ONLY ON ABC-7: Beverly Floyd on UTEP, her husband Tim, and the pressure to win

There is no greater man than the man who can acknowledge the woman standing next to him.

Beverly Floyd, the wife of UTEP Head Basketball Coach Tim Floyd, opened up to ABC-7 about the pressures of winning and how her family keeps it all together.

They’ve been married 40 years. Their wedding album was stolen, but the thieves never stole the magical moments they shared and the memories they continue to build.

“I didn’t know anything about basketball,” Beverly Floyd said, “I had two sisters, we danced and played the piano and did what girls do.”

She quickly embraced her new life as a coach’s wife. Tim Floyd was working on his MBA at UTEP and was a graduate assistant under coach Don Haskins in 1978.

Coach Floyd learned a lot from his mentor, some would say he also picked up on the Bear’s mannerisms. Beverly Floyd says she had no idea Tim was going to coach, “I was kind of tricked into this. We both laugh, but it turned out I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It wasn’t long before I saw his passion.”

Nearly four decades later, coach Floyd is still passionate about his team and so are UTEP fans. Earlier this season, when the Miners had lost 12 games in a row, fans were disappointed and angry and they wanted him fired.

Fans would even bring signs to the game with the message “FIRE FLOYD.”

“I just looked over and said uggh! I felt sick for Tim,” Beverly said, “You never stay in this long enough that it doesn’t hurt your feelings and that you don’t feel bad for the people that it’s directed towards, the man I love. It was devastating.”

The two got through the beginning of the season before the losses turned to wins. The Miners winning 11 games of the next 13. Beverly says, “They just jelled. Their chemistry just came together and all of a sudden they were talking to each other. For so long the crowd was quiet the team was quiet and it was just eerie.”

The fans got louder after the Miners beat the number one team in Conference USA, Middle Tennessee State.

Win or lose, Beverly and Tim’s lives are filled with the love they share with their daughter, son-in-law, three grand kids and hundreds of young men whose lives they’ve touched.

“On Father’s Day he gets calls from his players,” Beverly says, “Invariably the thing I found that when a big event happens in their lives, they lose a parent, or have a baby, something monumental, they pick up the phone and call Tim and I’ve never seen him happier.”

The Miners play Thursday night against Old Dominion. If they win, the Miners would clinch third place in Conference USA and they will earns a first-round bye in next week’s C-USA tournament.