On Feb. 19, 2004, the LSU women’s basketball team changed.
It is arguable how much the change affected the team, but when head coach Sue Gunter announced she was taking a medical leave of absence to recover from acute bronchitis, associate head coach Dana “Pokey” Chatman took the reigns as acting head coach.
And now that the Lady Tigers are in the Final Four and face Tennessee in the New Orleans Arena Sunday at around 5:00 p.m., some would say change is good.
But however successful Chatman may be, she sends all the credit back to her old head coach and her current boss.
“I’ve talked about storylines, and our pioneer, our legend, our mentor, Sue Gunter,” Chatman said. “At times when she’s feeling healthy, she steps away. People outside of the program have no idea how much that means to these kids, how much it means to this staff in terms of confidence. I’ve probably said it about 25 or 30 times. It is the ultimate compliment that we are prepared to face the challenge.”
Really a Challenge?
When Chatman uses the word challenge, she does a double-take because she needs to rethink its meaning.
“Obviously, challenge is not the word I want to use,” Chatman said. “I think I’ve gotten into using that. It’s not really a challenge because Sue Gunter developed us. Not delegated to us, she’s developed us with this task and to me that’s awesome confidence. ”
Gunter started developing Chatman as a coach when the Ama, La., native came to LSU on a basketball scholarship in 1988.
From that point, Chatman made first team All-Southeastern Conference three of her four years on the team, and after her graduation in 1992, she immediately became a student assistant coach and has ascended the ranks to where she is right now.
“The biggest thing is that we’re friends,” Chatman said of her mentor. “We’ll have a glass of wine together, go to dinner, watch a little basketball and I think that’s probably the feeling of the entire staff. We have our moments when we go after it, and we’re not always on the same end of the spectrum. But I think that is the thing that’s helped us achieve a level of success. It’s hard for people to understand. It’s not because Coach Gunter’s ill that these kids are playing hard. [Their hard play is] just built in before the illness, when she recruits them and it’s difficult for people to understand that.”
The Process
When it became apparent Gunter would have to take a medical leave, she hesitated to make an announcement. She did not want to disrupt the flow of the team, but after pondering the possibilities, according to Chatman, she had the utmost confidence in the Lady Tigers’ ability to focus.
“We were on the road, and I can remember when we got back,” Chatman said. “The whole staff went to her house and she said she would make an announcement. She didn’t want the kids to have to answer questions about it, and she just wanted to come out and make a statement and let everyone know what was going on.”
From the end results, it appears the team has answered the challenge.
“I think [Pokey] has handled herself with terrific aplomb and I think she’s been terrific,” said LSU athletics director Skip Bertman. “It looks like she’s coached as a head coach for many years, and of course she’s done a great job for the program. They expect to compete at the very highest level.”