Achieving remarkable double fails to douse Dalton's fire Stayer: Karen Dalton has coached 300 games. As she contemplates yet another milestone in her remarkable life in basketball and scans the years for her favourite memory, Karen Dalton thinks back to a time before all the Sydney Uni Flames players she coaches were born. In 1984, Dalton, then 23, was preparing for Australian women's basketball's first crack at an Olympic Games. It was historic for the Opals and the Dalton family. "The Olympics is the pinnacle of anyone's career," Dalton says. But that first one was something I'll always remember, especially because I went there with both my brothers. It was a big experience for my family. Mark, named this month in the Sydney Kings 25th anniversary team, played in Los Angeles in 1984. Older brother Brad, like Karen, played in Los Angeles and Seoul in 1988. "I never won an Olympic medal, we came fourth in 1988," she says. But I think it was great that by then the team had progressed to the stage where we had a legitimate shot at winning a medal. It was an amazing experience. And the early stages of an enduring career. Last weekend at Sydney University, when the Flames faced Adelaide Lightning in round four of the WNBL, Dalton coached her 300th game - all at the Flames - placing her fourth on the all-time list. However, with 375 games as a player - just two fewer than the record - Dalton stands alone as the only person to have hit the 300-mark both as a player and a coach. Like rugby league's great survivor Wayne Bennett, or perhaps Jack Gibson before him, there is an endearing calmness about Dalton that might explain her capacity to have competed as a top-line player or coach every season since 1981. The longevity? I don't really know," she chuckles, as though having never thought about it. Obviously I'm passionate about basketball. And sometimes opportunities just open up. I played for a long time and really enjoyed that. That I didn't play year round probably added to my longevity - there were different aspects to my life, such as teaching and working. Then, the year after I finished playing, I was assistant coach to Tom Maher and when he got a coaching role in the WNBA, I just took over as head coach. The chance came and I took it. That was 14 seasons ago. And she seemed set for good times as a coach when the Flames won the title in 2001. However, in six of the next seven years, her teams made the grand final and lost. It might be why she's stayed hungry. More likely, it's been the enjoyment of nurturing people, as she did in her working career, which she ended recently. In Dalton's playing days, there was little or no money to be made. So she became a teacher. I never thought about going into coaching when I was a player. But, as a teacher, I did some coaching of junior teams, particularly towards the back end of my career. It became a bit of a natural progression. I moved along the chain from there. If someone said to me you'd be coaching for that long, at the same club, I would have said they were kidding. It's just evolved. Sydney Uni has been fantastic, the program has become more professional and I guess I've moved along with the times. How long I keep going, I don't know. If I don't have a passion for the sport or if I'm not doing a good job, I'll step aside. But this year, I'm certainly motivated to get the team into the finals and we'll see what happens from there. Their finals push hit a hurdle on Saturday when they were beaten 85-82 by the Lightning despite Casey Samuels top-scoring for the hosts with 18 points.