A Bennett family game plan

Most young men aspiring to become college basketball coaches warn their significant others about the negative aspects of the job and all of the time demands linked with recruiting, road trips, daily practices, game preparation and video breakdown.

But Washington State’s Tony Bennett, who is in his first year as a head coach, didn’t afford his wife, Laurel, that courtesy.

“She was such a big-time catch for me, I had to trick her, kind of lie to her,” explained Bennett, who inherited the WSU men’s program from his father, Dick, last spring.

When Bennett first met his wife, he was playing in the NBA, where he had four months off each summer. He envisioned having a long, lucrative pro career, making lots of money and spending the offseasons relaxing with his wife. He even told her the last thing he ever wanted to do was to get into coaching.

But that was before his NBA dream was short-circuited by an injury.

“I was honest at the time, because I didn’t think I was going to coach,” he said. “But then I got hurt, and the coaching bug bit.”

Laurel still recalls the sting she felt from that bite.

“He said he never wanted to coach, and I was glad about that,” she said. “I could see what a toll it took on his dad. But here we are.”

And suddenly Laurel Bennett must deal with the anxiety of not knowing how her husband’s new position and the added authority that comes with it will affect her and her family, which includes 5-year-old daughter Anna and 4-year-old son Eli.

No matter what transpires, she takes comfort in knowing her husband’s parents, Dick and Anne Bennett, are – for the time being, at least – in Pullman and available to advise, assist and encourage, just as they have since Tony first joined his father’s staff at Wisconsin seven years ago.

“It’s been just a huge blessing to have them around,” Laurel Bennett said. “My grandparents were a huge part of my life, and it’s been wonderful having them around for our kids.”

But that could all change next year, according to Tony Bennett, who said his parents are considering moving back to Wisconsin – a move that won’t sit well with his wife or his children.

“I’d like to talk them into staying, maybe make them feel a little guilty somehow,” Laurel Bennett said. “My daughter will cry when we bring up that they might be moving back to Wisconsin.

“And I cry, too.”