With the impending transfer of Dylan Raiola to Pinnacle, do we see a reason that he WOULDN'T have to sit out the first 5 games?

Potpourri of Coaching Thoughts (Part 1)


I have been asked frequently what books I have read that have made a great impact on the direction of my coaching career, so I will offer up some that may be helpful to any coaches who read these blogs. There are many out there, so if someone wants to add to list in the comments, feel free.

Practical Modern Basketball by John Wooden. The top or near the top of any coach’s list should include this book. It is the how to guide for building a program and includes every phase, including drills for any part of the year. It goes right down to how a player should put on their socks! It is considered by many to be the Bible of coaching books, and even though it was written a long time ago, well…so was the Bible. It includes, of course, the world famous Pyramid of Success, which coaches from many sports across the spectrum hold dear. It defines the true measures of success for coaches and what sports should represent to our youth. I had a framed copy of the Pyramid above my desk everywhere I went. If you are serious about your career, this book is a must read.

A Coach’s Life by Dean Smith. The first basketball clinic I ever went to as a young coach was in San Diego in 1979. I flew in and got to the clinic late. When I walked in the presentation room was packed and the only place I could find to sit was on a long table all the way in the back. Bill Foster, the coach at Duke just before Coach K, was presenting on press offense, so I dutifully opened my notebook and got ready to write. Then, someone came in quietly and sat right next to me at the table and I turned to be polite and say hello. It was Dean Smith. He was next up after Foster. I really wanted to say something, but was basically speechless at that moment. I noticed that Coach Smith had a cigarette cupped in his hand, so out popped “I didn’t know you smoked” from me- very creative. He said “yeah, it is a really nasty habit that I would like to get rid of”, and then for the next twenty minutes we had a great conversation about coaching and careers and life. He was a wonderful guy and had a great appreciation for high school coaches. So, of course, I would recommend his book, but not only for that reason. He was a giant in the profession for many, many reasons and, like Wooden, understood the reason why sports was so beneficial to our youth. His philosophy of “play hard, play smart, and play together” is something that I have heard echoed by coaches my whole career.

Playing for Knight by Steve Alford. There are many books on the subject of Coach Knight. I recommend this particular one at the top, although if you do read this, you should also read A Season on the Brink by John Feinstein, to get context. I actually read the Feinstein book before the Alford one and became so curious that I actually went to Indiana and spent five days at their practices to see for myself. The movie “Hoosiers” had just recently come out, so my drive from the Indianapolis to Bloomington was like a pilgrimage to Mecca. The trip took me through Martinsville- the home of John Wooden- and by a Larry Bird Ford dealership. It was true that there were two versions of Coach Knight. His public persona was largely shaped by the media, which he detested and continually baited. And then there was the coaching genius whose players would take hard lessons from because they knew he cared for them deeply and showed it to them far beyond their years in Bloomington.

The Back Roads to March by John Feinstein. He has written several good books on college basketball, which include the aforementioned A Season on the Brink and The Legends Club, both of which I highly recommend. The Back Roads to March is, in my opinion, the best of the bunch. It includes a recap of a North Carolina-Duke game that is perhaps the greatest single college basketball story ever written. The game occurred right after the passing of Coach K’s mother, and I have gone back and re-read it numerous times- especially when I was feeling low about coaching. I won’t say anymore about it- just read it and you’ll know why we do what we do.

Black Market by Merl Code. Where basketball has been and, unfortunately, where it is going. This book is a must read for coaches, but as a preface, you should also read Sole Influence by Dan Wetzel and Don Yaeger. Club ball and shoe companies have basically ruined the idea that sports is about building character first and foremost, and the NCAA is latest domino to fall in the chain, due to the transfer portal and NILs. But, don’t take my word for it- read these two books.

