Maryland coach Brenda Frese doesn't usually miss on young talent. But she said back then, McCoughtry was athletic but raw.
"Nowhere near the ability of where she's at now," Frese said. "Sometimes you may only have one opportunity to see someone play. Obviously we'd love to have her at Maryland, but we missed that on that opportunity."
McCoughtry struggled to post a qualifying SAT score and instead of enrolling at St. John's, she spent a year at the Patterson School in North Carolina. It was a crossroads of sorts, as McCoughtry called home every week, begging to leave. She would be content playing junior college ball, she told her parents. Nothing about prep school was comfortable. When they went ice skating, she told her mom, they were subjected to country music.
"She said, 'I'm a city girl; I can't stand this,' " Sharon recalled.
Her parents persuaded her to stay and she reopened her recruiting, eventually signing with Louisville, a program that had not advanced beyond the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Once on campus, she kept working on her game and kept improving. As a sophomore, McCoughtry was named Big East Player of the Year.
"I joke with her that I'm not sure how many friends she has," Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. "She's always in the gym."
The extra time in the gym has paid off. McCoughtry, 22, is Louisville's all-time leading scorer and rebounder. She has made women's basketball popular around town, and attendance at games has more than tripled. As a senior, McCoughtry is a candidate for National Player of the Year, averaging 23.3 points, 9.2 rebounds and a nation-leading 4.3 steals. She'll surely be one of the top picks in the WNBA draft next week.
"Everything has turned out perfect for her," her father said. "Fans walk up to me just constantly telling me how much they love Angel. But for me, the most important thing is when they tell me she's a great person. That's what makes me smile."
It's all just more material for the book, which McCoughtry hopes to publish in Louisville shortly after the school year.
"I just wanted to show people my experiences, how it wasn't easy for me. I didn't become an All-American just like that. I had to work," McCoughtry said. "I want to show people my life and my experiences. Maybe someone can say, 'Hey, I've been through that and I can feel better about myself because I can see she's been through it, too.' "
