Varsity athletes in the school are looked at in many ways, but for the most part they are known for giving us pride and confidence in our school. We have a new head coach who is going to continue the Colts tradition of having a strong basketball program.
“I’ve been a varsity assistant for 13 years, so I have a tremendous amount of pride in Parkway Central basketball,” Coach Aaron Mueller said. “I learned a lot from Coach Kirby, I am really, really excited to be the varsity coach.”
Although the varsity team is under a new staff, that isn’t stopping them from working as hard as ever to prepare for the season. Working is all the Colts have been doing for the season, from long hours in the gym to hard nights in the weight room.
“Since the beginning of the school year we’ve been lifting weights having open gym, and shooting in the morning before school, so all the guys who are not playing a fall sport have been putting in a lot of work together to get ready,” Mueller said. “I have been preparing by practicing planning and preparing for our opponents.”
A handful of seniors and the newcomers need to learn to adapt to the veterans of the team, we lost eight great players.
“We have our pieces we have to put together, we have a lot to figure out. But the four people who played varsity last year I think we can pull it out and have a successful season.” Senior Jayden Little john said.
Although we lost a lot of good players last year, varsity still has faith.
“Last year we had a lot of stacked players, and this year losing them we want to show we can still compete,” senior Mello Ball said.
We lost eight varsity players, but we still have four great varsity players returning: Devion Harris, Jayden Little John, Mello Ball, and Charlie Meier.
“I think we got some good pieces coming back and very committed guys I think we should have a good season,” Mueller said.
The team is having to learn a lot of things because of the new coach and a lot of new varsity players.
“I think our biggest challenge is overcoming the loss of eight seniors that had a lot of experience. We have four experienced players coming back and we are going to have to put guys around them,” Mueller said.
The players believe in the coaching changes and think Mueller is the man for the job.
“I’m confident and believe Mills (Mueller) knows what he is doing. Kirby taught him a lot on how to be a successful coach,” Littlejohn said.
The Colts are setting high goals for the upcoming season, just like every year.
“I am expecting for us to win 20 games, a conference championship and district championship,” junior Devion Harris said.
The Colts are off to a really good start this season dominating the other Parkway schools in the Parkway tournament.