http://sports.espn.go.com/ncw/news/story?id=2791950"BATON ROUGE, La. -- Pokey Chatman resigned as the head women's basketball coach at Louisiana State University on Wednesday after the university became aware of an alleged inappropriate sexual relationship between Chatman and a former player on Chatman's team, sources told ESPN.com.
Chatman, who initially announced plans to resign after the postseason, now says she will not coach the Lady Tigers in the NCAA tournament. In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Chatman said: "My resignation yesterday has prompted speculation and rumors that far exceeded my expectations and it is clear that my presence would be a great distraction during the NCAA Tournament."
LSU athletic director Skip Bertman said assistant coach Bob Starkey will act as the head coach during the tournament. He told the New Orleans Times Picayune, which first reported the alleged inappropriate conduct with one or more players on its Web site, that no formal inquiry into Chatman's conduct had been opened by the university. When asked by the paper if some sort of informal investigation had taken place, he said, "that might have happened."
"I respect and appreciate Pokey's decision to step away from the program now in the best interests of the team," Bertman said.
Chatman is 90-14 as LSU's head coach. Before that, she was 15-5 as acting head coach during the latter stages of the 2003-04 season, when longtime coach Sue Gunter left the team because of lung disease. That included a trip to the Final Four in New Orleans, where the Lady Tigers fell in the semifinals to Tennessee.
Chatman, a Louisiana native, has been at LSU as both a player and coach for nearly 18 years."
Certainly this can spurn a series of one liners, I'll start:
Pokey Piper poked a pretty point guard.
Pokey blew the whistle on the up and under.
