NFL Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh was having dinner with his wife Geri in a beautiful restaurant overlooking the San Francisco Bay. You know, there’s the city, and it’s wonderful, great food, and he’s looking off a thousand miles away. And Geri says, ‘What is it, Bill, third and eight?’ And I think at that level it’s always third and eight. There’s always something you’re worried about – the draft choice, the injury, the field, the weather, whatever … It’s the burden of wives of obsessed men. – David Halberstam

Jessica Richey had planned, what she thought, would be a perfect birthday celebration for her then fiancé Bob Richey: Dinner reservations at one of Charleston’s best restaurants with a great view overlooking historic downtown. No surprises, no fanfare, just a quiet, relaxing evening.

“We’re at an end table next to the window and I see him doing this,” said Jessica, looking below the table and motioning with her hand. “I’m asking him, ‘Bob, what are you doing?’”

Richey, an assistant men’s basketball coach at Charleston Southern University, with his eyes glued on his cell phone caller ID says, “It’s a recruit and I think we have a problem here.”

“The restaurant even had signs: No cell phones!” remembers Jessica.

“This goes on through the whole dinner,” Jessica remembers. “He hardly ate his meal. I can’t have a conversation with him.”

It’s just the way coaches are wired. The default setting is always “on” and when it comes to recruiting, accessibility is Priority One. That means being available 24-7-365.

Just like that, with a single phone call, dinner and the birthday celebration, wiped out. Relax? Enjoy? Forget it. Jessica sighs, folds her arms across her midsection and rolls her eyes, still frustrated by the memory.

Let the record show that the recruit who made the call was CSU guard Jamarco Warren. He was playing a prank on Richey. By the end of the evening the jig was up. According to Jessica, it was too late for an apology and, in basketball terms, this was a flagrant foul.

“To this day I tell him [Jamarco Warren] he owes us a dinner,” she said.

By this time, Hope Radebaugh, wife of Charleston Southern men’s basketball head coach Barclay Radebaugh, is sitting an arm’s length away laughing hysterically — not at Jessica, but at the story. She can relate to the experience, she too is a coach’s wife. It’s what the late Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Halberstam referred to as “coach’s wife syndrome.”

The X’s and O’s of home life

“My wife has asked me a question every year for 10 years, and she always worded it the same way: ‘Explain to me why you must continue to do this, because the times when you are happy are so few.’ She has no concept.”- Bill Parcells

“I don’t know if I will ever fully understand the drive in him (Barclay),” admitted Hope Radebaugh. “The passion is so deep. Barclay still plays basketball. He plays on our court at home. He sometimes plays with our players. He loves basketball shorts. He wears basketball shoes. He loves the smell of the gym. He loves the game.”

All we know is Barclay Radebaugh loves the game (and the “smell of the gym,” which may require a follow-up story). Somewhere in between the personal and professional passion is where the bane of the lifestyle exists. A lifestyle driven by intangible motives, unyielding commitment and demanding schedules.

Radebaugh took the head coaching reigns at Charleston Southern in the summer of 2005. Already behind in the recruiting process, he hit the ground running. The work consumed Radebaugh. Soon, the X’s and O’s were coming in the front door of the Radebaugh home.

“He would walk through the door after work and he would still be on his phone and that would often carry into dinner hour,” she said. “Over time it began to bother me. I approached him about it and said, ‘when you come home it means a lot that you leave your work and commit to this family time.’ Barclay has always been receptive to my suggestions and he began to see he needed to do that.”

For Radebaugh and his coaching staff it’s six months of preparation (recruiting and training) followed by a six-month schedule of games. The name of game is staying one step ahead of your competition. “You want to say the season ends with the Final Four, but then our husbands go out recruiting,” explained Hope Radebaugh. “In our profession we really don’t have a weekend. Our husbands are working on Friday, Saturday and sometimes on Sunday, because of that I think it sometimes takes it toll because you really don’t find a place to rest.”

“You have to understand it’s not 9-5, Monday through Friday,” added Jessica Richey, who wed in April 2007 and is just now learning to navigate these unchartered waters. “It’s a learning process. It doesn’t come easy. You can’t have expectations when you’re a coach’s wife.”

The only certainty for a coach’s wife is uncertainty. Schedules, planning ahead, that’s for normal people, for a coach’s wife holidays and birthday celebrations come in small slices, sometimes a day or a week later than the actual calendar date. It’s life on-the-fly.

“Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, all of the holiday’s that normally bring a family together, gathering around a table of food with the people you love, our profession robs you of that a little bit,” said Hope Radebaugh. “We usually play the day after Thanksgiving, two days after Christmas — which doesn’t allow us to go home and spend time with our families – and there’s been many Valentine’s Days that we’ve been on the court. For a woman who craves that time with family, that’s a sacrifice.”

