Sherri Coale: Exchanging passions

BY TIM FARLEY

Retired Oklahoma basketball coach Sherri Coale went from one passion to another and she’s loving it.

Coale spent 25 years on college basketball’s biggest stage as the head women’s coach at the University of Oklahoma. Her teams won multiple Big 12 championships, qualified for 19 straight NCAA tournament appearances and earned their way into three Final Fours.

The Hall of Fame coach also had the privilege of coaching four All-Americans, 14 WNBA draft selections and many remarkable women who still stay in touch with the classy petite blonde from Healdton, OK, which is about 30 minutes north of the Red River.

Coale had the opportunity to participate in USA Basketball as an assistant coach in 2001 and as the head coach in the 2013 World University Games where the Americans defeated Russia on their home floor to bring home the gold.

Now, Coale is writing and she’s loving every minute of it. In fact, she’s written the book “Rooted to Rise,” which focuses on four elements of her life – family, teachers and coaches, mentors and diversified inhabitants.

The book, Coale writes on her website www.sherricoale.com, is a collection of essays about people, some who have achieved extraordinary worldly success and some who have led ordinary lives. But the stories, she says, are far less about what the people have done and “far more about who they are, or were, or always will be through the impact they had on those around them.”

“I really do believe that people leave bits and pieces of themselves in those they encounter along the way—from the collective small town I was raised in to the bright lights of the collegiate sports stage, a whole host of characters have impacted me in ways too many to list,” she said.

This is Coale’s first book, which she says is for everyone. Coale believes readers will recognize themselves somewhere along the way. There are many stories about basketball players and teams, along with stories about teachers, amazing children, and waymakers.

“Holding the book for the first time was surreal. I’m incredibly excited and also incredibly grateful to so many people for helping make it happen. I wrote it but it has taken a village to bring the book to fruition!” Coale said.

“Rooted to Rise” was a lifelong project that started with daily “nuggets” from her love of writing and her varied life experiences in the classroom as an English teacher and on the sidelines as a high school and college basketball coach.

Still, the book didn’t become reality until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“That’s when I thought it would be a good time to put all of these nuggets together and start writing. When you’re coaching and recruiting, there’s not a lot of excess time for that. I thought what I need internally is to sit down and write, but what I really needed to do was sit down and write recruiting letters,” she said.

Writing the book was a challenge, yet rewarding since there are so many people who have interacted with Coale.

“No way is it exhaustive. These are just some of the characters who jumped out at me,” she recalled. “Putting them in order took a while.”

Coale was impacted by some of her teachers in southern Oklahoma, other high school basketball coaches and certainly by some of her college basketball colleagues.

When Coale walked away from basketball, she did so with intention, she writes on her website.

“Coaching was a beautiful, hard, rewarding, draining, amazing, fulfilling, incredible job that rarely felt like work,” she writes. “It was more fun than fun most days and I live

grateful for the journey. But the things are the list were calling.”

The one making the most racket, she notes, was “write.”

“A writing life may seem to lie somewhere on the other side of the moon from a life in athletics, but the two are scary similar in the things that they require,” she writes on the website. “They’re both ridiculously hard, even if they sometimes look easy. And the reward for either isn’t what you get at the end, it’s what you go through to get there. The process in both is the prize.”

After writing the “Rooted to Rise,” Coale was featured at several book signings including events in Norman, Edmond and Oklahoma City.

Coale also stays busy post-basketball with public speaking, consulting and a “lot of chasing my granddaughter around and around the room.”

She also plays tennis, works in the garden and typically can be found reading three or four books at a time. n

BY TIM FARLEY

Participants in the Daily living Centers program are a shining example of community volunteerism.

During the past couple of years, DLC participants have eclipsed 15,000 volunteer hours by doing a variety of projects to help others. They are part of the Citizens for SHINE, which is operated by Oklahoma County and spearheaded by Oklahoma County Commissioner Brian Maughan. SHINE is an acronym for Start Helping Impacted Neighborhoods Everywhere.

