It took a few years for Richardson, 39, to recover from the stress of being one of the top ball players at the university. She had been a member of three ACC championship teams and had scored 1,630 points between 1981 and 1984. That still ranks her the third all-time leading scorer in women's basketball at Maryland.

The Upper Marlboro resident tried coaching basketball right out of college--joining the staff at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., in 1984. She coached alongside Jim Lewis, now in his second season as head coach of the Fordham women's basketball team in the Bronx, N.Y.

But she lasted at George Mason less than a year. "She felt that she was burned out," Lewis says.

"I don't think I was ready for coaching college ball," she says. "I wasn't ready for the responsibility."

She retreated to gardening for the city of Raleigh, N.C.--a hobby that had interested her even in college. She took the state gardening exam and applied for the city job, she said. "And I loved it." 

But she couldn't see herself gardening for the rest of her life. So she left after five years to pursue coaching, after a little coaxing from her former coach, Chris Weller.

She's been back in the game for about eight years. 

She's been coaching the varsity team at The Madeira School, an all-girls' boarding and day school in McLean, Va., for almost a year. 

Before that, she coached the girls' varsity team at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., for seven years. She's still teaching physical education at Wakefield.

"Coaching high school is fun, because there's a wide range of talent in the kids," Richardson said. "You can see kids picking up skills that weren't there before, and you really get close to them."

Coaching reminds her of her days playing in Cole Field House. "It's sad in away" that basketball won't be played at Cole any more, Richardson said.