Published November 2, 2024

Twenty-five years ago, I covered the Women’s Final Four in San Jose. The photo in the clipping above was next to one of my preview stories in The Times, the daily Shreveport newspaper that sent me to California for a regional and the championship round.

Seeing Christie Sides and Stephanie White in the same photo from the 1998-99 season was quite a thing in light of women’s basketball news this week.

The Indiana Fever, a team you might know mainly because of phenomenal first-year player Caitlin Clark, fired Sides on Sunday and replaced her Friday with White, who previously coached the Connecticut Sun (and the Fever). White, going by her married name, Stephanie White-McCarty, led Purdue to the national championship at the Final Four I worked as a reporter.

My preview story at right covered a lot of ground. Tennessee, a dominant force in women’s basketball under Pat Summit, did not qualify for the Final Four. It was Purdue, Louisiana Tech, Duke and Georgia. Purdue eliminated the Lady Techsters in the semifinals, then beat Duke for the title.

We were all wondering whether Purdue coach Carolyn Peck would leave for the WNBA after the Final Four. She did. We were all wondering whether Tech coach Leon Barmore would follow her to the WNBA at some point. He did not.

The years that followed

After the Final Four, I wrote a column saying Louisiana Tech would be back. That was based on the thinking that Kim Mulkey would succeed Barmore as the head coach in Ruston. She did not, leaving for Baylor after she and Tech couldn’t agree on a contract.

Louisiana Tech never returned to the Final Four. Baylor and LSU went several times, both winning national championships with Mulkey. LSU got there even before hiring her.

I never forgot what Barmore said a day or two before the Final Four. He had seen a lot in his time as a coach, and he knew even better days were coming for women’s basketball.

“You know, I wish I could roll back the clock and be 30 again, so I could coach 25 more years, because the next 10, 15, 20 years it will be unbelievable what you’re going to see with women’s basketball. Unbelievable.”

Nailed it.

I loved that quote so much, it stuck with me. Last year, I told someone at work that I was surprised I couldn’t find it anywhere. I didn’t have my notes anymore, but I remembered the gist of his comment.

“I can’t believe nobody used that quote!” I said, dumbfounded. I’d searched everywhere.

As it turns out, someone did use the quote. Me.

Sides, a Baton Rouge native, played for that 1998-99 Louisiana Tech team, as you can see. The photo is from a December game that season at Purdue. She later coached on Tech’s staff and at LSU when I covered LSU sports for The Advocate in Baton Rouge. She went to three Final Fours with the Tigers.

She’ll land on her feet and coach again.

And hey, since we’re rolling the clock back tonight, I am going to imagine Barmore on the sideline again, coaching the talent that’s in the game now. He’d love it.