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GREENSBORO — Kellie Harper was late. Every coach in the ACC was gathered at midcourt of the Greensboro Coliseum floor Monday, every coach except the newest member of the conference. She was busy talking.

Harper might have the hardest job in America, but you'd never know it. The young protégé of a legend is now the head coach at N.C. State, a program in the grieving stage after the death of another legend. Kay Yow was the only coach State ever had. And now Harper becomes the second.

She's received advice and support from the most unlikely places, words of encouragement from those she will compete against in the coming years even from rival programs only a few miles away. No one can know what it will be like for Harper to stand on Kay Yow Court this season, but a lot of people want her to know they're pulling for her.

It's because they like her, and that's enough for now.

Only 32, she's closer in age to her players than she is to her colleagues. And many of those colleagues were close friends with Yow. Some of them assumed Yow's trusted assistant Stephanie Glance, not Harper, would get the job after Yow's death. After all, it was a dying wish.

Harper talked to her mentor, Tennessee coach Pat Summit who recruited Harper to play point guard through that program's most successful run of national titles. Summit told her she was ready. That's all Harper needed to hear. When she first introduced herself to her players in Raleigh earlier this year, they wanted to see the three NCAA championship rings. Now that she's on the job, that doesn't come up anymore. The players are too tired.

State will run the ball this year. That will come as a surprise to those used to watching Yow's teams through the years, teams that were drilled on fundamentals and precision plays from the mind of one of the game's innovators. Yow's teams walked the ball up the floor. Harper's team will not.

"I've tried to be me," she said Monday at the ACC women's basketball media day. "I'm going to try to do things not like anyone else, but to do them as Kellie Harper should do them."

She continued to call Summit, of course, and a lot of coaches called her. She is, after all, one of only a handful of coaches in America who would be considered a potential successor at Tennessee. That alone gives her, not just status in the women's coaching community, but exalted status. That's why Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell, herself a Tennessee native, felt comfortable giving Harper advice. It was like family.

"I've known Kellie for a long time," Hatchell said.

Harper personally beat Hatchell's teams back in the NCAA titles runs in 1996, 97 and 98, and in recent years they found themselves sitting side-by-side in basketball gymnasiums recruiting the same players. There's a respect there that is hard won in coaching circles. Her advice for Harper was respectful yet simple.

"Keep doing what got you where you are," Hatchell told her. "It's hard for her and for some of the coaches, too, because we were so close to Kay. I think Kellie understands we all had a special relationship with Kay. I think she's coming in trying to be her own person."

Harper knows what has to happen now. She has to recruit against her ACC rivals, and those across the nation who will be less welcoming the next time she sees them. And then the fun will really start.

"The way you become a successful basketball coach is recruiting," she said. "There's no doubt that you have to have great players to have a great team. That's going to take a little time. We're working hard. We feel like if we can bring recruits to campus, we can sell them. We have a great product at N.C. State. Our kids are wonderful to be around. It's just going to take some time to get those top recruits on our campus."

Her practices suggest she'll do what she has to do to compete with Carolina and Duke and Maryland and, yes, even Tennessee. She runs drills with players, and finds herself getting knocked unceremoniously to the court from time to time.

"I think they know that I'm willing to do just about anything I need to do," Harper said.

She is, at heart, still a point guard. As the other 11 ACC coaches stood at center court Monday, waiting for a group picture to be taken, Harper was still chatting off the floor. Suddenly, she saw what was happening, sprang onto the court, blonde hair flying and a big smile on her face. She ran into the circle and didn't ask where she should stand.

Kellie Harper put her arms around two colleagues and laughed. She was right at home, a part of a new league of coaches, probably with a job harder than any of those around her.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com