DLC President .and Chief Executive Officer Jessica Clayton approached Maughan about implementing a volunteer program for the people who come to the Daily Living Center in Bethany each day. Clayton said she had witnessed the extraordinary success of the Students for SHINE and the Offenders for SHINE, which started 13 years ago. Offenders for SHINE was started as a way for youngsters accused of non-violent crimes to work off their sentence without being incarcerated.

As a result, judges often mandate that the youthful offenders complete community service through the SHINE program.

Since the Citizens for SHINE was started, participants at the Daily Living Centers in Bethany and Edmond are ecstatic about helping others in whatever ways their physical limitations will allow.

Daily Living Centers is the affordable, non-residential facility that support the health, nutritional and social needs of seniors and adults with disabilities ages 18-year-old and up. DLC provides an alternative to assisted living centers and nursing homes in a professionally staffed, group setting. DLC has three centers with locations in Bethany, Edmond, and South Oklahoma City.

“The SHINE Program has helped us transform Daily Living Centers activities and programing to meet the individual needs of each participant. Volunteering through SHINE gives our participants tremendous joy. They find purpose in serving and giving back to the community,” Clayton said.

Volunteer work by Daily Living Centers participants includes: • Creation of flower arrangements for Veterans graves on

Memorial Day • Decorate bags for Hotdogs for Homeless • Make DLC bracelets and goodie bags for community leaders • Clean up around the center and pull weeds in flower gardens • Plant and water community gardens • Pick up trash at parks • Write thank you cards for hospital healthcare workers • Volunteer at Skyline and Citizens Caring for Children • Make blankets for past participants that have moved into long-term care. • Hold toy, food, and coat drives • Make poppies for the American Legion to hand out for donation on Veterans Day.

“We ask what they enjoy the most and they mention SHINE and the volunteerism and projects they get to do. It’s been pretty incredible,” said Clayton, who will join Maughan as his chief deputy in January. “Regardless of their disability or limitation, there’s always something they can do for SHINE.”

In one instance, Students for SHINE and Citizens for SHINE collaborated on a project to repurpose flowers that had been removed from cemeteries, turning them into bouquets and then placing them on grave sites belonging to military veterans at NE 36th and Martin Luther King.

“Many of the flowers were placed at graves of unknown soldiers,” Maughan said. “It was emotionally impactful. This multi-generational project displayed selfless acts on a hot and windy day. They were determined to persevere so these veterans would be honored. It was so awesome.”

Since Citizens for SHINE has been so successful at Daily Living Centers, Maughan anticipates the program will expand to wellness centers and nursing homes where older

residents and participants can volunteer their time for community projects.

“I never had the idea it (SHINE program) would be so big,” the commissioner said.

The Students for SHINE participants who volunteer for 100 hours or more are provided a distinguished graduate cord they can wear around their neck at high school graduation ceremonies.

“There’s a few who do more than 1,000 hours,” Maughan said.

A documentary about Oklahoma County’s SHINE program premiered Oct. 18 at the Oklahoma City Community College’s Visual Performing Arts Theater. SHINE, which started in 2010, has been recognized by Harvard University with its prestigious Bright Idea award. The documentary illustrates the impact the SHINE program has made, how it is empowering people and bettering communities. The documentary is entitled, “SHINE: An Enlightened Alternative.”

It profiles the unique alternative-sentencing program for low-level, non-violent offenders in use in Oklahoma County, which benefits both the community and the offenders. Judges, district attorneys, public defenders, legislators, business owners, convicted criminals, and more share their views on this innovative program that has effectively reduced jail population and saved millions of taxpayer dollars. n

Rhodes Farm ’ s mission to provide highquality affordable produce for low-income and underserved communities in Oklahoma.

JUST4BARS.COM MARCUS@RHODESFARMS.ORG OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA