Mark Daigneault is a planner.
It’s part of the gig as an NBA head coach.
Still, the Thunder coach’s planning chops were put to the test late in the regular season as his team pushed for a postseason berth and his wife neared her due date with the couple’s second child. Oh, add to the mix that her team, OU women’s gymnastics, was headed to nationals and there were a lot of moving parts.
Planning to slow down Brandon Ingram?
Figuring out how to contain Karl-Anthony Towns?
That wasn’t the only game planning Daigneault did in April.
On Saturday, as the Thunder formally introduced its newest draftees, Cason Wallace and Keyontae Johnson, Daigneault spoke for the first time about the circumstances surrounding the birth of his daughter. It certainly wasn’t as easy as waiting for his wife’s labor to begin.
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For starters, Ashley Kerr was likely to be in Fort Worth, Texas, for the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships. She is a volunteer assistant with the Sooners, and as the two-time defending national champions who spent most of the season ranked No. 1, they expected to make nationals.
So Daigneault and Kerr began making plans with her obstetrician.
“We had an OB in town connect us with an OB in Texas in Fort Worth,” Daigneault said.
If necessary, the Fort Worth obstetrician would take over Kerr’s care and deliver the baby.
But that wasn’t the only variable involved — Daigneault wasn’t sure where he wanted to be.
The Thunder came out of the All-Star Break with a good chance to make the postseason, but in the highly competitive Western Conference, seeding would come down to the final days of the regular season. At times, the Thunder were solidly in one of the final playoff spots. Other times it slipped into will-they-or-won’t-they reach for play-in.
“If we didn’t make the play-in, I would have been there with her,” Daigneault said on his way to Fort Worth. “And then if she went into labor, we would have done it down there.”
Clarity was confident coming into the Thunder’s final regular season game on April 9, but on April 7 it secured a play-in spot.
The Sooners had already clinched their spot at nationals the next week, which is when the play-in tournament started. Daigneault knew he wouldn’t be able to go with Kerr to Fort Worth.
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Time for a new plan.
“When we first did the play-in, her mom flew in,” Daigneault said.
Kerr and her mother went to Fort Worth with the Sooners, while Daigneault and the Thunder went to New Orleans to play. His match was the night before her national semi-final. Had the Thunder lost and the Sooners advanced, Daigneault’s plan was to head to Fort Worth as soon as possible.
But OKC won.
New plan.
Daigneault and the Thunder went straight from New Orleans to Minneapolis to play the Timberwolves in another play-in game. As the Sooners clinched a spot in the finals, Daigneault watched on television from Minnesota.
The next night, the Timberwolves beat the Thunder, ending OKC’s season.
Daigneault and the team flew home, and he hoped he might be able to make it from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth the next day for the gymnastics finals.
“My head hit the pillow at 3:30” in the morning, Daigneault said, “then I got a call at 4:30.”
Kerr’s water had broken and she called to tell Daigneault she was on her way to the hospital.
New plan.
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“Okay,” he remembers telling her, “I’m going to brush my teeth and shower and change.”
Kerr’s labor with their first child, son AJ, had been long — “It took forever,” Daigneault said — but Kerr said he wasn’t going to waste any time.
“This is different,” he remembers her saying. “You’re going down here.”
New plan.
“So I just jumped in the car, went down there,” he said.
Daigneault made it, but just barely.
“She started pushing as soon as I got there,” he said.
“She called me at 4:30 and she delivered at about 8:59. It was fast.”
So was Daigneault.
Although he and Kerr planned for virtually every scenario, he quickly adapted when necessary. Read the situation. Then react. In Daigneault’s world, that sometimes means replacing starters or playing a smaller lineup, but earlier this spring, that meant traveling to Texas in the middle of the night on an hour’s sleep for one of the most important moments of his life.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or [email protected]. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok and support her work and the work of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.