Valvano (They Gave Me a Lifetime Contract and Then Declared Me Dead) by Jim Valvano and Curry Kirkpatrick. Nothing is more deadly than an AD or College President declaring that “he is our coach for as long as he wants it”. This book is just a great read, because Coach V was such a character. He made coaching seem like fun. His 1983 upset of Phi Slamma Jamma in the national championship game was listed by Sports Illustrated as the greatest college basketball game of the 20th Century. And there was no shot clock? Valvano had so many one-liners that you should also read V and Me by Bob Cairns.

Lute! The Seasons of My Life by Lute Olson and David Fisher. I encountered Lute Olson twice in my life. The first time was in 1982 at East High School where I was an assistant for Royce Youree. Lute and his top assistant, Scott Thompson, showed up at our practice one day. Lute was then at Iowa and had taken his Iowa team to the Final Four in 1980. He wanted to pick Coach Youree’s brain on defense. That really impressed me, because a lot of college coaches would come in and say what a great coach you were when they were interested in one of your players. If they had no interest in any of your kids, it was crickets. Lute was not recruiting any East High kids, but sincerely wanted to talk to Coach Youree about his defense. So, we went into the coaches office and Lute got a pen and pad and started asking questions. That went on for three hours! I was sitting on one of the desks and every now and then would glance over at Scott, who looked back at me in amazement. How could one guy have so much knowledge? The second time I encountered Lute, he had come to our gym at Mountain Pointe to look at Bryson Krueger. While Bryson shot around, Lute and I talked. He did not tell me what a great coach I was, but he did talk to me about the different levels of coaching that he had done- from junior high to jayvee to high school varsity, and on to junior college and NCAA D1. He said he enjoyed high school the most, but felt guilty for his wife that he wasn’t making any money doing it. So, he kept trying to move up. The one thing he said that stuck out the most was that there was no difference in the game of basketball as you moved up. It was still the same game- you had to get buckets and stop the other team from doing the same. The only adjustment was to the level of talent. This is something that a lot of administrators at colleges never understand. There is a lot of great coaching going on at the high school level. Lute said that ASU had made a terrible mistake not hiring Coach Youree to be their head coach in 1982. His record against ASU at the time we spoke in 2002, was something like 34-5, and he said with Coach Youree at the helm, that would have never happened. But, the book is a good read for coaches.

Like I said, if you have some other good candidates, let me know in the comments. The second principle of our coaching philosophy was to never stop learning. I am ready to learn.

Next time: Potpourri of Coaching Thoughts (Part 2)

Almost everything will change BUT it is always fun to possibly get a peek at next year...

Central Arizona JUCO is sadly shutting down for the Men's Basketball Program

Here is information on the 2023 Monarch Sports Arizona Summer Series:

June 2 & 3 LadyX (girls' varsity basketball)
@ Westwood HS - Mesa

Desert Vista $$$
Dobson *
Hamilton *
Mesa *
Millennium ***
Perry ***
Phoenix Country Day $$
Pinnacle **
Salpointe Catholic *
Seton Catholic **
Westwood
Xavier Prep **

$$$ Open Division Champion
$$ 2A State Champion
*** Open Division Final Four
** Open Division Elite Eight
* Open Division Participant


Shoot the Rock AZ Tour feat. Regis Jesuit (CO) [boys' varsity basketball]

June 6 615p @ Mountain View
June 7 3p @ Brophy Prep
June 7 630p @ Sunnyslope
June 8 11a @ Gilbert Christian
June 8 330p @ Rancho Solano Prep


June 9 & 10 PrimeTime (boys' varsity basketball)
@ Brophy Prep - Phoenix

Basha ***
Brophy Prep *
Centennial *
Desert Mountain ***
Millennium *
Notre Dame Prep **
Sunnyslope ***
Peoria $$
Perry $$$
Prescott *
St. Mary's Catholic **
Valley Christian $

$$$ Open Division Champion
$$ 4A State Champion
$ 3A State Champion
*** Open Division Final Four
** Open Division Elite Eight
* Open Division Participant


June 16 & 17 End-of-Summer Sizzle (boys' varsity basketball)
@ Saguaro HS - Scottsdale

Chaparral
Coolidge
Flagstaff
North Valley Christian $$$
Phoenix Christian
Saguaro
Westwood
Willow Canyon

$$$ 1A State Champion

For information on the events, check out @MonarchSportsAZ on Twitter & Instagram.

