You toil and you fret over your creation. You watch it grow and develop. You ultimately long for the day of its unveiling.

Like an artist anxious to see his work evolve, Karl Knight agonized at what he was missing for the past year.

While his daughter Holly, his basketball protégé, played for Dirigo girls’ basketball team, Knight was serving overseas in Iraq and Kuwait. He missed every dribble, every basket, every rebound and every win as the Cougars produced an unexpected 18-0 season.

“It was one of the biggest losses of being over there,” said Knight. “You can’t imagine how many times, when I got access to the Internet, I was looking for something, anyone, who could give me information about the team.”

Karl and Holly have shared a basketball life for years. Just when she was ready for the big time at the Dixfield school, earning a starting role as a sophomore on one of the most storied basketball programs in the state, he couldn’t be there.

“It’s been weird because he’s usually gone to all my games,” said Holly. “He always told me when to step up and when to do better. He always knew what to do. He’d give me a lot of advice for games. I’d ask him questions on what to do, and I could always ask him those questions.”

This season, Karl did the best he could to follow along and offer support. Dirigo had lost eight seniors from a team that won back-to-back state titles. Holly was part of the next wave of talent. Karl encouraged Holly to aim high, and he guaranteed he’d do the same.

“I told her, ‘Holly, you’ve got to be thinking big,'” said Karl. “Before the season, they weren’t sure whether they’d make the tournament, or much less get to the states. I said, ‘If you guys think big and work as hard as you can and do good and get to the state championship game, I’ll be there. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’ll be there.'”

Karl has made good on his promise.

As the Dirigo girls play for a state record 10th straight regional championship tonight at the Augusta Civic Center, Karl will be there. He returned home last week from yearlong duty. He was front and center for Dirigo’s two tournament wins this week.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for a year,” said Karl.

He watched his daughter chip in eight points in a quarterfinal win against a formidable Wiscasset team. Thursday, in a tense, upset bid by Jay in the semifinals, Holly led the Cougars with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Her basket late in regulation helped force overtime. A handful of rebounds in regulation and overtime were critical to Dirigo’s survival.

“It’s just been a real answer to prayer, being able to watch her, as intense an environment as it’s been,” said Karl. “It kind of reminds me of the years we’d come up here. To watch my daughter step up like that, it’s just fantastic.”

In the genes

Karl was a 1,000-point scorer at Mount Blue in the 1970s and had a fine career at Bowdoin. Holly obviously inherited some pretty good genes. Karl and his wife, Kathy, have five children – Kevin, Holly, Thomas, Hannah and Rachel. Karl, who got a brief leave to attend Kevin’s June graduation at Dirigo, also had a chance last week to watch Thomas play basketball in middle school.

“It was always important for me that my children love the game because I love the game,” said Karl. “In pushing a kid, you can turn them off from a sport. So the real challenge is to get them involved in a sport in a competitive way so you can see that eventually good things can come from the experience, but you also don’t want to turn them away.”

Karl calls himself Holly’s “personal manager.”

“He used to coach me in Pee-Wees and on travel teams, and he pretty much taught me everything,” said Holly.

As a freshman last year, Holly spent most of the season on the junior varsity. With war in the Middle East seemingly inevitable, Karl tried to savor every moment. At tournament time, Holly was put on the varsity roster and saw some action in Augusta as Dirigo rolled through the Western C field. But Karl was already gone.

“I tried to make sure I got to every one of her games, but then we had to leave,” said Karl, a 20-year engineer at MeadWestvaco in Rumford.

E-mails, phone calls

While stationed in Kuwait, Karl, a lieutenant colonel, was an environmental science officer with an Army medical brigade. He made frequent trips across the border into Iraq. He was able to e-mail home almost daily and would get regular phone calls each month.

“I’d tell him if I thought I did good or bad and how many points I scored and how many rebounds I got, said Holly. “He just told me stuff like I should keep working hard and don’t let the other teams get to me – just encouraging things.”

As difficult as it was to be away, he knew things were being taken care of at home. Kathy did an admirable job caring for the family while friends and the community offered support. Karl also knew Dirigo Coach Gavin Kane well.

“She was working towards a goal,” Karl said. “For me to know she was participating in the Dirigo basketball program, it was something that I only thought would keep her mind occupied. It would be something she would benefit from. So I would keep in touch with her and keep her engaged totally.”

It also worked for Kathy, who tried to fill Karl’s role as the ever-present parent at the games.

“He’d e-mail and say, ‘This is what I miss the most, not being able to go to Holly’s games,'” said Kathy. “So I’d e-mail him back. I got right into it. He said my e-mails were getting more detailed and that I was giving him good information.”

‘He’d be back’

Although Holly was making great strides on the court, her father wasn’t there. As if that weren’t enough, she faced the reality that he could be in harm’s way.

“When I played, I didn’t think about it as much. Instead I focused on basketball,” said Holly. “Last year was worse though, when he first left.”

Holly has kept her determination to succeed on the court and in the classroom.

“There was a lot of support from the community and keeping her upbeat has been the key,” said Kathy, a middle school teacher. “She missed him a lot. We all did, but she kept focused…. She knew he’d be back. She’s amazing. She did great all year.”

In mid-January, Karl got the news he’d be heading home soon. He quickly began plotting his itinerary, hoping to be back for tournament week. In Dirigo’s practice a week before the playoffs, a beaming Holly announced that her dad was coming home. Just days later, Karl walked into the gym.

“I went to pick up Holly after practice and Gavin had them all give me a big hug” said Karl, who was welcomed home with a reception last Sunday at Dirigo High. “I told them I wanted to see one (win), and I wanted to see a second, and then I wanted to see a third, and ‘I want to see you guys win a fourth.'”

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