It’s almost there – the end, the finish line. Rochelle Coleman is ready to graduate and move on to bigger, better things. Go to graduate school, help coach some up-and-coming program and one day lead a team of her own.

Coleman, a four-year member of the Syracuse women’s basketball team, has every reason to have hope for a great future. After what she’s been through the past four years, it’d almost be a crime for her not to see her dreams come to fruition.

She’s seen Syracuse go to the NCAA Tournament. Two years later, Marianna Freeman, the coach who recruited her, left coaching. That year, the program won only six games. She’s seen her playing time decrease. She’s switched to point guard – a position she never played – halfway through her senior season.

But through it all, Coleman just bore down and smiled.

To her, there never was any reason not to. As long as she could play the game she loved, she’d be happy. Hard work isn’t that tedious when it’s done for something you enjoy.

When Syracuse hired Keith Cieplicki as its new women’s basketball coach in 2003 and three players left throughout that year as controversy swirled, Coleman didn’t flinch. Sure, she cared that despite starting every game in the 2002-03 season, she somehow found herself on the bench the next year.

Still, she was playing, contributing.

‘The people that recruit you, that’s your family,’ said Chineze Nwagbo, captain of the women’s basketball team. ‘When someone new comes in, you have to prove yourself again. With any team that experiences a coaching change, there’s going to be trials and tribulations. There were times that we didn’t feel like we fit in. There were some tough changes. It’s the tough ones that stick through it.’

If there ever was a word to describe Coleman, it’d be ‘tough.’ She’s a competitor and doesn’t make excuses. If the ball was loose on the floor, Coleman chased after it. If she missed a shot, it was her fault. No one else’s.

And it comes as no surprise Coleman stuck through it while others left. If anything, the demotion to the bench was just more incentive to show up at the gym early, take hundreds of jump shots before anyone else arrived at practice. There was something relaxing about the ball swishing though the net, time after time.

When she looks back on her time at Syracuse, Coleman doesn’t wish anything more for herself. Her only hopes are the team she’s leaving will do better than it did when she was on it.

‘I don’t regret anything though,’ Coleman said. ‘I go hard at everything I do. There’s no room to be upset if I gave it everything I had.’

Coleman shouldn’t have regrets. She did everything her team asked of her. Not many seniors would switch to a new position after playing a different one for 16 years. It’s especially true considering the coach that asked her wasn’t even the one who brought her to Central New York.

But she dutifully followed Cieplicki’s experiment when he asked Coleman to fill in at point guard at a practice in late December. Cieplicki’s request wasn’t a labor or chore for Coleman, it was a treat.

This was her big chance to crack the lineup. While the transition was awkward at first, Coleman impressed the coaching staff with her ability to overcome lack of experience by using sheer will.

Her playing time increased by 14 minutes per game. More and more, Coleman became an integral part of the lineup. By the end of the season, the Orange couldn’t function without her.

‘We didn’t feel that anyone was working out (at point guard),’ Cieplicki said. ‘It just kinda happened by accident. Rochelle, when it came time to play, really had it.’

Cieplicki shouldn’t have been surprised. While the team was wrought with unhappiness, Coleman held the team together. But she didn’t do it with words.

During a six-game losing streak in February, Cieplicki insisted his team was ready to make the jump to the middle of the Big East despite starting three freshmen. Coleman continued showing up at the gym early, keeping a positive attitude even though she wasn’t playing the style of basketball she was used to. Gradually, the freshmen followed Coleman. Her hard work started to rub off.

‘After making the transition, the team really came together,’ Nwagbo said. ‘Rochelle was absolutely wonderful. Sometimes it was a detriment to her game because everyone knows she can shoot the lights out.’

For the first time in three years, Syracuse won a Big East tournament game. An insignificant achievement for most teams, the victory over Georgetown showcased just what Coleman meant to the Orange. Her seven points, four rebounds and one assist looked like a quiet night on paper, but just having Coleman at the point made the victory possible.

And while Nwagbo was the Orange’s vocal leader, Coleman remained an intense, but calming presence.

That presence is what’s driving Coleman. It’s why she excelled at the point guard position. It’s why she does well in the classroom and tutors other students. It’s why you can find her in pick-up games at Archbold Gymnasium, even though she just finished a grueling four-year stretch of playing Division I basketball.

‘I can’t help it,’ Coleman said. ‘(Not playing competitive basketball will) probably get weird around September.’

But Coleman will find a way to adjust. She always has.

With all she’s experienced over her career at Syracuse, Coleman will enter her first coaching job more than ready. It’s like she’s already done it.

‘She’s someone that’s been willing to tell me what she thinks and been willing to adjust to things that changed when I came,’ Cieplicki said. ‘If she didn’t buy into what we’re trying to do, there’s no way we would’ve won 13 games.’

Published on April 25, 2005 at 12:00 pm