KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Sherri Coale remembers beginning her rebuilding project at Oklahoma by trying to sign Jackie Stiles, then a high school star in nearby Kansas.
Coale lost that recruiting battle, but she has prevailed enough in the two decades since to join Stiles as part of this weekend’s Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame class.
“I begged her,” Coale said. “The wounds are still real. She was just an unbelievable high school player. Remarkably, she and her family let us in the mix and we got to be a part of that. I look back now and think, ‘Wow,’ that was huge of them to be willing to entertain our overtures at that time because we hadn’t done anything yet.