Tina Slinker needed an outlet during one of the toughest times in her coaching career at North Texas.

The former UNT women’s basketball coach had all the issues of coaching to manage, from preparing for games to recruiting to dealing with the death of her mother, Betty Slinker.

Slinker dealt with her grief by sitting down in buses and airports while traveling with her team and writing about her mother and dealing with loss.

She wrote so much that she ended up completing the book For the Love of Mom, which was recently published by Brown Books.

Legacy Books in Plano will host Slinker for a book signing from 2-4 p.m. on Sept. 11.

“The book has a lot of stories about going through loss and how you have to journey through the grief part of it in your own way and in your own time,” Slinker said. “What I learned is that I will never get over losing my mother. It’s something that you just have to deal with. I talk about tools to help people deal with loss.”

The book is on sale at book stores in and around Dallas and is also available for purchase at www.tinaslinker.com.

While the book focuses on how Slinker dealt with the loss of her mother, it also talks about her time at UNT, where she became the school’s all-time leader in wins with 241 during a 19-year career. Slinker took UNT to the Women’s NIT in back-to-back seasons from 2000-02.

Some of the top players in school history played for Slinker, including all-time leading scorer Jalie Mitchell, who was named the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year in the 2001-02 season.

Slinker’s contract was not renewed following the 2007-08 season after back-to-back losing campaigns. That blow was softened somewhat in the following few weeks.

“It was only a couple of days after I found out that I wasn’t going to be back at North Texas that Brown said it was interested in my book,” Slinker said.

Slinker also quickly found a new position as the Director of Physical Education & Interscholastic Athletics at Hockaday, an all-girls private school in Dallas where she still works.

The position has helped Slinker remain involved in athletics and continue working with young people and coaches.

While the book has only been published recently, Slinker has begun to hear from people who have been influenced by reading it.

“When I realized that the book was helping people, it made me happy,” Slinker said.

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com.