Coley provides emotional lead for No. 14 Tulsa

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Growing up in rural eastern Oklahoma, Eric Coley had two choices for fun: ride horses or shoot baskets.<br><br>Somehow, the Tulsa forward has managed to combine them.<br><br>Coley

Tuesday, March 7th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Growing up in rural eastern Oklahoma, Eric Coley had two choices for fun: ride horses or shoot baskets.

Somehow, the Tulsa forward has managed to combine them.

Coley charges into games like a calf-roper looking to take control. He leaps big. He dives big. He grabs big steals -- all with the igniting effect of a silver spur dug into his teammates' sides.

Other teams have superstars to lead them in the Western Athletic Conference tournament. Top-ranked Tulsa will be looking to this tough-as-nails cowboy.

"He's the guy that makes us go," coach Bill Self says. "When he's not confident, we're not near as good. When he's not aggressive, we're not near as good."

Coley is no rah-rah leader. He is quiet. If a younger player is going to hear from somebody, it's likely to be another senior, the
more vocal Tony Heard.

But Coley proved to be the emotional charge in the climb of the Golden Hurricane (27-3, 12-2) to champion of the WAC's regular season. And he'll be a force when tournament play opens between Tulsa and Rice (5-21, 1-13) in Fresno, Calif., on Thursday.

Coley set the WAC record for career steals against Rice this season and tied the school's single-game steal record. Coley's 99 steals this year set both the school and WAC single-season record.

He is second on this well-balanced team in rebounds, assists and blocked shots and ranks fourth in scoring. Several times this season, Coley has exploded in a lagging game to set a whole new tone, leading by example only.

Even Self considers him his role model -- but not because of his performance.

"I'll remember the dunks. I'll remember the athletic plays," Self says. "But I'll remember him ... having an impact on other people's lives far more so than that."

Coley was 13 the first time he was thrown from a horse. It hurt, he remembers, but it didn't keep him from getting back on.

Riding and roping and working on a relative's farm near Eufaula made him tough, he says. A series of personal struggles have only
made him tougher.

He lost his mother to cancer two years ago, his brother is battling leukemia and Coley stalled travel to this season's opener to serve as a pallbearer at the funeral of a cousin who committed suicide.

"Whenever you think you've got it bad ... you realize how selfish your thought process is when you look at him and realize how he's sacrificing and doing things for us when he's gone through more than maybe all of us combined in a short amount of time," Self says.

Coley attributes erratic play in past seasons to those personal struggles and prayer and a faith in God for being able to overcome them.

"It made me a stronger player, physically and mentally," Coley says. "It made me so tough that it takes a lot to hurt me."

He plays with fierceness in his eyes and a focus that he says he learned from the horses he still breaks away to ride two or three
times a week.

"When you're riding horses you just remember to stay centered and stay focused, and you've got to do that a lot of times on the court," he says.

And he finds other similarities. A horse and its rider have to trust each other to work as a team. He thinks Tulsa has been successful for the same reason.

"We believe in each other so much that it would be pretty hard to beat us," he says. "We know what we can do if everybody is on the same page.