STATE EXTRA: SACCO: A special team, coach

Leaning forward in his chair, he pondered the question for all of a second. Then Jeremy Hartman pulled his body forward, put his hands on the table in the Siegel Center media room, sighed, and let it out.

No, he said, the Group AA, Division 3 title game was not the end of the road for the Lee Ladies he coaches.

“Saturday,” he said, “is just the beginning of the journey.”

Not many coaches can say that. Then again, not many coaches have a roster filled with girls that need parental supervision to watch an R-rated movie. (Good thing Iron Man - which the team watched on the trip across I-64 - is PG-13.)

But with a junior and sophomore sitting to his right and some freshman you may have heard of on his left, Hartman glanced both ways. A chance, maybe, to soak it all in again.

“They’re so young,” he said, after watching his Lee Ladies advance to the title game Tuesday with a 55-49 win over Lord Botetourt. “We’re all going to grow up together.”

Then he said it. Like a proud father, his back stiffened as the words escaped his lips. Pride. Happiness. Love.

“We’re all family.”

And, by the looks of things, they’re going to be together for a while.

Nobody expected this outside of that small tight-knit family that came together on Nov. 13 for a first practice. Nobody, except for the Lee Ladies, bought advance-sale tickets to the Final Four. But Hartman believed all along because, to put it simply, his players believed.

Cockiness? Not quite.

It’s confidence, the kind of aura we beg and plead children to exude. It took them all of three months to learn it and learn it well. It takes others a lifetime.

And back when scrimmages were the only games they played, the Lee Ladies walked out of locker rooms asking the questions, “Why not us? Why not this year? Why wait?”

Exactly.

Why wait if you know the talent is there? Why settle for anything less than an undefeated Southern Valley season, a regular-season title, a district tournament title and that Region III crown? Why settle for not making the trip to Richmond?

Sometimes, the promise of the future doesn’t deliver; it’s a fickle thing. What’s great today might not be so great tomorrow. It’s a saga this Lee Lady basketball program knows all to well. The cavalcade of coaches after Dan Bonner left in 2002 is a testament to that.

But then came Hartman, who was Angela Mickens’ PE teacher in elementary school and when she heard he was going to be coach, she couldn’t wait to get on varsity.

“I was happy,” she said. “I couldn’t wait to play.”

And while everybody talks about how young this team is, it was Hartman on Tuesday who looked like this whole state thing was new to him.

Forgive him. It is.

“Um, thank you guys for having us,” he said to no one in particular when he took his seat at a table filled with TV mics and audio recorders. “We’ll appreciate any questions and try to answer them to the best of our ability.”

Who does this? A coach who, along with his girls, is sitting under the bright lights of the Siegel Center for the first time. That’s who.

It brought some muffled giggles from those in the seats. Giggles that slowly went away when Hartman glanced back and forth at his team.

His girls.

His family.

“I can’t tell you enough how much I love these kids,” he said, “and how proud I am of them.”

You never had to say that, coach.

“We love him,” Mickens said.

You see, coach. They already knew.