Marc A. Beasley
Monarch Sports Arizona
marcbeasley23@gmail.com

Jalen Williams just finished a fantastic rookie campaign with the Oklahoma City Thunder, averaging 14 points, five rebounds and three assists per game- all while shooting 52% from the field. Back when Jalen Williams was at Perry, one of his biggest believers was out very own lead basketball analyst Gregg Rosenberg. I asked him about Williams' progress, and more:

Coaching Juco in Maricopa:

I wouldn’t trade the experience of being at a D1 school for anything, however. When we first came to MCC, the D1’s outside the Metro area dominated the conference. The word was that Arizona Western was the team to beat, and sure enough they pounded us pretty good our first year. Our second year, we won the championship and beat Arizona Western three times. We did this with D2 money, and after that I think the other D2’s felt that it could be done and the conference got a whole lot tougher. Coaches seemed to work harder at not accepting D1 dominance. After we won the conference title in 2014, Phoenix College under Matt Gordon won it twice in a row, which meant that Metro teams had won it three years running, which was unprecedented after the division splits. As I left MCC, I wished that all the Valley teams would go D1, because they have become generally competitive enough to do so. If they did, the winner of our region would no longer have to go through Region 18 to get to the national tournament in Hutchinson. We would get a direct qualifier, and though the D2 national tournament is nice, there is nothing like going to Hutch in my book. It embodies the living history of the NJCAA- a museum inside exhibits the many great coaches and players who have passed through the doors there. The split into classifications, in my opinion, was unnecessary and detrimental to that history. Plus, the arena seats 10,000 people and every D1 school scouts the tournament so if moving players on to four year schools is the goal, that's the Mecca.

What was the competition like in D1 nationally? Intense. One time we were sitting in the office and Joe Esposito, who was then an assistant at Texas Tech came by for a visit. He asked us who we had on the upcoming schedule for that year, and we mentioned that we had a game with South Plains coming up. They were just down the road from Tech, and, in fact, Joe’s team had just scrimmaged them- and lost. He said South Plains could beat half the teams in the Big 12 that year. We said great- what are we getting into? The year that I was an assistant at GCU, we drove down to Yuma to scrimmage Arizona Western, and they thumped us pretty good. As the number of local NAIA schools began to grow in the Valley over the years, we always tried to schedule some of them for scrimmages. Eventually, they wouldn’t get near us, because we typically beat them, which wasn’t good for team morale, I guess. One year, we had to drive up to Prescott to play Embry Riddle, which is a small NAIA school. Before the game, the coach and I agreed to make this an annual home-and-home event. After we beat them, he never wanted to play us again. I called for a few more years to try and schedule another scrimmage, until he finally admitted that losing to a junior college was not good for his team psychologically. And we were at the bottom of the NJCAA D1 facility-scholarships-budget list. I likened us to NAU in our school’s commitment to competing at our level. A low major, in other words. And by the way, NAU absolutely refused to scrimmage us- ever.

What are the down sides to coaching in a Maricopa juco? As mentioned, very few people pay any attention to juco sports in the Valley, even though as in basketball, for example, that is where most of the local high school players who make it to the college level end up. When I say very little attention, I mean from the media, the administrations (unless you bring a problem), the students, and the staffs. The split into divisions was not about size like it is in high schools, so what was it really about? Clearly it was about commitment to athletics as a fundamental part of the school’s marketing. A few of the years I was at MCC, it was listed as the largest junior college in the nation, and it was always in the top five in enrollment. How could it have teams playing in D2? Turns out, the average age of a student was 27 years old. So, from a marketing standpoint, athletics and its four hundred or so students was not that important to the school’s existence. Whether we competed with Salt Lake, or Moberly, or Indian Hills never really mattered to anyone or was ever even discussed with me. I never had one single discussion with anyone in administration about program excellence or the pursuit of championships being important. The only competitive question that ever came to me was one day when the AD walked into my office and asked “why don’t you want to go D2 like everyone else?”.

