Since being diagnosed with leukemia two weeks before the start of the season, not everything for Sylvia Hatchell has changed.
The Hall of Fame North Carolina women’s basketball coach announced she would be taking a temporary leave from her sideline duties.
But if there’s one thing cancer can’t take away from her — that she won’t let take from her — it’s her relationship with basketball embodied by the team she’s loved since arriving in Chapel Hill 28 years ago.
Though associate head coach Andrew Calder is filling Hatchell’s role in her absence, he knows that the team still belongs to Hatchell.
“What we lose is the fact that she’s in the Hall of Fame with over 900 (wins) — her experience and knowledge of the game — but she’s always made a commitment to prepare her assistant coaches to be head coaches one day,” Calder said. “I’ve been with her 27 years and I’m going to coach the game through her eyes.”
“We’re still going to play Carolina basketball. We’re going to play hard, play smart, play together — defend, rebound, execute and compete with aggressive attacking mentality. That’s Coach Sylvia Hatchell basketball.”
To live up to Hatchell’s vision, a young group of Tar Heels will all have to be on the same page.
After the graduation of point guard Tierra Ruffin-Pratt, forward Krista Gross and center Waltiea Rolle, UNC’s 2013-14 roster doesn’t list any seniors and only returns two starters from last year’s team that finished second in the ACC and earned a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
But with the departure of last year’s talent comes new, nationally reconized faces.