Legette-Jack's ride continues at IU

Felisha Legette-Jack has been on an emotional ride her entire life.\nGrowing up in a single-parent home with her mother and two brothers, Legette-Jack -- the first-year coach of the IU women's basketball team -- looked to basketball in sixth grade as a way to break away from her shy demeanor. Her two brothers played basketball and convinced her to play. She turned out to be a natural.\nAfter success in high school, Legette-Jack attended Syracuse University. She compiled 1,526 points during her career -- good for second best all-time -- and was elected to the Syracuse Hall of Fame upon graduation.\nBut playing there almost never happened.\nAfter she was offered several scholarships to play basketball in college, Legette-Jack showed interest in playing for Syracuse and decided to go over the prospective situation with her guidance counselor. Instead of encouragement, the guidance counselor led Legette-Jack in another direction. She told Legette-Jack to go to a smaller school because she said as an African American, she wouldn't fit in at Syracuse. The guidance counselor told her she would eventually quit.\nBut Legette-Jack's mother told her otherwise and said, "We don't let anybody stop our blessings when God is in charge. If Syracuse is the place you want to go, you go ahead, and do it."\n"I had a high school coach who was very aggressive in making us think we could reach for the moon, so she went to the guidance counselor and politely cursed her out," Legette-Jack said. "My mom got in my ear, and we did some great things of saying 'Yes we can, and we're going to friggin' try.'"\nAt Syracuse, Legette-Jack discovered a passion for coaching and realized it was what she wanted to do with her life. \nA student at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y., called Legette-Jack and asked her to coach her high school team. The player attended a speech she had given at Westhill the previous year and was impressed with Legette-Jack's passion. Westhill offered her the job and she accepted. She coached there for two seasons, sending five players away with Division I scholarships.\nFrom there, Legette-Jack landed an assistant coaching job at Boston College for two years and then spent 1993-2000 as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at her alma mater. She was an assistant at Michigan State for two years after her stint at Syracuse. Her last two years before arriving at IU, she was head coach at Hofstra University. In nearly every case, Legette-Jack was hired on the spot.\nWhile at Michigan State though, Legette-Jack experienced one of the most special moments of her coaching career when she met men's basketball coach Tom Izzo on her visit.\n"We saw Tom Izzo in a press conference," Legette-Jack said. "Well, he stopped the press conference and said 'Hold up, hold up. You're Felisha (Legette-Jack)?' I said yes. And he said 'You're the one that (the Michigan State women's coach) thinks is going to sign some kids to help us create this dynasty.' I thought to myself that this is a whole other level, and obviously, I took the job right there."\nThough she's held several coaching positions over the last few years, Legette-Jack said she doesn't feel like she's a coach-hopper. The prestige of the school is not the reason why she coaches, though. Instead, her goal is to "empower" young women and get each of her players to graduate.\n"My goal is to make kids play at a higher level than they ever thought they could, go to school, finish college because they never thought they could," Legette-Jack said. "We can win a championship in the meantime, but you know what, that's icing. If I start looking at the magnitude of the IU job, I'll lose sight of trying to save the kid. I want them to not just graduate but to blaze it."\nWhen it came to hearing about looking at coaching for IU, it took a little nagging from Legette-Jack's brother before she found out that IU Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan was already planning to interview her.\n"You just try and maintain a bit of a radar, to keep your antenna up on coaches," Greenspan said. "There were a number of coaches that I have respect for, people in the business that said to me 'Before you make any hirings in the business, Felisha (Legette-Jack) is somebody you need to talk to.' I heard that from so many people, and I was overwhelmed by her degree of confidence and her energy level."\nIn her first year at IU, Legette-Jack has brought an entirely new philosophy to a historically mid-level team. Her preaching of hard work, lack of fear and success in the classroom has jump-started the Hoosiers, as they defeated a top-15 ranked opponent, the Kentucky Wildcats, Nov. 12.\n"They have to play with passion and put it all out there," Legette-Jack said. "They have to go out with blood, sweat and tears. They have to flat-out play the game like it's the last thing they do before they walk off and die. Once you do that, it's going to reduce you to playing with emotion."\nThe difficulty with coaching the Hoosiers does not lie within the amount of talent from the team. Legette-Jack said that's far from it. Instead, she is trying to get her players to forget about fear and the score so they'll believe they're all winners.\n"Right now, they need to respond to themselves and get rid of those demons inside that say that c-a-n-t word," Legette-Jack said. "Every day gets better and a little easier. The challenge will be if they lose a game -- can they bounce back?"\nFor now, Legette-Jack refuses to look down the road and can't answer where she sees this team headed because she doesn't have a "crystal ball." However, at the start of the season, it's clear there's a difference in these Hoosiers -- a certain swagger has followed them on the court early this year, though Legette-Jack said she doesn't believe this team is completely rid of fear yet.\nWhile she doesn't have a clear picture of where this team is headed, she has more than an idea of what she wants to accomplish.\n"I don't care about liking me; I care about respecting what we're trying to do here," Legette-Jack said. "I think that at the end of the day, when every kid looks back and sees that we never waver from what we're trying to do here, they'll get what they came here for and that's to pursue championships."\nGreenspan said he believes in the end Legette-Jack will garner the respect she demands and can turn the IU program into a national competitor.\n"But I think when these people get to know Felisha (Legette-Jack), they'll see a very engaging, very positive person," Greenspan said. "I think she'll serve in a way that makes us very proud, not just the way the team performs on the court, but in the way that she and her coaches carry themselves"