| | | Editor's note: Before Arizona State played LSU on Friday night in the NCAA women's basketball tournament, Sun Devils coach Charli Turner Thorne shared the details of her incredible week with Page 2. ASU lost its first-round game 83-66.
I won't lie to you. I'd like to be at home sitting in a sitz bath right now. I'd like to be relaxing with my husband and children.
|  | | Despite giving birth Sunday, Arizona State coach Charli Turner Thorne was back at practice this week. |
I'd like to be taking some time to recover from giving birth last Sunday.
But that's not the real world when you're a woman with a family and a career.
Life is tradeoffs. Life is sacrifices. That's why today I'm in West Lafeyette, Ind., with my five-day-old son Liam -- yes, I said five days old -- preparing my Arizona State women's basketball team for its first NCAA Tournament game since 1992.
I didn't plan it this way. My other son, Conor, was born two years ago in February, in the middle of my third season as Sun Devils head coach, and I had no intention of going through that again. When I mentioned that my husband and I wanted another child, my doctor said to start trying in early July. With a little luck, the baby would be born in April or May.
Well, we had a little luck all right. I always joke that I must be from good peasant stock, because the very first time we tried, I got pregnant. The baby was due in March.
As I learned with Conor, coaching when you're pregnant has its advantages. I'm a type-A person, very energetic and excited, and pregnancy helped me calm down. When you're pregnant, you're so exhausted that you just can't get worked up over little things. I was still intense, and I still demanded the same work out of my kids, but it helped me not to sweat everything so much.
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“ |
We're not living in the 15th Century
any more. It's sad to me that some people think
women should stay at home, and be treated as second-class citizens for
eternity.” |
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— Charli Turner Thorne |
Normally after a poor performance or a loss, I feel empty inside, but this year I could step back and think, "I've got this baby inside me."
My whole team was incredibly supportive of my pregnancy. It's been kind of a non-issue with them. I mean, we're close, so we talk about our personal lives
occasionally, but we didn't discuss it a lot. They weren't worried about my lack of attention to them. The way I coach, my players are my family. I'm
available for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They have needs all the time, so I work all the time.
My husband understands my devotion. Luckily, his work as the regional manager for a national audio-video company doesn't require him to either travel or work weekends. Our schedules can be easily coordinated. And it's not purely sacrifice on my family's part. We don't have any other relatives in Arizona, so my team and support staff provide a different kind of family. Conor and Liam have 13 sisters.
Not everyone understands this relationship. My going back to work so soon has raised some eyebrows around the country, even prompting a discussion on
"Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher." I think that's great. We're not living in the 15th Century any more. It's sad to me that some people think women should stay at home, and be treated as second-class citizens for eternity. I believe that marriage is an equal relationship. And because of that, I have certain obligations to my family in terms of making a living.
The hard thing is that people outside the sports world don't understand what I do. Coaching is not a regular job. Not even close. If I had a 9-to-5 job or even a 7-to-7 job, I wouldn't be working right now. But coaching is different. It's a lifestyle. You just don't take time off when you're a coach. Your team is depending on you, and if you don't come through effectively, you might not have a job.
I am so fortunate that my particular pregnancy allowed me to maintain my job very effectively. There were no major problems before Liam's birth, and he
waited until after the regular season to make an appearance.
Last Sunday, I was scheduled to be induced, but things were progressing on their own pretty well by the time my husband and I got there at 8 a.m. The doctor broke my water in the early afternoon, and as soon as the contractions became excruciating, he gave me an epidural.
That allowed me to be in tune with other things that were going on -- things like the women's tournament selection show. I thought I might get to watch it on the TV in my room, but there was no ESPN. My husband was constantly on a cell phone with one of my assistants and around 3:30 he learned that we had received the 11th seed in the Mideast Region. We were headed to Indiana to face LSU, the No. 6 seed. Liam Turner Thorne was born at 4:30.
I left the hospital on Monday by 5 p.m, only doing a little work that day. I can't get over how well the timing worked out -- with the selection show Sunday, we couldn't even get tape of our opponents shipped in until Monday. So the real work began when the tapes arrived, on Tuesday, right when I was ready to go.
My only major concern was Liam's health. I wasn't going to fly him to Indiana if he wasn't ready. But the pediatrician said he was fully healthy and assured me that "babies are portable." (I knew that already, having flown with Conor eight days after his birth.) I was so glad my entire family could join me.
My family will always be the top priority in my life. But my team is my family, too. I have an obligation to maintain a balance between the two. That's why, if you watch the game Friday, you'll see a 2-year-old boy on the sidelines, decked out in full ASU gear. You'll see him cheering his sisters on, yelling for defense and rebounds.
And you'll see his little brother, bundled up behind the bench, not quite a week old. He's the newest Sun Devil fan.
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