bobby and took him everywhere. They were buddies.
“Toby, on the other hand, was only an infant when Jack passed and has no recollection of his dad other than stories he hears from his brother and me.”
DEFYING THE ODDS
Turning the UWF team around wasn’t easy.
The team finished 6-21 for the 2012-2013 season. After player evaluations, Yelton had to make some tough decisions as far as roster management.
She let seven players go.
“Separating business and personal was tough”. Yelton said.
The 2013-2014 season seemed more promising. The team was 0-4 when Yelton took her leave from the team.
The team rallied just before Thanksgiving to win its first game of the season only days before Jack’s passing.
Yelton says she started the 2013-2014 season with one motivating thought — payback.
“I wanted my second season at UWF to be my signature thank-you-note addressed to UWF president Judy Bense, to athletic director Dave Scott, to the Pensacola community, to my family and friends, to my UWF staff and team.
“I wanted to give this university something special for standing by me during the most difficult time of my life," she says. "We did it with great recruiting, with great perseverance, with great flexibility, with great tenacity.”
On to this year
Yelton has learned that living means adapting.
“Change happens every day, whether we want it or not,” she says. “Some change we choose, like where we’ll attend school, who we will marry, where we will live. Other change we don’t choose, like the death of a spouse.
“I’ve learned that I have to adapt to change or this life will be unbearable.”
Staying focused has been hard at times.
Balancing the schedule of a college coach, a single parent and a child trying to care for her parents has not been easy.
“I find myself in a position to just get up and get it done," Yelton says. "No excuses, no time to complain … just take it step by step and do the best I can.”
Her son Bobby, now 5, serves as a good reminder of that.
“He tells me when I’m watching film on the couch or doing house chores, ‘Do your best, Mommy, and forget the rest.’”
“I feel great about this season,” Yelton says. “I think we have a great group of talented young women. We are still learning about the grueling daily schedule of a collegiate student-athlete. We are still learning to stay focused during the good and the tough times. We are still wanting to do our very best.
“This team wants to make its own history.”
REAL PRESSURE
History is something Yelton knows a little bit about.
While in college, she was part of the greatest women’s basketball team to ever come out of Chapel Hill, N.C.
Though that season, the Lady Tar Heels were 14-2 in the ACC, no one favored them to win a national championship.
On April 3, 1994, the University of North Carolina women’s basketball earned the program’s first national championship on a last-second three-pointer from Charlotte Smith.
Trailing by two with 0.7 seconds on the clock, Yelton inbounded the ball to Smith on the right wing.
No one saw it coming, but they had defeated Louisiana Tech 60-59.
The play is widely regarded as the greatest play in NCAA women’s basketball postseason history.
“My collegiate coach Sylvia Hatchell says it best, ‘that game was the second greatest miracle on Easter Sunday’.
“That team of young women was special…hard working, dedicated, determined. Those ladies are my sisters…they have stood by me, encouraged me, lifted me…not only during our collegiate years, but for all the challenges in my life.”
On April 26, 2012, UWF made Yelton the fourth head women’s basketball coach in school history.
After five years as head coach at Charleston Southern University, the self-proclaimed gym rat whose father was a basketball coach took on a UWF program that had never won a conference championship.
“I was familiar with the success of other sports at UWF and that gave me the confidence to know it could happen in women’s basketball,” Yelton said.
Seven months into the 2013-2014 season, tragedy dealt Yelton a hard blow.
While at a tournament in Georgia with her team, Yelton received a call that her husband of 14 years, Jack, was rushed to the hospital. Days later the doctor delivered the tragic news that her biggest supporter was gone.
“I was a shell of a person…I had never experienced anything so devastating.” Yelton said.
While she struggled to make the adjustment as a single parent, it seemed like fate piled on.
Her mother had a stroke. Her father moved in with her and she ended up hiring someone to help around the house as she adjusted to her new life.
A life that left her without the father of her two young boys. Bobby was 3 and Toby was 4 months old when their father died.
“Bobby has had the harder time of adjusting to life without his dad,” Yelton said. “Jack was very close to Bobby and took him everywhere. They were buddies.
“Toby, on the other hand, was only an infant when Jack passed and has no recollection of his dad other than stories he hears from his brother and me.”
DEFYING THE ODDS
Turning the UWF team around wasn’t easy.
The team finished 6-21 for the 2012-2013 season. After player evaluations, Yelton had to make some tough decisions as far as roster management.
She let seven players go.
“Separating business and personal was tough”. Yelton said.
The 2013-2014 season seemed more promising. The team was 0-4 when Yelton took her leave from the team.
The team rallied just before Thanksgiving to win its first game of the season only days before Jack’s passing.
Yelton says she started the 2013-2014 season with one motivating thought — payback.
“I wanted my second season at UWF to be my signature thank-you-note addressed to UWF president Judy Bense, to athletic director Dave Scott, to the Pensacola community, to my family and friends, to my UWF staff and team.
“I wanted to give this university something special for standing by me during the most difficult time of my life," she says. "We did it with great recruiting, with great perseverance, with great flexibility, with great tenacity.”
On to this year
Yelton has learned that living means adapting.
“Change happens every day, whether we want it or not,” she says. “Some change we choose, like where we’ll attend school, who we will marry, where we will live. Other change we don’t choose, like the death of a spouse.
“I’ve learned that I have to adapt to change or this life will be unbearable.”
Staying focused has been hard at times.
Balancing the schedule of a college coach, a single parent and a child trying to care for her parents has not been easy.
“I find myself in a position to just get up and get it done," Yelton says. "No excuses, no time to complain … just take it step by step and do the best I can.”
Her son Bobby, now 5, serves as a good reminder of that.
“He tells me when I’m watching film on the couch or doing house chores, ‘Do your best, Mommy, and forget the rest.’”
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