When I was a kid, John F. Kennedy made a speech where he said that our goal as a nation would be to send a man to the moon and bring him back safely before the end of the 60’s. At the time the speech was made, we had barely launched any rockets into orbit, much less put people in them. Scientists and other experts looked at each other and just rolled their eyes- this was impossible. What Kennedy said next was stunning- “we choose to put a man on the moon and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. Those words challenged a whole generation of Americans to do better, to try harder, to do more- and certainly stuck with me my whole life. “Why don’t you want to go D2 like everyone else?” was just not what I was about. Given the lack of interest in athletics by the district, this was like asking me why not just become a second class citizen like everyone else. Just because a whole district could care less about the pursuit of excellence, why should I bend to that? Playing D1 with D2 money and mentality is hard- really hard, but we managed to do pretty darn well. We played the toughest schedules we could possible do and would travel anywhere and play anyone to be part of junior college history in some way, always at our own expense. Kennedy’s words were always in the back of my mind- do better, do what’s hard, do more. The memories were priceless, as I have tried to get through in these blogs.

Net time: Potpourri of coaching thoughts

I know there has been considerable discussion about the imbalance of teams making the playoffs for each division. I mean with the possibility of 24 teams making open/6A playoffs as opposed to just 16 for 5A and 4A. I know that the open division will not go away due to the money it generates, but do you feel that it is hurting 6A/5A schools or helping? Or are we just headed into a new reality of HS football in AZ? In my opinion, the best system was the 5A and 4A Div. 1 and Div. 2 set up.

Sometimes when you don't expect something---then boom

VERY SHOCKED BY THIS and honored---very surreal---I am looking on that list and I am like--nah..lol

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@Jacob.Seliga, @Eric.Newman, @Gregg Rosenberg and Richard Smith share all their best ideas to make the basketball playoffs even bigger and better

And now...the juco gym I know most about:

And finally, MCC, where I spent all those years. Tiny lobby- not good for moving people. If you are going to create a facility that has a capacity of 2,000 people, the architects should have considered that. There was no concession area and the lobby bathrooms were embarrassingly small. When I got to MCC, the men’s bathroom in the lobby had two urinals- a big person’s and a kid size- and one stall. Who thinks that stuff up? Anyway, I talked a few times with the AD about it and finally, after several years he told me they were going to remodel the bathroom. I said it’s about time. Little did I know that the remodel included taking out both of the urinals in favor of replacing them with one, yes I said one, water efficient larger uni-size urinal. So now, instead of two urinals and a stall, there is one urinal and a stall for a 2,000 capacity gym.

When I first got there, the trophy case in the lobby was a mess. There was dust everywhere, broken glass, broken trophies, and trash that people had conveniently placed in some of the gaps. When I was showing Stephen Rogers’ mom around campus one day, we walked by the trophy case and she said that MCC must not have a lot of pride in the athletic programs. That hurt. Soon after, I spent several weeks cleaning it up and fixing it. I have a scar on my shin to prove it, as one day I dropped a very heavy plaque on it and cut it pretty badly. Since then, the AD got the hint and had the case completely remodeled, so it looks pretty decent now.