How did you deal with those holidays in your first year of marriage, Jessica? “Difficult,” she explains with a laugh. “Since Bob has played basketball we have never been together on Valentine’s Day but, you can either be bitter or celebrate the next weekend.”

This year the Radebaugh’s will celebrate 20 years of marriage (and coaching) that has included nine moves and seven teams, at least according to Hope’s arithmetic. “Barclay will say that isn’t accurate because we moved twice in the same city,” she said. “But I remind him if we’re packing dishes that’s counts as a move.”

No matter how you add it up, Hope and Barclay Radebaugh know the emotional stress that the coaching profession heaps on a marriage and a family.

“I struggle with bitterness and with anger. It waxes and wanes,” said Hope Radebaugh. “Early on we had three children and I was overwhelmed a lot of the time. I struggled but I recognized that. God has given me a sense and wisdom by His grace to know when that’s welling up in my heart – and I can tell when it’s coming – and I have to deal with it, with Him, or it grows. It’s like a festering sore; it gets bigger and bigger and bigger unless I deal with it.”

On a recent recruiting trip to Ohio, Jessica and Bob Richey experienced a taste of the life. “He was in the gym from eight o’clock in the morning to midnight,” said Jessica Richey. “I can’t always call and talk to him. He’ll send me a text (message) and I understand that. You understand what he’s doing is what’s best for the program.”

Faith, Hope and Gym Rats

“Don’t do it. Don’t go into coaching, unless it’s something you absolutely can’t live without.” – Legendary Alabama football coach Bear Bryant

Hope has faith and faith has guided Hope into a servant. Last Fall Radebaugh parlayed her life experience and God-given gifts and published Gym Rats, a 65-day devotional guide targeting coach’s wives.

“That’s one of the place the Lord really started to deal with me because in my heart,” she said. “You have a choice: You can be angry and bitter about it or you can embrace it and say, ‘God’s shaping me into a servant here.’”

Fresh off a road trip to Rock Hill, South Carolina and a speaking engagement to promote Gym Rats, Radebaugh spoke and listened to other coach’s wives. Her life has become her work and her work has inspired and encouraged others “married to the profession.”

“[Women] develop a lifestyle independent of your husband, gravitating toward those things that bring you joy, that bring you happiness and it’s usually apart from him (husband),” she said. “What you see is two people who are clinging to different things for fulfillment and their lives grow apart. They may be married but they’re going in two different directions.”

As Radebaugh answers questions, Jessica Richey begins nodding and soaking up every word, taking mental notes. It’s a free lesson, a one-on-one rookie camp for a coach’s wife.

“I’ve learned a lot from Hope since I got here two years ago,” said Jessica Richey. “I know it’s not going to be easy, because you never know … you never know the situation you are going to be in. It’s a profession of winning and losing and some of the best coaches lose.”

“Jessica can expect to move because he (Bob) will be sought after,” says Radebaugh. “You can expect to have to start over a lot. We have moved nine times to many different communities, not knowing whether to turn right or left to get to the grocery store. If God blesses you with children, you can expect to be miles away from grandparents. But in that lifestyle, I believe, the positives outweigh the negatives because that lifestyle puts you in a position to seek the One who never leaves you or forsakes you.”

The thought is daunting to Richey, a newlywed. Jessica and Bob Richey are still doing more learning than living. Hired in 2006 as an assistant coach at CSU, Bob and Jessica moved to Charleston, started new careers and planned a wedding, in less than two years. No pressure, no stress, its like drinking water from a fire hose.

But, despite all the trails and challenges that come along with being a coach’s wife, Hope Radebaugh or Jessica Richey quickly confess they wouldn’t trade it for anything. In hindsight, these wives are just as committed to making their marriages work as their husbands are too the CSU basketball program.

“I can never imagine my husband doing anything else,” Hope said of her husband Barclay. “We’ve talked about that and this profession has its highs and lows and there are times you become introspective and you ask yourself, ‘What are we doing?’ But on the other side of the conversation we always go back to Barclay is being called to be a coach. God’s put that calling in him when he was a small boy.”

“People ask, ‘Is Bob going to stay in coaching?’” added Jessica Richey. “To me, that’s not even a question. I can’t imagine him doing anything else. He is so passionate about coaching.

“He’s a recruiter and one of the neat things was being able to go to a game to watch a recruit with him. Once you see that, you understand what it’s all about. Once you see that, it comes to life for you.”

The Radebaugh’s seemingly work in stereo and practice the team concept in their home life. One is connected to the other. In fact, the last two seasons the Radebaugh’s hosted the entire CSU roster for Thanksgiving dinner. After the game, the team gets on the bus and travel to the host city together. Now that’s “We Are Fam-i-lee …” in action.

For the record, I asked, “What size turkey do you get to feed a college basketball team (and your family)?” Hope Radebaugh replied: “Two, 20-pound turkeys. They can flat put it away.”

(published in CSU Magazine)