BILLINGS — Joslyn Tinkle kept tabs on the havoc the same way as almost everyone else — from afar.
Missoula's Tinkle, in her first season on the women's basketball coaching staff at Pepperdine, was away on a recruiting trip through Texas and Missouri when the calamitous Franklin Fire began to surround campus in idyllic Malibu, Calif., ultimately burning through more than 4,000 acres and destroying or damaging 28 structures.
Describing it as "mayhem," Tinkle's first concern was for the Waves' players and her fellow coaches who evacuated the immediate area, including new head coach Katie Faulkner (née Baker), a former Montana Lady Griz standout.
But when things were finally settled — the fire broke out in the affluent beach community on Dec. 9 and had been 100% contained nine days later — Tinkle was able to draw some teaching moments from the ordeal.
"I think that's one of the beautiful things about coaching and why I love it. There's so many life lessons you learn being a part of a college team and college athletics," Tinkle told MTN Sports on Monday. "There's one thing you can guarantee is that life's going to be hard and you're going to be dealt with adversity.
"Hopefully you're surrounded by good people and the right people to rely on. I was really proud of them. It was a hard week. It was a long, exhausting week."
Tinkle returned home on Tuesday, Dec. 10, and was fortunate to not have to evacuate from where she lives 15 miles from Pepperdine. Her dog, a double doodle named Dubs, was safe. What's left now is the aftermath of charred hillsides and remnants of the homes and buildings that were engulfed.
It got more tense for some than others.
Though structures across the Pepperdine campus have been fortified and engineered to repel wildfires due to the city's proximity to the Santa Monica Mountains, Tinkle said Faulkner chose to evacuate with her husband and two small children.
Players did the same. Other students sheltered in place on campus. One player collected everyone else's basketball shoes so the team could practice at area high schools before traveling to its scheduled game at New Mexico on Dec. 15.
"That Monday night, a lot of the girls didn't get any sleep because they got woken up at 2 a.m., 1 a.m., like, 'Hey, you've got to evacuate or shelter in place,'" Tinkle said. "They're young kids away from home, and this is probably the first experience where they're like, 'What do I do?'"
"They didn't seem to get too rattled. It was our priority to get them away and safe. But I thought they really handled it and stuck together."
Basketball fans in Montana will remember Tinkle as one of the elite girls talents to emerge from the state. After a standout career at Missoula Big Sky, Tinkle played for Tara VanDerveer at Stanford and went to three Final Fours.
She spent three seasons as an assistant coach at Montana under Brian Holsinger before linking up with Faulkner, a Robin Selvig protégé who served as a women's assistant at Oregon State where Tinkle's father Wayne is the head men's coach.
"I was worried for her young family," Tinkle said of Faulkner. "She's got a 3-year-old and 1-year-old, and her husband was there, thankfully, because he coaches soccer. She's really communicative and I appreciated that she called me right away to make sure we were getting our girls to a safe place.
"She's sending videos she's receiving from people on campus of her home, and you feel kind of helpless because there's nothing you can really do in those moments. She was ... 'It's going to be all right.' But that's why our team remained calm and collected, because it comes from your leadership."
The Waves finished the non-league portion of their schedule with a 5-4 record, and are scheduled to begin West Coast Conference play at Washington State this coming Saturday.
With the threat of the Franklin Fire now in the past, Pepperdine can focus on the tasks that lay ahead. Tinkle can do the same.
"I'm super grateful to be here and I was super thankful to have been able to start my (coaching) career back home. Montana will always hold a huge part of my heart," she said.
"It's a new challenge. We have 10 seniors right now on this team; we didn't recruit anyone here. We're kind of trying to fit the puzzle together. These girls are experienced and we're working with what we've got, and so we're really proud of them."