There is no visitor’s locker room. They use whatever is available on the women’s side, or dress next door. I’m not sure what they are doing now, since MCC has to dress next door with their “new” setup. When the AD told me that was the plan, I knew I had to leave Mesa, whether one of my assistants got the job or not. I used to shake my head and laugh at the gyms in Arizona and their visitor’s set-ups. Arizona Western- probably the most “big time” program in the state- had the visitors dress in a hut out by the pool. It was tiny. Central had the visitors use the lady’s PE locker room, which our ladies were using, as well. Ditto with Cochise and Eastern until recently, when both finally constructed pretty decent visitor’s facilities. The problem with those two schools, however, is that they are in Douglas and Thatcher. Enough said. Of course, Glendale was the pits when it came to visiting teams, and the others weren’t great, but at least you dressed in the gym and not next door. Now Mesa was joining Glendale in having the home team dress in another building. Glendale had an excuse- their gym had absolutely nothing. Mesa’s was inexcusable, so I knew I had to get out. A lot of people misinterpreted this as a retirement. It was not...it was just time to move on.

We had difficulty with raising and lowering the baskets over the years. Each of the six baskets in the gym operated on their own system, so to bring them down or raise them up took about five minutes each. They moved so slowly. If I had to multiply five minutes times the number of times I raised or lowered them over the years, it would add up to a significant portion of my life was dedicated to just standing there with a key, nail file, paperclip, or whatever else we could find in a pinch to fit in the key slot. The two main baskets had to be brought down from switches inside of the electrical box, which was often open, but the side baskets had the key slots. The mains were equally slow. Of course, the players knew the system and would often “sneak” into the gym and shoot when no one was around. College guys are generally 18 years old or older, and are therefore adults, but the standing orders from the AD were to have security throw out anyone who was in the gym unsupervised by a staff member, team member or not. That’s why I used the word “sneak” for players who represented the school wanting to get shots up when no one else was around. That was a source of constant friction between myself and the AD, not to mention the fairly constant mechanical malfunctions of the basket-lowering systems. There was a sticker attached to the door of the electrical box indicating that the last lubrication of the wires used to raise and lower the baskets occurred in 1972. Look for yourself the next time you go to the gym, and get ready to duck when one of those wires snaps. You should lube the wires every 50 years or so, right? I thought that maybe they just quit writing it down, but when talking to maintenance guys who had been at MCC for many years, they could never remember lubricating those wires. Somewhere along the way- maybe 2017 or 2018, one of the baskets was raised, but wouldn’t come back down. That was not unusual. What was unusual, however, was that it was never lowered again. Whenever I would check in about it, the usual response was “we have a work order on that”. It is still up, but is covered in dust, and might have a volleyball or two stuck up there with it. Not classy.

And the auxiliary gym. When we got to Mesa in 2008, we immediately discovered that there was a real friction between the Exercise Science Department and the Athletic Department. In fact, they were openly hostile to each other. In the ensuing warfare, Exercise Science had claimed the auxiliary gym as their turf and took a dim view of athletic teams using it for any purpose. They had put large mirrors up on the wall and moved in a variety of exercise equipment unrelated to basketball. On one end of the main floor, and there was only a main floor, one of the baskets was at least a foot lower than it should have been, which was delightful for guys who couldn’t dunk on a regular hoop. Neither basket had break-a-way rims, which was dangerous, to say the least. The side baskets were the old fan shaped type and had been neglected for some time. We worked hard to bridge the gap with Exercise Science and gradually, reluctantly got them to be OK with us using the auxiliary gym for camps and practices, when necessary. And it only took ten years for them to raise the low main basket up to ten feet! And it was on a work order. But, we could never get them to put a three point line down or resurface the floor so it wasn’t too slick. And those mirrors…

Next time: final analysis on coaching juco in general and in Arizona...

I have been noticing a trend (Bias) this year. I know several coaches, who have been coordinators and have a decade or so of experience, not making it to the 2nd round of interviews. But, younger coaches, some of whom were not lower level head coaches or coordinators, are getting second interviews. I don't know a lot of the the new hires, but it appears that anyone over 45 is not getting to round 2, let alone hired. Just wondered what other people think.

