By JOSHUA MCKINNEY, Staff Writer
Transitioning to a new coach is tough. But doing it for a fourth time just makes it routine.
Jose Atkinson, a senior point guard for Port Isabel, is going through his fourth basketball coach in as many seasons.
It’s a blessing and curse for Atkinson, who leads Port Isabel with 11.8 points per game, but he takes it all in stride.
“In a way, it has its disadvantages because it’s a new style,” Atkinson said. “Each coach has his own style. But I’ve learned from each one of my coaches I’ve been coached by.”
As Port Isabel’s most seasoned senior, he’s in charge of leading the Tarpons on the court.
His presence on the team helps out coach Anthony Velarde, who’s coming in as Port Isabel’s newest basketball coach, having inherited an inexperienced group that included five other seniors, a junior and four sophomores. Atkinson is a “tremendous help” to Velarde and what he’s trying to accomplish at Port Isabel.
“The kid’s always been good,” Velarde said. “He wasn’t real adept at running an offense. Because of the lack of success they’ve had, it’s one of those things where he’s a pretty agile, pretty quick kid that can dribble the ball well, so naturally it’s kind of a free-for-all in some of those situations.
“They weren’t successful as a team but he was still pretty successful as an individual. The concept of the overall picture (of an offense) eluded him.”
That concept is running a set offense. Learning how to run one has been difficult for Atkinson, considering he didn’t run a structured set of plays in previous seasons.
Atkinson said his last coach was defensive mined and the other two were all-around coaches.
“It’s been tough because we’ve always focused on defense but Coach has guided me through it pretty well,” Atkinson said.
Velarde acknowledges that it’s not easy for players to adjust to another style of coaching after doing just that season after season.
“I think the biggest difficulty might be in terms of trying to get them to buy into your program, for two reasons,” Velarde said. “One is the discipline aspect. It’s hard not for some of those guys to think that they’re going to do what they want and test it, and if I quite, they’re going to give somebody else a test next year. The other aspect is how hard are they going to buy into learning another system. For the kids, it’s obviously more difficult than for the coach. You’re going to come in with your own ideas, and you should. I did. You have your own philosophy.
“The hardest thing to impress upon them is that I am here to stay. I do want to put something in that’s long term and get them to believe because I know they’ve heard it four times in the last four years.”
It helps that the team leader took to becoming Velarde’s main man from Day 1.
“I told him early on, when watching film before the year, when I first met him that if he’s a guy of good character, which I heard he was, he’s going to be my guy this year,” Velarde said. “We’re going to hitch the wagon to him. I’m going to be hard on him but I expect him to do what we need to do and do it for the team. It’s really bought into it.”
Joshua McKinney covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6663 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @joshuabvherald.