Gail Hook played just one season under coach Rene Portland for the Colorado women's basketball team, yet the relationship forged that year proved to be an enduring one as Hook began her own decorated coaching career.
Hook, who is returning to her post as the girls basketball coach at Monarch following a three-season hiatus, remembers a day in May of 1980, just months after Portland completed her second and final season in Boulder, when she was tracked down on CU's campus by a frantic and emotional Portland.
Hook's family had been desperately attempting to reach her with the tragic news that her father had passed away back home in Maryland.