Gas just doesn't seem to stretch as far on these California roads. Which is why Nikki Caldwell found herself stranded on the side of one last Friday night.
Thankfully, the UCLA women's basketball coach had just finished eating dinner with her staff. A couple of quick calls and her assistant coaches hustled off to find a gallon to go.
As Caldwell waited, she was approached by two police officers who wanted to know what a young woman was doing alone in a dark car near Marina del Rey. The 36-year-old coach opened the door, flashed them a smile strung with shiny metal braces and introduced herself.
I'm Nikki Caldwell. Nikki who? Caldwell. What do you do? I work for UCLA. Doing what? I coach women's basketball. Oh.
Not exactly the kind of reaction Caldwell used to get back in Tennessee when strangers discovered she was an assistant to the legendary Pat Summitt.
In Knoxville, the Lady Vols bask in the glow of celebrity.
In Los Angeles, women's basketball languishes in obscurity.
But that night Caldwell did what she has been doing for years: She sold someone on her team.
By the end of the night, she had enough gas to get home and two police officers' promise to come to the next UCLA game.
Caldwell sure is convincing. And not in that Southern hospitality kind of way, although her raised-in-small-town-Oak Ridge-Tennessee drawl can be lilting.
No, convincing as in powerful. Conclusive. As if she has all the answers and if you're receptive and willing to listen, she'd be happy to hand them out.
Take that first Los Angeles news conference where Caldwell spoke last April. She had just been hired to replace Kathy Olivier, who resigned after 15 years with the Bruins. Behind her signature red glasses, Caldwell looked directly at the crowd and fielded queries with cool elegance -- and the team that finished 16-15 last year took notice.
"We're sitting there listening and she just answered all the questions with confidence," sophomore forward Nina Earl recalled. "She's like, 'Yes, we're gonna do this, we're gonna beat USC.' She was just so confident and ready to start. She hadn't even really met us yet. It was like, 'OK. We're gonna follow this lady.' "
