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STANFORD — At the family home in South Lake Tahoe, Carol Haase sent her husband out to the shed to search for just the right pieces of wood.

The creative mother of five had begun planning yet another important project in a long list of them for her kids. Son Jerod Haase, in his first season as Stanford men’s basketball coach, had commissioned her to create a pair of wood-burning art pieces — including one for outside the Cardinal locker room at Maples Pavilion.

He requested three words: Invested. Tough. Selfless.

And he asked for another piece to hang in his office with a space for former players to sign it when they return to visit campus.

After coaching stops at alma mater Kansas, North Carolina and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Haase is ready to put down roots on The Farm. He hopes to build a program that, eventually, contends year in and year out again like it did for decades before.

For him, that starts by thoughtfully incorporating the program’s past success while imparting his own philosophies on a new team.