Time manager

Waurika’s Masoner may meet himself coming and going in 2009-10

Jeff Kaley

WAURIKA — In the 13 years he’s been teaching and coaching several sports at Waurika, Joe Masoner has been mastering the art of time management.

That’s a good thing. And during the 2009-10 school year, being able to fit together a time puzzle will be key for Masoner. Without time management, he’s going to meet himself coming and going.

When the new head coach in Waurika’s girls basketball program was asked about a full load of classroom work and being involved in five different sports programs, Masoner rolled his eyes.

“You know,” he said, “I was at home this morning doing a schedule so I’ll know where and when I’m going to be doing something. It’s going to be interesting.

“I don’t have a cross country schedule done, yet, but as far as practice goes, we’ll be doing that at 6:30 in the morning. That way I can have all the runners — from elementary on up, boys and girls — at the same time.

“I am going to be a little bit busy in the fall. In fact, I’ve got one day when I’ve got a cross country meet, a softball game and a football game all on the same day! Not sure how I’ll handle that!”

It will be interesting to see how Masoner divvies out his time on that particular day. But since coming to Waurika in 1996, having to juggle several balls at once has just been part of the landscape.

Masoner taught and coached for one year at Electra, Texas before he came to Waurika. Having grown up in Walters, he knew small school districts ask their teachers and coaches to multi-task.

In that first year, Masoner taught at Waurika Elementary School and coached fifth- and six-graders in football, basketball and track. Then, the pace picked up.

In his second year, Masoner added varsity football assistant to his resume, and as the years passed, the plate filled and became more diverse. He became high school girls track head coach and even spent a couple years as golf coach. Four years ago, Masoner started a cross country program that includes grade school, junior high and high school runners of both genders.

Last winter, Masoner also became the No. 1 assistant in the high school girls basketball program. When Roger Jessie wasn’t rehired as girls head coach, Masoner added that title to his portfolio.

In addition to being assistant to new fastpitch softball head coach Ivy Fitzgerald, Masoner will continue as varsity football assistant and head man in cross country and girls track. Plus, after several years of being in charge of physical education at the elementary school, Masoner will teach science at Waurika Middle School during the 2009-10 school year.

“I’m really, really going to have to learn to balance time,” he said, chuckling over his own understatement.

Time management is one reason Waurika’s girls won’t begin off-season basketball practice until softball and cross country have finished in October.

But Masoner has already gotten a new coaching era underway. The Lady Eagles took part in a basketball team camp at Bray-Doyle early in June, and Monday they began another team camp at Lawton MacArthur.

Those camps are a head start for what Masoner knows is a rebuilding task in the girls hoops program. The Lady Eagles went 10-11 under Jessie in 2008-09, which was the program’s best record in the 21st century. But five seniors graduated from that team, including Waurika’s all-time 5-on-5 scoring leader Brittany Elkins, center Micah Smith and guard Kacee Daily, all of whom were four-year starters.

Kayla Salazar and Roxanne Sherrill, key backups for three years, also exited.

The cupboard isn’t bare. Starters DaVida England and Carly Norton return, and Rebecca Medlinger, Ana Gomez and Kelsi Dennard all logged varsity time last season. Sophomores Brandi Clark and Megan Medlinger, and freshmen Staci Brandon, Andrea Kerchee, Taylor Salazar and Reyna Swift have joined the mix. It also appears Kallie Montgomery, Sage Perry, Megan Lovett and Maria Gomez will all return to the program, after being away for a season or two.

“We’ve got those five girls — DaVida, Carly, Rebecca, Kelsi and Ana — coming back with some experience, and they’re going to have to help us out by stepping up into scoring roles and being leaders,” Masoner said. “We’ve got some coming back who haven’t played for a year or two, but I was really pleased with Megan Lovett and Maria at the team camp at Bray. Once Megan got used to shooting again, she started hitting shots from the outside — and we’re going to need that.

“Our strength on offense right now is inside, with DaVida and Carly, but we need someone to score outside.”

Scoring will be a major focus, since 80 percent of the offense for the past two seasons left when Elkins, Smith and Daily graduated.

With that in mind, Masoner wants to make defense and athleticism the conduits to setting up scoring opportunities.

“I’ve told the girls that we have to find ways to score, and we have to do that through defense,” he noted. “I’ve stressed defense to these girls since they were in elementary school, and what we want to do is use an aggressive, trapping, man-to-man defense to set up some transition on offense.

“We’re pretty quick, but if we can’t get transition scoring, then we have to pull the ball back out and take our time finding a good shot. We don’t have shot-creaters, so if we don’t get something off transition, we’ve got to settle in and be patient.

“Like I told the girls, we need to be able to change gears.”

And multi-tasker Masoner knows something about changing gears — he’s learned it from trying to master time management.

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