New Bison coach bringing plan on Friday

Amy Scheil’s basketball motor has rarely stopped while moving through high school, college and many years of coaching young players.

Now it’s rolling into McCook on Friday for an important first meeting with her newest opportunity: coaching McCook High girls’ basketball.

“Yeah, I’m meeting with the players to map out what will be doing this summer,” Scheil revealed during a quick phone interview Wednesday evening.

She’s not bringing any promises about what style of basketball Bison fans will see next season except one:

“I want to build around their (players’) good points,” she said. “I really like the run and gun, but sometimes it doesn’t work for certain teams. Watching them a little last year, I thought at times maybe they took some quick shots.”

“We want to do whateve we can to be successful as a team.”

Schiel certainly knows she’s took over teams with less talent.

One of her early coaching tests was at Davenport High School where the girls had only one game in about five previous seasons.

“Only the parents were at the games. They (the players) felt like they couldn’t win,” she recalled. “But we went to state that second year. It was a good opportunity to turn around a program, and a lot of it is getting players to think more positively. If they do that and have success, they will follow you anywhere.”

Scheil helped lead Davenport and multiple teams from Ashland-Greenwood into the girls’ state basketball tourney.

She sees plenty of athletic talent among the returning Bison players, even if they did not reach all their goals during last year’s 6-16 season.

Several players helped McCook improve to 20 volleyball victories and a district title match last fall.

“I see a lot of upperclassmen who’ve had the opportunity to play, and there’s obviously some athletic talent,” she said. “Perhaps a lot is just working on the finer points and fundamentals.”

Scheil also likes the attitudes even though she’s mainly been watching from a distance. Atttitude was the biggest key whenever she’s faced adversity.

“Just be positive and do whatever you can to help the team,” she said. “That helped me.”