It was October 2003, and Joe Foley was attending his first Sun Belt basketball meetings in New Orleans.
It was also his first time in the Big Easy, and Foley was all eyes and ears.
At a reception that evening, Foley was embraced by the other women's coaches with about as much warmth as a bird in a punch bowl.
Unfazed, Foley worked the room, listening to the men's coaches talk about defenses and offenses. He rarely said a word while taking it all in.
That's Foley. Understand that he has always considered himself a student of the game. He has found ways to study the practices of guys from Eddie Sutton to Nolan Richardson to Bobby Knight.
When Foley arrived at UALR, it was with an amazing record at Arkansas Tech. His record was 456-81 (84.9 percent), and in 16 years he had made six Final Four appearances and won the NAIA national championship twice. In fact, his first championship was won with just six players.
It was more than enough to get him elected to the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
The Sun Belt women's coaches were aware of that, enough so that one of them made a catty remark along the line of let's see how he does in Division I.
At that point the Trojans had two Sun Belt victories in their history.
In his first season at UALR, Foley's team beat the catty coach's team.
Since then Foley has compiled a 241-131 record in 12 seasons with 4 NCAA Tournament appearances, which includes tournament victories against powerhouses Texas A&M and Georgia Tech.
This past season the school set a record with 29 overall victories and 18 conference victories.
His telephone rang almost immediately after he returned home from the NCAA Tournament. An agent wanted to help him if he was interested in gauging interest from other schools.
Foley was curious enough to say OK, but he told the agent not to commit to anything. By that night Kansas, Georgia and Wichita State had expressed interest.
Kansas intrigued Foley enough to visit and do an interview, and even though it was rumored that Foley had the support of the Jayhawks' men's basketball coach, Bill Self, Foley came away knowing what he wanted.
His work was not done at UALR.
Most likely, he wanted to know if UALR was as committed to him.
The Trojans had just hired Chris Beard to take over the men's program and were going to pay him $230,000.
Beard had never been a head coach of a Division I team, and it appeared he was going to make about $69,000 more than Foley. Plus UALR was going to pay off former men's coach Steve Shields' contract of $238,000.
That doesn't sound like a school with money problems, but apparently Chasse Conque, the new athletic director, and Chancellor Joel Anderson had heard the whispers that Foley was being shopped by an agent.
It was announced Monday that Foley was getting a new contract that included a $56,000 raise this year and subsequent raises that would get him to $250,000 in three years.
Foley wasn't just looking out for himself, though. He got all three of his assistant coaches much deserved raises and increases for the next three years, and was assured UALR was going to be able to take care of the athletes.
UALR also will begin paying full-cost scholarships for men and women, and that's another $125,000 commitment.
Foley is a popular figure around the state and UALR needed to keep him, particularly in light of the way the school handled the hiring of Beard along with the dismissal of Shields and former Athletic Director Christ Peterson's sudden resignation.
Fortunately, UALR saw that.
Foley's contract expires when he is 68, and between now and then he'll just work harder to succeed. That's why he's won an average of 25 games a season for 28 years.
Sports on 04/22/2015