By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
An era is coming to a close at Ellinwood High School. The group of seniors that helped the Eagle basketball team to a 76-15 record over the last four seasons will graduate next month. Wednesday morning, head coach Derek Joiner told his team he would not be back to coach next winter. Pending board approval, Joiner said he plans to coach girls' basketball at Ellinwood Middle School next year.
"I wasn't planning on leaving this soon, but the middle school girls' position opened up," he said. "Next year, my daughters will be in eighth, sixth, and fifth grade. When I saw that open, that's when communications started with administration. You spend a lot of time in coaching with practice, games, and preparation. I just have a certain pocket of time when my kids will be full of activities. This just gives me an opportunity to still serve and coach but also spend time with my girls."
The Ellinwood native graduated from EHS in 1998. After playing tennis for two years at Barton Community College, he headed to Stillwater, Okla., where he was a student manager and graduated assistant for Eddie Sutton and the Oklahoma State University basketball team. He returned to Kansas, becoming an assistant coach at Pittsburg State for six years. Upon returning home, he spent three seasons as a volunteer assistant coach to Craig Fletchall at Barton and coached at Ellinwood Middle School for a year.
Joiner took over a struggling Eagle basketball team nine years ago. EHS posted a 56-136 record in the nine years prior to his takeover, and the Eagles had just two winning seasons out of 18 before Joiner was named head coach. Joiner closes out his tenure with a 118-81 record, including a 24-0 run in the Central Prairie League over the past three seasons.
"It was a lot of fun just to bring some excitement back to the community," he said. "Obviously, having good players is what did it. People want to come watch good players. They don't really care about coming to watch the coach. We had really good players, and it was a lot of fun. We opened up the old gym back up. That was a neat thing this past year, and we had a lot of people at the ballgames there."
Joiner said leaving behind the people who have helped build the program is the hardest part about leaving, but believes the new coach is stepping into an established program.
"Our JV has been 12-2 for the last four years," Joiner said. "Our middle school was in the league championship game for six straight years before this past season. I'm not leaving when all the talent runs dry. I'm happy about leaving it in really good shape to the next guy."