UTSA women?s basketball coach Rae Rippetoe-Blair was in her fifth year of college at Oklahoma State in the mid-1980s when her career path changed.
That Rippetoe-Blair decided to become a women?s basketball coach was probably inevitable, considering her passion for the game.
She was a business major throughout her four-year career as a player at OSU, but she started to have second thoughts as she completed work on a degree in business administration.
Rippetoe-Blair, who is in her 13th season at UTSA, reflected on those days in an interview before the Roadrunners left for this week?s Western Athletic Conference Tournament in Las Vegas.
No. 4 seed UTSA, which finished the regular season 16-13 overall and 10-8 in WAC play, meets No. 5 Louisiana Tech (13-16, 9-9) in the quarterfinals at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday.
"My mother was in education and she always said, ?Rae, you?re going to coach,?" Rippetoe-Blair said. "And I would tell her, ?No, I?m going to be a businesswoman. I had this big idea that I wanted to be in the corporate world.
"My fifth year, I was finishing up and I thought about what I was going to do without basketball. I?m sitting there and not playing ball and I?m thinking, ?What am I going to do?? My whole life was in basketball. That?s when I decided I was going to coach."
Rippetoe-Blair became an assistant coach at Southern Nazarene in Bethany, Okla., in 1985 after graduating with a degree in business administration, and has coached at the college level every season since then.
Rippetoe in 18th season as a head coach
Now 50, Rippetoe-Blair has a 323-216 career record and is 216-172 at UTSA. The Roadrunners have made the NCAA tournament twice under Rippetoe-Blair, going in 2008 and 2009.
Rippetoe-Blair missed 3 1/2 games earlier this season with an undisclosed medical issue. She fell ill in the first half of a game against New Mexico State on Jan. 3, and went home after intermission.
Rippetoe-Blair missed consecutive games against Denver, Texas-Arlington and Louisiana Tech before returning to the bench.
In her 18th season as a head coach, she also led the program at Phillips University in Enid, Okla., for five years.
"I really don?t feel like I?ve ever gone to work," Rippetoe-Blair said. "I mean, honestly, I love what I do. It?s all about the kids, and motivating them and seeing how well they do. That?s on the court and in the classroom, and then seeing them come back and say, ?Thank you.? It wasn?t just basketball."
Rippetoe-Blair, who grew up in Ardmore, Okla., draws from her experience as a student-athlete to help her players get a foothold on life.
"You have so many young ladies right now that they go to college and they don?t know what they want to do," she said. "And you?re like, ?You don?t know what you want to do?? You try to help them with that along the way, to help them decide what career path they want to take."
Rippetoe-Blair coached at Southern Nazarene for two years before going to Phillips in 1987.
"I was really young when I became a head coach," Rippetoe-Blair said. "I had players who were older than me."
Rippetoe-Blair was OSU assistant coach for eight seasons
Rippetoe-Blair went 107-44 in her five seasons at Phillips, leading the Haymakers to the NAIA playoffs each year. She credits then-Phillips athletic director Denny Price, who died in 2000, for much of her success.
"Denny was my mentor," Rippetoe-Blair said.
She returned to OSU in 1992 and served an assistant under Dick Halterman for eight seasons before getting hired at UTSA.
"Dick Halterman was another coaching mentor," Rippetoe-Blair said.
UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey, who hired Rippetoe-Blair in 2000, was women?s basketball coach at Kansas State when Rippetoe-Blair was a player at OSU.
"Another person who?s helped me a lot is Lynn," Rippetoe-Blair said. "I?ve known Lynn since she was a coach at K-State (Kansas State) and I was playing at Oklahoma State.
"And then when I was an assistant at Oklahoma State, she was the head coach at A&M. I?ve known Lynn through the basketball ranks. She?s unbelievable. She?s been a great mentor."
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Coach's mother her biggest fan, biggest critic
While Price, Halterman and Hickey have helped her develop as a coach, Rippetoe-Blair leaves no doubt about who has been the biggest influence in her life.
"My mother is probably my biggest mentor," Rippetoe-Blair said. "She watches every game on the Internet."
Anita Rippetoe, 75, is a former school counselor and teacher.
"My mom has probably been my biggest fan and my biggest critic," Rippetoe-Blair said, chuckling. "She?ll call me after a game and say, ?Why did you play her.? My dad is more quiet."
Anita and Wayne Rippetoe, 76, still live in Ardmore. Rippetoe-Blair?s only sibling, Ron, died of a heart attack four years ago at age 44.
Rippetoe-Blair said high school girls basketball in San Antonio enjoys a higher profile today than it did when she started coaching at UTSA.
"It seemed that San Antonio was more of a volleyball town back then," she said. "It just seems that right now there's so much more emphasis on basketball, and I think that's due to a lot of the great high school coaches we have here.
"With the way AAU programs in the summer have evolved here, more girls are playing and that has really helped San Antonio basketball. There are a lot of great players here right now. You look across the country and there are teams with players from San Antonio."
Rippetoe-Blair and her husband, Craig, live in Boerne.
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