For those who didn’t see, Sunnyslope alumnus Oakland Fort hit an absolutely massive 3 at the buzzer to give NAU men’s basketball an upset win over Eastern Washington in the Big Sky tourney.

What other standout performances have we seen from AZ high school grads at the college level recently?

Obviously Kelee Ringo winning another football title at Georgia is up there. His pick 6 in the title game two seasons ago was amazing too

So we have multiple Final-4's starting this week from 4A- the OPEN division !

OPEN---Perry vs Sunnyslope
6A--#1 Highland vs #5 MTV and #3 Boulder Creek vs #2 Brophy Prep
5A--#1 Campo Verde vs #5 Centennial and #11 Sunrise Mtn vs #2 Millennium
4A--#4 Mesquite vs #8 Deer Valley and #3 Bradshaw Mtn vs #2 Peoria

??

Peoria wins the 4A Basketball Chip

@Jacob.Seliga

I scribbled some notes about, IMO, the best game I've seen this season so far...

Richard Smith was there too..

So what do you guys think of that game? !!!

So last season after the postseason I released my own personal awards/recognition based off the teams I’ve seen and from people that I trust and their own evaluations of different teams and players. I received good feedback from both players and coaches last year when I released it as I attempted to show recognition to as many different teams and players that I could. This season you’ll see that trend continue. I’m releasing it on here first for our people who’ve been subscribed to our forums and support us to allow us to do what we do. I’ll soon release them on my twitter account for everyone else after our people see them first.

*Disclaimer*

These are my own personal awards and opinions! These aren’t the views of Gregg, ArizonaVarsity or anyone other than myself. Direct any criticism towards me and not towards the players or coaches that are recognized

This year on top of our usual awards such as Player of the year, Coach of the year, defensive player of the year. I continued the all-underclassmen teams to show love to our young bucket getters in the state and added class players of the year for 2023, 24, 25 & 26. I also added my most valuable player. This is different from “player of the year”. The PoY award goes to the most outstanding player in each conference this season. The MVP is given the player that was the biggest key to their respective teams success. For example without Carter Gittens, the 5A Sunrise Mountain Mustangs struggled through the first month and a half of the season going from looking like a potential final eight team in the open division to start the regular season to on the bubble of the conference play-in. Once Carter returned, Sunrise looked great and is now one win away from the 5A semifinals. The MVP may not be the best player but the most crucial one. By the way, 5A had Co-MVP’s. (The only award to split this year)

Nevertheless here are the awards ⬇️

Coaching juco- part 2

Time to talk about junior college gymnasiums. In the midwestern and southern gyms we went to, most were great. Typically, there was a lot of buy-in by the colleges as to the purpose of athletics, and the importance of it to their communities. There was usually a tremendous amount of pride in their athletic facilities, and a real understanding of how to construct such facilities to serve the dual purpose of education provided by the institution and intercollegiate competition. Remember from an earlier blog, our first two games as coaches at Mesa Community College were played at the Cotton Fitzsimmons/Maury John arena on the campus of Moberly Area Community College in Missouri. That’s right- I said “arena”.

The large urban junior colleges are another story altogether, with the exception of Salt Lake City Community College. SLCC has several campuses around the Salt Lake area, but only one athletic program. Unlike the Maricopa system, which has several campuses in the Phoenix Metro area, each one with their own athletic program, Salt Lake can invest all of their resources for athletics in their main campus, thus their campus gymnasium is one of the best in the entire country. Much of California is like the Maricopa system, and in fact I believe the Maricopa system kind of modeled itself on California. The result is a variety of athletic facilities and an apparent lack of coaching involvement in the construction of gymnasiums. A campus gymnasium should have these minimums: regulation main court for competition and at least two regulation side courts for classes; a ticket booth outside of the main court area; a lobby with enough room to easily move crowds in and out; a concession area in the lobby with facilities for hot food; public bathrooms in the lobby that will accommodate moments such as halftime where several people may need to use them; locker rooms for men and women students who come to activity classes or fitness centers that include bathrooms and showers; locker rooms for home teams and visiting teams, with the home team room being a secure place where the team may use it for practices, off-season training, and games. The visiting team room should be built to be secured during competition, and also have showers and bathroom facilities. There should be bleachers on both sides of the main court. An auxiliary gym should be included, with the best ones being those that could have a smaller set of bleachers and be attached to the main gym building (for camps). A good auxiliary gym would have a main court and two side courts and could be used for educational purposes. Any architect should be alerted to these things and plan accordingly. The California model that Maricopa used is clearly far different.

