State fans have come to recognize Kellie Harper, who took over the State women’s basketball head coaching position from Stephanie Glance last year, quickly ascending the ranks to become the youngest women’s basketball head coach in the ACC.
Harper is known for taking her work home with her, but she has a good reason. Her assistant coach also happens to be her husband of over 10 years, Jon.
Jon has flourished in a supporting role and his booming voice and big personality are mainstays on the side court at Reynolds Coliseum. He coaches point guards, helps run practices and assists with recruiting. It also happens to be his job to plan the couple’s Valentine’s Day evening, something he said he hasn’t thought much about. Will they be doing anything this year?
“Hopefully,” Kellie said, looking in anticipation at her husband.
According to Kellie, the Harpers are fairly “laid back” and “down-to-earth” people, and if they did make Valentine’s Day plans, they would probably include dinner and a movie.
But most Valentine’s Days don’t see both husband and wife on the floor coaching one of State women’s basketball’s biggest games of the regular season. The annual Hoops for Hope event will take place Sunday at 5:30 p.m., which preemptively put the kibosh on whatever Jon might have planned for the holiday.
“I’m not making big plans, because if we lose it would not be a good idea for us to go out and try and celebrate,” he said with a laugh. “I know how both of us are. That would not be a fun dinner. People might think it’s separate, but basketball is a big part of our lives.”
“And if we win, it doesn’t matter what we do. We’ll be happy,” Kellie said.
Kellie, the starting point guard for the 1995-1998 University of Tennessee teams that won three consecutive national championships, met Jon in 1997 at a basketball camp while he was a manager for the Auburn University women’s team. They were married two years before they first coached together.
She had already broken into coaching at the collegiate level, something Jon had always wanted to do. The decision to work together was natural for the Harpers, though friends and peers were quick to voice their objections.
“Even when we went to work as assistants together, people were like, ‘That’s a bad idea,'” Jon said. “I was just like, first of all, this is an opportunity to do what I want to do. I also felt very confident that it would work.”
Kellie was named head coach of the Western Carolina Lady Catamounts in 2004 and the dynamic shifted.
“When she was made head coach, everyone was like ‘now this really won’t work, because at least before you were equals,” Jon said. “But it just works. I’m sure people think we’re crazy. We have a different relationship, but it works for us.”
N.C. State offered Kellie the head coaching job and the Harpers uprooted their lives and moved on again. Of course, Jon was right back at her side again. According to Kellie, switching jobs was an easy transition, but moving everything else was less so.
“Things as simple as going to the dentist – any time you move, there’s stress involved,” Kellie said. “We don’t have all the boxes unpacked at home, we’re both so tied up in our work. Pretty much any project we had prior to November is not done, and it will not get done until the season’s over.”
Their relationship translates to the court, where, along with Richard Barron and Stephanie McCormick, the coaching tandem is taking Pack women’s basketball in a new direction. Kellie said her husband gives valuable advice, though she doesn’t always take it.
“We look at the game differently and that’s good,” Kellie said. “We have different strengths on the floor, which is good. As a head coach, I want to be surrounded by assistants who are better than me in different areas. I feel like I’m able to get that done with this staff, and specifically with Jon. I’m very comfortable with how he coaches and what he knows, and making decisions based on the advice he gives me.”
According to team members and the coaches themselves, what enables the Harpers to cohabitate in the workplace, where so many other couples would be at each others’ throats, is that both share similar dispositions. They are calm and at ease in most situations, but when the clock starts, they rarely leave their feet and scream themselves hoarse.
In addition, they feel the same affection toward the 14 new additions to the extended Harper “family.”
“As coaches, we get to take on different roles,” Kellie said. “Sometimes, we’re their parents, big brother, big sister, friend, teacher, disciplinarian. We take on so many roles. Especially for us, because we don’t have kids, we see them as our family.”
Redshirt sophomore guard Emili Tasler said her coaches aren’t showy about their relationship in front of the team.
“It’s pretty cool,” Tasler said. “You really can’t tell though. They goof around with each other. But it’s not weird at all, its actually funny at times, they’re pretty comical.”
After an emotional 2008-2009 campaign and a complete staff overhaul that summer, the team is roughly where it should be and has defied many expectations. But Kellie said Tasler and her teammates will have to buckle down in hopes of overcoming the inconsistency that has plagued them all year and defeat Miami Sunday afternoon.
“We’ve been inconsistent. We’ve shown signs that we can be a good basketball team, and then we’ll follow that up with inconsistency,” Kellie said. “We’ve had a good few weeks of practice and I’m excited about that, and hopefully, the kids will be resilient and continue to work hard.”
And if the Pack pulls out a win? Maybe there will be a Valentine’s Day outing in the head coach’s future after all.
“If we do something, it’ll be a surprise,” Jon said.
