By Marc Lancaster

Staff Writer

Married couples run businesses together, coach teams together, performed side-by-side in the circus. But a shooting guard-manager combo? That's what the Georgia women's basketball team has this season.

It's obvious there has been a change in Georgia senior Kedra Holland-Corn's life since she married Jesse Corn June 15, 1996. After all, now her last name wraps lazily around the No. 25 on the back of her jersey after three years of fitting just fine as "Holland."

But her marriage to Corn, who is also one of the Lady Bulldogs' five managers, has taught both a lot about love and hate. Both are 22 years old, and their relationship was, if not love at first sight, love at first date. But because of one factor which to them is completely insignificant - skin color - they have been insulted, stared at and sometimes even frightened, all by complete strangers.

She is black, he is white, and some people don't like the fact they are together.

"I'm from the Southwest, I'm from Texas," said Holland. "That's the South still, but Georgia, that's the deep, deep, deep South, so the racial thing is more visible. Where I come from, you see interracial couples a lot. It has come down to the point where you don't really notice it, but when you come here you can really see it."

They get it everywhere, the looks, the sideways glances, the incredulous stares, as if they are some sort of sideshow or one of them has hair like Dennis Rodman. They even get the looks when they go to church, which Holland has a difficult time accepting.

"When you're in that kind of atmosphere and you experience these same racial attitudes, you're like 'Why am I getting these vibes in a Christian atmosphere?' That's what hurts me," she said. "I don't care about people in the public or whatever, you can do what you want. But when it gets around God's church and you're supposed to be a 'Christian' person, and you're giving me a look like you hate me because I'm a certain color, you hate me because I'm with my husband who's white, that's what offends me the most."

Her husband, however, points out that if they continue to live in the South, Athens might look pretty good compared to some other cities.

"In a college town like this, it's probably the best situation we'll ever be in, it's probably the best we can ask for right now," Corn said. "You get looks, stares. I hate that. But I try not to let it get to me."

Corn said the couple has had more frightening experiences in Atlanta.

"Going to Atlanta, places where I don't know people, that scares me," he said. "We've had people walk up to us and say stuff. I'm afraid of people getting violent, so we try not to do that too much by ourselves."

These situations would be hard for most to deal with, but the two say they count on each other. Holland says they have been nearly inseparable since they met back in April 1995, shortly after the Lady Bulldogs fell to Tennessee in the national semifinals.

The two were set up on a date by Georgia forward Latrese Bush, Holland's roommate, and Zach Willis, Corn's roommate, who were good friends and talked often on the telephone.

"(Zach and I) were on the phone one night, and Zach asked me to ask Kedra if she would go out with Jesse, if she would even meet him," Bush said. "Kedra's like 'yeah, sure,' and he came over and they met, and a couple of days later they went out."

The couple's first date was not exactly fine wine and candlelight - it was more along the lines of Martin Lawrence and fast food. The pair watched the movie "Bad Boys," and, according to Corn, spent about four hours afterward at Subway. Corn says people always laugh when they hear that everything began with such an inauspicious first date, but something must have gone right, and the couple was together nearly every night that spring.

Corn says the two essentially decided to get married over the summer of 1995, while she was back in Texas and he was in Athens taking summer school classes. But he waited until October, 1995 to pop the question. Naturally, he proposed late one night at center court in Stegeman Coliseum.

Holland was ecstatic, and accepted immediately. But she had just one problem - she had to tell her coach, Andy Landers, that she was about to get married.

"It was about a week before I told him, I was so nervous," she said.

Landers recreates the scene with laughter.

"She said, 'Jesse and I want to get married,' and I said 'Fine,' " Landers recalls, then mimics the stunned expression he said was on Holland's face after his one-word reply. "I said, 'Well, are you asking me or telling me?' "

Landers said he was fully supportive of the couple's intentions, saying he has great respect for Holland and feels very close to her.

"The reason I was agreeable to it was, when two people are dating, and one lives in a dorm that has visitation restrictions (McWhorter Hall), it becomes difficult around academic schedules, athletic schedules, to see each other,"he said. "I saw Kedra and Jesse last year walking around campus, just having a hard time being able to visit with each other. It seemed to me that they definitely had feelings for each other and that marriage would probably make both their lives a lot simpler, and I think it has."

So, aside from the occasional distraction due to someone's prejudice, the Corns are living happily ever after. And while the husband attends all of the practices and most of the games as a manager, the wife is having a career year. She leads the Southeastern Conference in three-point field goals per game (3) and steals per game (4.1). She is third in scoring (18.8 points per game), and seventh in assists (4.1). She has singlehandedly carried Georgia in several games this year, most notably in her career-high 30-point performance against Tennessee.

Whether the marriage has anything to do with her meteoric rise this season (her career average is 11 points per game), is debatable. But the Corn family seems to have a bright future ahead of it.

Jesse graduates in the spring with a degree in biology education, and he hopes to teach high school biology and coach basketball. Kedra wants to play professional basketball like the woman she has replaced as the clutch player on the Georgia team, Saudia Roundtree. Jesse says pro ball sounds good to him.

"Go for it, I say," he said. "Wherever she goes next year, I'll go, and I'll just try to get a job wherever it is."

A shooting guard-biology teacher combo. Sounds like a good idea.