Having daddy in stands calms Coates

If South Carolina sophomore center Alaina Coates seems like a different player this season, it is not only because she has a season’s experience under her belt. Coates, a self-professed daddy’s girl, has something extra now that her father, Command Sgt. Maj. Gary Coates, is in the stands watching her play.

Gary Coates was deployed to Kuwait during most of the 2013-14 season as his daughter made the transition to college basketball.

“To know that he’s going to be here for the rest of my years, it means a lot to me,” Coates said Thursday before the Gamecocks departed for the Final Four in Tampa, Fla..

It means even more to her father, who will be sitting as close to the court as he can on Sunday, when Coates and the Gamecocks take on Notre Dame in the NCAA Women’s semifinals.

“It’s just amazing. It leaves me breathless, that she is a part of this team, and that I am getting to share in this experience with her,” Gary Coates said. “The president of the United States is my commander in chief. But I have another commander in chief, and her name is Alaina Denise Coates. So when she says I have to be there, I have to be there.”

Alaina Coates said her father is a stabilizing presence.

“It means a lot that he’s here,” she said. “Last year, I really felt his presence missing, him being at all of my games in high school. Now, it’s different because I can look in the stands and get that head nod from him that I usually get, if I need to adjust something, he’ll make his hand gestures and everything is good.

“I’ve been able to get over my frustrations quicker, because he’s my face in the crowd. I can just look at him and he’s going to give me that look that calms me down,” she said.

“It was not my first deployment, but it was a difficult time to be away, and it killed me to miss it,” said Gary Coates, a fulltime National Guardsman. He had been deployed during Alaina’s freshman season at Dutch Fork, but was back to see her help her Silver Fox team win back-to-back Class 4A titles and see jer play in the McDonald’s All-American game.

He was able to surprise his daughter by attending one of the Gamecocks’ earlier games in her freshman season, traveling from Fort Hood, Texas, on a pass to see the Seton Hall game.

But once her father was overseas, Alaina said, it was hard to adjust to his absence.

“With all the training and the practices and it was my freshman year, I didn’t know what was going on, and there were times I was really frustrated and I couldn’t get in touch with him as soon as I wanted,” she said.

With an 11-hour time difference, Gary Coates used whatever methods he could to stay connected, “and he made himself as available to me as he could, even if it meant waking up at 3 a.m.,” Alaina said.

“We made it work, and my teammates were really helpful to me, Leighsa (Welch) and Elem (Ibiam) really stepped in as big sisters and helped me,” Coates said.

Welch said she was naturally drawn to support her teammate.

“I was in a military family, too, so I knew what it was like to have to deal with the unknown,” she said. “My biggest thing was trying to keep her focused. It allows you to be in a happy place and for three hours, it allows you to not have that on your mind, especially when it’s something that weighs so heavily on you.”

Even while deployed, Gary Coates tried to be there for his daughter. When the Gamecocks headed to a game against San Diego State in California, he told her to take something of his so she would have a reminder of him.

“She took my ring from Sergeant Major school, and she had no intention of giving it back,” he said.

Alaina dedicated the season to her father, and when the Gamecocks won the SEC regular season championship, she gave her ring to her father. “As pretty as that ring was,” she said, “I knew when I got it I was going to give it to my daddy.”

Gary Coates is not shy about his expectations for Alaina and the Gamecocks.

“I expect a win on Sunday, and another win on Tuesday, which will be her birthday,” he said.

If he could give her that win, he would. But for his daughter, his presence and his smile are plenty.

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 8:36 PM with the headline "Having daddy in stands calms Coates."