Heart of Oklahoma. (West Region Champion).(Kelvin Sampsom)(Brief Article)

This is how life works. It's hard, you work at it, you grow. There are battles and there are breakthroughs and there are moments when everything falls into place.

Can basketball and life be so intertwined?

It can if you're Kelvin Sampson. It can if life's lessons become the foundation of sport. It can if quality of life means loyalty and trust and passion and persistence.

"I can live with you not being the most talented kid in the gym," Sampson says. "I can't live with you not being the hardest worker."

This is Oklahoma basketball. This is Kelvin Sampson's life. A full-blooded Lumbee Indian, life's lessons never have been easy for one of college basketball's best coaches. It got even harder just two days before the West Regional semifinals, when Ned Sampson, Kelvin's father and moral and spiritual rock, collapsed during a practice in San Jose.

Before the Sooners took the court for one of the biggest games in Sampson's eight seasons at Oklahoma, he was dealing with his father's personal crisis: a subdural hematoma, or blood between the skull and brain.

"The adversity you're raised in," Sampson said, tears welling in his eyes, "has a lot to do with how you handle things as you get older. Your experiences shape who you are."