I woke up to my phone ringing.
Nothing seemed more important than a few more minutes of sleep, so I ignored it.
When it stopped ringing, I checked my phone and realized I had a few missed calls and even more text messages and eventually gathered the news everyone was trying to tell me.
Oklahoma State women's basketball coach Kurt Budke and his assistant, Miranda Serna, died in a plane crash flying back from a scouting trip to Arkansas.
Stunning news, especially for me. Budke was my first interview as an aspiring college journalist, an interview that started terribly wrong and ended unimaginably perfect.
It was January of 2011, and I found myself standing in a crowded Gallagher-Iba practice gym face to face with the coach.
I stood in the corner of the practice gym and watched Budke run his practice, stopping the drills here and there to coach his players in his own warm, loving way.
"Back when I was coaching my daughter's team, I asked Kurt for advice," said Dave Hunziker, play-by-play voice of the Cowboys. "I remember him saying that coaching girls is different. He said ‘If you show them you care, they'll run through a brick wall for you,' and even with girls as little as my daughter, it was the truth. He knew what he was doing."
It was evident that Budke operated by that philosophy, but it didn't stop with his team.
Budke applied that ideal to every component of being a head coach.
I experienced that theory firsthand when I approached him to ask him questions about the game.
The fact that it was my first interview was something he recognized right away.
My mouth opened and something that loosely resembled a question lazily tumbled out.
"So, coach … your team is preparing for a big game against the Aggies … How does it look to do that?"
I immediately realized that my brain had simply pieced together fragments of about 20 different thoughts and created one question. I ducked my head in embarrassment and fear.
"Is this your first interview?" Budke asked with a grin.
I nodded, still avoiding eye contact, ready to sprint out of the gym in tears while cursing my plan for a career in sports journalism.
Instead of laughing me out of the gym as I expected, Budke smirked, put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.
"Be confident in your questions and we'll give you what you need," he said. "Don't ever get embarrassed about something; if you need a quote then go after it and get it out of me."
What he said has always stuck in the back of my mind, and although I doubt he would have remembered anything about that day, I remember it as if it had just happened a few moments ago.
I have more than 200 interviews with various Oklahoma State coaches and athletes stored up on my recorder, but this one has always been my favorite — not only because it was my first, but also because of what happened.
I moved on to cover the men's basketball program for the remainder of the season but ran into Budke quite a few times after.
The greeting was always the same — a smile, a handshake and a pat on the shoulder.
Budke was more than just a coach at Oklahoma State University. He was a friend to his team, a role model for all who watched him and a great person on and off the court.
"I can still see it right now," Hunziker said. "Every Sunday he was in church. Halfway down on the right side, right arm around his wife, left arm propped on the arm of the pew."
That Kurt Budke is the very same man who helped me out that day in the practice gym and the same man who quietly took his seat for every Cowgirl basketball game since he was hired in 2005.
He was the man who would sit in the first row of the bleachers before and after practices, leaning back against the second row with his arms spread and his legs crossed while talking to members of the media or a fan who happened to wander into practice.
Budke treated both the same — with respect. And it didn't matter who he was talking to; his approach never changed.
"He was a very good coach and a better person," Oklahoma State alumnus and ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb said. "He took over a team that hadn't won a conference game the previous year and made them successful. But it wasn't a success in which anyone else felt threatened by because of how well-respected he was around the department and around Stillwater.
Budke's success on the court was evident, but anyone who knew him also knows that that wasn't all he was worried about. He was as much concerned with preparing his players for the next game as he was preparing them for life after Oklahoma State. In doing that, the coach gained the respect of everyone around the program and city.
"Kurt was kind of like the mayor," Hunziker said. "He had so many people in Stillwater that respected him because he was so approachable that he probably could've won office if he tried. He was that kind of man."
His approachable characteristics quickly gained popularity among the fan base of Oklahoma State.
"I always saw the Oklahoma State women's team as the team of Payne County," Hunziker said. "You had so many people right there in Stillwater that maybe couldn't afford football tickets or men's basketball tickets, so they'd rally behind his team because they could be there, and the fact that he was such a good guy only helped that."
Coming off the 10-year anniversary of the tragic 2001 plane crash that claimed 10 Oklahoma State lives, the situation is all too familiar for any Cowboy or Cowgirl who has been around the program for any period of time.
But if 2001's tragedy is any type of hint, then one thing is for sure when it comes to Kurt Budke and Miranda Serna.
Oklahoma State will never forget.
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