OKLAHOMA CITY ? Walking through the PX in Italy, Mathew Holladay wanders through the aisles and grabs a few last-minute items — deodorant, skin powder, a few toiletries — like any other organized business traveler.

His mom’s on the phone.

“I have complete confidence in you,” she says from Lawrence, her words assertive and strong. “I know how smart you are. I know how good of a leader you are. And I have complete confidence in you.”

Her steadfast voice gives a little. Tears well in her eyes.

“I just wish you weren’t there,” she says. “I wish you weren’t going.”

But this morning, Capt. Mathew Holladay, U.S. Army, is in Iraq. She’s sure of it. Undoubtedly he leapt out of an airplane, plunging for 16 seconds to the desert below.

Roi Holladay, the concerned mother, feels this as she sits in the stands at Ford Center in Oklahoma City. She’s there as her husband, an assistant coach for the Kansas Jayhawks, waits Thursday night to coach the No. 2-seeded Jayhawks in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, otherwise known as March Madness.

For Roi (pronounced “Roy”), the wait won’t end anytime soon. The last time she talked to her son — during the toiletries trip Tuesday morning — she learned it could be three weeks before she hears from him again.

By then she’ll be in New Orleans for the Final Four. Win or lose, she’ll either be traveling on the team bus onto the grandest stage in college basketball, or walking with Joe Holladay into the annual coaches conference.

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She also hopes she will have received word that her son — and the 150 men he leads as part of the 173rd Airborne — are safe and that the war with Iraq is over.

“We’re here for the team,” she says. “My husband’s working hard as an assistant coach, but as important as this is, it isn’t the end of the world. There are other things that are more important.”

Mom always knew her son could be thrust into harm’s way, but never thought the day would arrive.

Mathew Holladay graduated as a valedictorian from Jenks High School outside Tulsa, Okla., and wanted an Ivy League-caliber education. His folks couldn’t afford it — dad had just been hired as a restricted-earnings coach at Kansas — so he looked at the military academies.

He earned an appointment to West Point and went on to graduate and earn a commission. He went to engineering training. Ranger training. Survival training. Airborne training.

When her son needed bandages and NuSkin to mend his cut and bleeding feet after an especially rigorous training regimen, mom sent a care package.

Roi Holladay, left, wife of KU assistant coach Joe Holladay, believes her son, Capt. Mathew Holladay, right, U.S. Army engineer and Ranger, may have parachuted into Iraq Thursday.

Roi Holladay wants to send another package this time, but her son can’t say where he’ll be — or when he’ll be able to pick it up. His unit moves heavy equipment into combat, ready to build an airport or put up mobile hospital units.

Before she hung up earlier this week, mom advised her son to take care. Be smart. And be prepared.

“I told him to make sure he was packing lots of socks and underwear,” she said, laughing. “This is mom talking, after all.”

Roi Holladay also has come to terms with the unknown. Sometimes she cries, but most of the time the mother marvels with pride at the job her son is doing, fighting for a just cause and doing it well.

“He never used to play soldier or anything when he was young, but he’s learned to survive and fight,” she says. “It’s his job. He’s been trained to do it. And he will do his best.”

And mom will be waiting by the phone.

Roi Holladay, wife of KU assistant coach Joe Holladay, hugs her nephew Phil Burleson, Norman, Okla., before KU's game against Utah State. Holladay's son may be fighting in Iraq.