So, let’s take a look at the Maricopa gyms. I’ll start with Scottsdale CC. They have some of the things that were mentioned as rational features. There is a fairly big lobby which includes a concession area. Their bathrooms are decent, considering the fact that the public may actually attend events in the gym. There is no ticket window, and that function is at a table once you walk into the gym- a real gaffe by the architects. I’m not sure what they had in mind for the locker room areas, either. There is no visitors locker room- they take you to a more general area of lockers adjacent to a home locker room. The problem there is there is a gap in the ceiling that allows the home team to listen to you and you can eavesdrop on the home team in the same manner. We would use the locker room to dress, but go out the back door by our bench to talk to the team. Out that door was a fitness center which was always locked, and a dance room which was sometimes unlocked. If both doors were locked, we would just be in the hallway in between the two rooms, with nowhere to sit. We used it for pregame and postgame talks, and, if the dance room was open, as a place to dress after the game. We had to bring our bags out from the locker room, as it would not be secured for the game. When you see players bring their bags out and put them behind a bench, that is a sure sign of small time thinking and/or poor gym design. Another sign is not pulling out all of your bleachers, which SCC used to, but doesn’t anymore.

Then there is Phoenix College. It has a nice sized lobby for moving people in and out, and a concession area. The bathrooms are a bit small for the size of the gym. There is no ticket window, and again only a table for ticket taking after you walk into the gym. It is a nice gym and they generally pulled most of their bleachers. There was no visitors locker room, which is amazing- only a classroom out some doors just past the home bench. No bathroom and no showers. There was a bathroom in the small foyer, but it was a women’s bathroom, so if our guys needed to use it, we had to place someone at the door to keep women out of their own bathroom. We shared that locker room with the women’s team, which is understandably not a good idea. How could the architects build such a nice facility without a visitor’s locker room? Oops.

When I first took over at MCC, Chandler-Gilbert probably had the worst junior college gym in the country. I don’t know how the coaches there could have brought a recruit in and showed them the gym, and if they did and the kid signed anyway, more power to them. The gym was at Mesa Gateway Airport and must have been an old military gym, back when that area was known as Williams Field, an Air Force base. It had only one semi-redeeming quality- a visitor’s locker room. I say semi-redeeming, because the gym was not secured and players had to bring their bags out and set them behind the bench. The bleachers were old and wooden and really shakey. One decent sized area of bleachers was broken and could not be pulled out, and there was only one side of the gym with bleachers, which restricted crowd size. That wasn’t a huge problem, however, because they never drew any crowds. There were side baskets, but one of them couldn’t be raised and hung over the main court during games. They should have made that the “bonus basket” which would give the offense at that end extra points if they made a shot there during the game. There was a tiny lobby and concession area, and that area was no good for moving any amount of people in or out. Not sure about lobby bathrooms, because all I ever wanted to do was get in, play the game, and get out. It was an embarrassment.

Chandler-Gilbert has since built a nice new gym on their main campus. It has home and visitor locker rooms that are secured for games- a huge plus. The lobby is small and there is no concession area, and curiously there is a classroom on the second floor that has a window overlooking the floor. I don’t know what the architects were thinking on that idea. It has bleachers on both sides, but they only pull one side for games. The coach told me that since he was the one who had to do the set up and take down of the gym each game, he just didn’t pull the bleachers on the side where the benches were. It seems like a lot of high schools and juco’s in Arizona do that. Another reason for many is that whoever designed the gym didn’t seem to realize that bench chairs and scorer’s tables would take up any room on the floor.

