Sunday, April 2 at 3 a.m. Pacific

Mike Neighbors was in a mad dash to get back to Seattle — to beat the rumor mill and the impending media headline.

“Nothing was more important to me than delivering the news face-to-face with my team,” said Neighbors. “But I was a 4-hour flight away.”

Then a storm hit the Dallas area and an anxious traveler on the verge of taking his dream job was stuck in limbo.

It was 3 a.m. in Washington before he had a chance to sign a term sheet with the Arkansas Razorbacks. Three hours later he would be in front of his team to deliver the news that he was leaving the great northwest for his alma mater.

“My desire to meet with our team was about how we had operated the last six years,” said Neighbors. “Open, honest and hard conversations are done face-to-face. It is one of the ways we built trust.”

By 7:30 a.m. he was packing his bags and three very important items for the transition that began in the early morning hours of April 4. Coach Neighbors grabbed three books: Practice Perfect by Doug Lemov, Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey and Switch by Chip and Dan Heath.

Out of a personal library of 3,000 books, those were the selections that Coach Neighbors felt would be vital to the impending transition of the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Throughout the coverage of Coach Neighbors first 100 days as the head coach of the UA women’s basketball team, we will routinely reference quotes from those three books to provide color and context to the opening days of the Neighbors era.