May 14, 2017
By Jeff Shearer
AuburnTigers.com
AUBURN, Ala. - Coaches, by nature of their jobs, are detail-oriented planners. Control freaks, to some degree. Auburn women's basketball coach Terri Williams-Flournoy relies on four calendars to keep track of each day's tasks.
For Coach Flo, as she's known on Auburn's campus, the irony resides in the fact that two of life's momentous decisions -- marriage and children -- were unplanned.
"I didn't plan to get married. I didn't plan to have kids. None of that was planned at all," she says. "My mom still laughs, because both of my kids, it really wasn't a plan."
Terri and her husband, Eric, have two children: daughter Maya, 16, and son EJ, 13.
"They both were born at the worst possible times," says Coach Flo. "Maya was born in October, right in the middle of practice before the season starts. EJ was born in December, right in the middle of the season."
Coach Flo may not have planned the month of her children's arrival, but once pregnant, she did plan the day. Twice.
"I planned for both of them to be induced," she says. "My mom said, 'Who does that?' One, I don't like surprises, and two, in my profession, you see I'm such a planner with all of my calendars, it's easy for me to say, 'I'm going to the hospital this day to have my child on this day,' and I can plan out how the rest of the calendar is going to look. To this day, my mom still laughs at that. Like, who plans their births?"
When Maya was born, Coach Flo was an assistant at Georgia. EJ came along three years later, just before Williams-Flournoy landed her first head coaching job at Georgetown.
"Baby's here, watching film here," Coach Flo recalls. "I think both of my kids could either break down film or write up a practice plan."
Williams-Flournoy built a winner at Georgetown. By the time her first recruiting class members were seniors, the Hoyas had a winning record. The foundation laid, Coach Flo's team made three straight NCAA Tournament appearances.
But it came at a price. Commuting from her home in Maryland to Georgetown's campus in D.C. consumed 90 minutes each way "on a good day," she says. "And if it was traffic, you could just forget about it.
'Who's raising my daughter?'
"I loved Georgetown. It was my dream job. Then I started looking at my daughter as she was growing. 'Okay, I'm raising everybody else's daughter, but who's raising my daughter?'"
In 2012, Williams-Flournoy came to Auburn, where she's coached the past five seasons, including back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament.
"It was a sacrifice to get out of my comfort zone of Georgetown, but it wasn't really that much of a sacrifice because you're coming to Auburn," she says. "Welcomed with open arms, and everybody loves you and loves what we've done here at Auburn.
"And they've embraced my kids. It wasn't just me. It was my family. To be able to be here, and to be able to be a mom and a coach, it's really been fantastic."
Still, building and maintaining a winning program requires a commitment that's measured in long days and time away.
"It's still tough," she says. "That's one thing that you can never get back, and that's time. The time that I miss away from them.
"EJ still cries, to this day, when I'm leaving. I don't think he's going to ever grow out of that. If he could fit in a suitcase, which he probably can, if he could get in there without me knowing, he would be on every trip."
When Coach Flo is on the road, Eric picks up the parenting slack.
"My husband has always been there to fill in the blank space of me being gone," she says. "As a mom coach, your duties as a mom never end. You can't pass that on to somebody else. When they're sick, they don't want anybody else but mom. Some things dad just can't fill in."
Despite the challenges, Coach Flo is thankful for the opportunities her position provides for her children.
"I don't think anyone can say that they've traveled as much as my kids have," she says. "From the end of the earth to the other.
At the women's Final Four in Dallas, Williams-Flournoy attended a Moms in Coaching meeting, encouraged by the many women who, like her, balance the demands of coaching and raising kids.
"The one thing I would say is, don't beat yourself up over some of the things you have to give up," Coach Flo says. "There are a lot of sacrifices that are made. You give and you get. It can be done. And when somebody says they want to help, let them. Let them! They're not taking your place because nobody could ever take the place of mom."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @jeff_shearer