South Mountain CC passes muster on the lobby, bathrooms, and concession area. The gym always seemed a bit dimly lit, but was OK. They have bleachers on both sides and sometimes they pull them both out. I guess you know how important your game is by the number of bleachers that are pulled. For many years, we dressed in a classroom in the building, but near the end of my tenure at MCC, they created a visitor’s locker room, which was pretty nice. It was not secured during games, however, which is not classy. Nothing says small time like everybody carrying their stuff into the gym and putting them behind the bench.

And I really question the designers of the Glendale CC gym. It’s almost like a gymnasium was an afterthought after the college was designed. Like someone said “put a gym right there” and drew a rectangle on a piece of paper, because that’s pretty much what they came up with. It is a gym with no lobby, no bathrooms, no locker rooms, no concession area, and no ticket window. You literally step one foot in the gym and there is a table for entry. The person behind you will be in the doorway. There are bleachers on one side only. On the other side behind the benches, they erected a large curtain to conceal what’s behind, which is actually nothing. So, the curtain must have been an aesthetic prop, which fails miserably. At least the designers had the wherewithal to put scoreboards in the building. So where did the teams dress, you say? For many years, the visitors dressed in a general locker room in a building next door to the gym. The problem with that was that it was open to anyone at anytime who was using their other facilities. You could be talking to your team before the game or at halftime or after the game, and literally someone could walk in and start getting dressed for some other activity on the campus. Or worse, they may come in, take their clothes off and grab a shower in full view of everyone. That scenario played out many times. Eventually, they moved the visitors over to a classroom on the other side of the gym. The main problem with that was that it was a classroom and not a locker room. It had no lockers, no water fountains, and no showers, and would not be secured during the game. At least no one walked in during your pregame speech. Again, I would really like to know who designed that mess. Let’s talk. You get an F- in gym design.

Next time- coaching juco part 3 (won't forget MCC's gym)

Ok--1st rankings came out

TD!!

I am happy for him~

I had the pleasure of coaching/teaching him from 2nd-6th grade and he was actually on my 5th-6th grade hoops team..

After the 1st season I jokingly told the dad to have Kirk stay with his day job of football

I will never forget 2 stories about him...
In 3rd grade my "track team" best anchor (fastest student in 6th) was sick and could not practice--the students were all concerned to who would we put at the last spot.
I yelled to the playground for Kirk to come over here. He runs over and is like what do you need coach?
I need you to be last on the relay team for me. He is like ok great---the 6th graders looked at me like I was on something
I said they practiced in their class--they are like that is fine but look how little he is--I said don't worry he will be just fine!
They all said ok I guess--just go to your positions and run--do your jobs!

SO that team was neck on neck for the first three players and Kirk got the baton about in 3rd place--but fairly close with the other two top teams. He started running and everyone just froze and watched him run.
They looked at me--I of course smiled--they are like who the HECK is that---meanwhile he caught the top two kids and won the race for his relay race team--I am like ladies and gentleman--that is Christian Kirk!!

From that point on--every 4th-5th-6th grader would see him in the morning or at recess and they were like--that's the kid--that's the fast kid I was talking about LOL

He became a legend at my elementary school overnight !

In 8th grade he came back before he decided to go to HS and said coach I am thinking about going to Saguaro--I am like why not Horizon HS (which is our feeder school) he is like well all my club football teammates kind of decided to go to the school.
I am like well since you will know all those kids--I guess that is a good thing and you will feel comfortable with them..

Nearly did I know that would be the start of the SAGU title runs !!

...Back to hoops for me!!

Does anyone have Black game pants they no longer use in their program that would be willing to donate to our program?

Please contact Coach Hemming via email coachhemming@gmail.com if they are willing.