Back in the saddle again

By JOHN VERSER
Glasgow Daily Times

GLASGOW June 20, 2008 06:36 pm

— Peter DiStefano is back as the Metcalfe County girls basketball coach.
DiStefano, an assistant principal at MCHS, returns to the bench after a one-year absence while serving as the school’s athletic director. He had coached the Lady Hornets for three seasons prior to becoming the AD.
“I’ve always kind of wanted to come back,” DiStefano said. “When I gave it up, it was for the assistant principal purpose, I was taking classes and had a lot on my plate. Without taking classes and things like that, the board and the superintendent were really gracious in allowing me to coach as an administrator.
“I want to really thank them for allowing me to do something that I’ve done for 20 years. You can take the coach out of the game, but you can’t take the game out of the coach.”
DiStefano replaces Kevin Wheeler, who coached the Lady Hornets during the 2007-08 school year. Wheeler, who lives in Marion County, left the job due to the distance between his home and Edmonton.
When Wheeler departed and the job became available, DiStefano was definitely interested in returning. The only question was if he could coach as a school administrator. Once that was settled, the return to the bench was inevitable.
“If they were going to allow me to do that (coach and be an administrator), I wanted to do it,” DiStefano said. “Ms. (Patricia) Hurt was gracious enough to allow me to do that and I jumped right on it.”
DiStefano coached the Lady Hornets’ from 2004-07 and compiled a 37-46 record along the way. Metcalfe’s record improved each of those three years, from 6-19 in his inaugural campaign to 17-13 in his last year on the bench. The Lady Hornets also qualified for the Fourth Region Tournament in the 2006-07 season.
“I missed it, to tell you the truth, and I told everybody that I missed it,” DiStefano said. “I just liked the interaction with the kids, I liked being at practice every day, I like strategy. It was kind of hard to sit there and watch somebody else coach your kids. Those kids, even though they were Coach Wheeler’s, I had them since they were freshmen. Those kids were my kids.”
And it wasn’t easy for the New York native to stay away from the game.
“I stayed away. I didn’t get too involved,” DiStefano said. “Being athletic director, you can easily get involved in girls basketball, or any sport, and I purposely tended to stay away.
“I watched the games as an administrator, but I purposely stayed away from a lot of practices and stuff, because I didn’t think it was fair to the new coach and it certainly wasn’t fair to the kids. It was tough.”
DiStefano has been back on the job for about two weeks and is already rolling. The Lady Hornets have had three practices and been to camp already this summer.
“I haven’t been able to do the things I want to do. That’s going to happen in October,” DiStefano said. “We’re fulfilling some obligations. We’ve had kids in and out. They’ve gone on vacation, camps and stuff like that.”
The Lady Hornets have 17 out for the team thus far.
“Basically, we’ve played some games where we’ve had sophomores and below down on the floor, we’ve had some games where we’ve had some juniors and seniors on the floor,” DiStefano said. “Everybody’s going to get the chance to show me whether they can play or not.
“Summer basketball to me is good because you get to see everybody, but winning summer games isn’t on my priority list. I see a lot of good things and I see some things that we need to work on.”
Metcalfe lost four starters from last year’s team that finished with a 13-15 record. The Lady Hornets return just two players with much varsity experience in Rhea Ellen Thompson and Kara Reece.
DiStefano said his team will press defensively and play an up-tempo style.
“We’re very small, very inexperienced,” DiStefano said. “We’ve got the ability and the talent and the quickness to do those kind of things. Whether we’re going to be successful right away or not with that, I couldn’t tell you, but that’ll be our style for a while. We have kids that fit that mold. They’re about all the same size and we do have a lot of quickness.
“We will play fast-paced, we will shoot open shots and we will execute. That’s something that I’ve always done. We will execute in the half court and we will run offense when we have to, and we will play defense.”
And two weeks into his “new” old job, the coaching veteran is glad to be back in the game.
“I’ve enjoyed it. I really have,” DiStefano said.

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