Keeping within the mom rules

Seven technical fouls in 2007-08 were too many for Ute men's basketball coach Jim Boylen.

Or at least too many for his mom.

"She does remind me," he said. "She chastises me about my language while I'm coaching, which is great. I need that."

So last season, when the Utes lost a three-pointer to California at home and followed with an 18-point road loss at Oklahoma, his mother — and Providence — intervened.

"She told me, 'I prayed for you this morning that you would have godly favor with the officials,'" said Boylen.

Not so he could get all the calls. Rather, so Boylen would behave. And he did. His lone "T" in 2008-09 was for going outside the coaching box, not cussing or bumping a ref.

"When your mom calls you on those things, you pay attention," he said.

Here's to moms who pray for their kids and threaten to wash their mouths with soap.

Today is a red-letter day for Boylen, as is every Mother's Day. Helen Boylen, a devout Christian, raised Jim and his two brothers in Grand Rapids, Mich., mostly without a husband. The parents split when Jim was a first-grader. That left her to raise the boys on sporadic alimony and child support checks and her job at an insurance company.

Money was tight enough that some years they didn't have a Christmas tree. They didn't have a car until the boys were old enough to buy their own. Still, she made sure their athletic uniforms were always clean and that there was enough food.

"It might have been grilled cheese or pot roast, but it was there," said Boylen.

"She took care of the basics. She had a great feel for prioritizing."

If you see Boylen shedding tears (who hasn't?) and expressing gratitude for his job, you should know this: It's no act. He is grateful. That, too, is something his mother passed to her sons. Whatever the little family lacked in material means, it made up in faith.

"She never did anything but give us a real good example and I give her credit for that," he said.

Boylen went on to star in high school sports and earn a basketball scholarship to the University of Maine. Then came a career in coaching. Along the way, his mother carefully played the balance between allowing kids to make decisions yet ensuring they don't make many bad ones.

"When the street lights came on, I had to be home – that's the way it was," he said.

He and his brothers learned to cook, clean, shovel snow, mow the lawn, and especially how to say 'yes ma'am' and 'thank you, sir.' When they were 18 they also learned another valuable principle: rent.

Yes, they paid to live at home.