Her name usually appears in print followed by a parenthetical phrase, but Connie Unseld (wife of Wes) doesn't mind.
At 43, she's comfortable with the label of NBA wife. She doesn't mind being defined in terms of her athlete husband, the former basketball player who is now head coach for the Washington Bullets. In fact, "Her delight would be to sit next to me on the bench and be my assistant coach for the day," says Wes Unseld, 45. He jokes that he recaps games with his wife, "whether I want to or not."
But that's by no means the whole picture. Her husband may describe her "as a student of basketball," but education is really her forte.
Mrs. Unseld is the one who calls the shots at the state-accredited, independent Unselds' School, which serves 175 children from infants through fifth-graders and where the focus is on educating the "total" child.
"A lot of people put emphasis on the intellectual," Mrs. Unseld said. "That is important. But to me, the emphasis should be on the total development -- the physical, emotional, social and intellectual."
The school sits on the busy corner of Hilton Street and Frederick Avenue in a working-class southwest Baltimore neighborhood, next door to an auto repair shop and across the street from brick rowhouses. It is a secure building -- press a bell to be buzzed in -- but beyond the door are classrooms festooned with children's artwork, a media center with computers and a small oasis of a courtyard.
Except for the portrait of co-owner Mr. Unseld hanging conspicuously in the school's reception area, the building does not display any of the razzmatazz associated with big-name athletes.
Neither, for that matter, does Connie Unseld.
In the early days of their marriage, Connie Unseld knew she didn't want to build a life around being the wife of Wes. She would call him "in L.A., Denver or wherever and you're sitting at home. It could get very boring, and I said, 'This is not going to work.' "
She began teaching at a Baltimore public school and eventually returned to college to get a master's degree in education. Teaching, she said, is all she ever wanted to do.
"For me, it's almost like a mission," said the woman who speaks clearly and pointedly looks into the eyes of whomever she is speaking with. Just a little make-up graces her unlined freckled face, which is surrounded by shoulder-length curly black hair. "Yes, I get physically tired," she said. "But I never get bored."
