JHS ’79 grad comes home to lead girls’ basketball team
By John Earp
Jal High School’s new head girls’ basketball coach, Mr. Gary Simmons, after a long career in education and coaching mainly in Texas, has returned this year to teach and coach in his hometown of Jal. Simmons grew up in Jal and graduated from Jal High School in 1979. He used to deliver copies of The Jal Record as a paperboy as a youngster. Simmons says the only sport he did not participate in in high school was track. He played golf, football, basketball, baseball, “about anything you could do at Jal High School, I did it. I had great coaches and enjoyed my time here.” He says he enjoyed growing up in Jal very much, and says, “It was a lot like Mayberry. There were no problems, and we just enjoyed it. I used to live right across the street here on Second St., so, everything I did I just walked over here.”
Simmons has a business in Ruidoso. He says, “My wife and I thought it would be an opportunity for me to retire and go help her in Ruidoso, and I got real antsy in what I was doing, because my only love—I love coaching athletics, and thought, well, let’s look at some opportunities. I was looking at several opportunities to go some places, and Mr. Snider called and asked me if I’d be interested in talking to him here, and this is where I ended up.”
Simmons coached football, basketball, golf, and some baseball, starting out his career in Portales. He says his original goal was to be the head coach at the University of Texas. He moved from Portales to Big Spring, Texas, where he coached for eleven years, where he says, “we got to coach some phenomenal athletes. From there, I went up to the Lubbock area and went to Frenship and Lubbock Cooper and worked in the big 5A, 6A level. I actually came back to Midland Lee for a couple of years. I decided that I really was tired of the big school, felt like I didn’t know the students like I needed to know them, so I took an athletic director/head coaching position at Whiteface. The panhandle of Texas girls’ basketball is probably as good as anywhere in the nation. You have to be really good to be competitive. We went in there with expectations that were very little and we ended up being one of the top powerhouses in that area, just based on win/loss records and things like that. We had a really successful run there. We’re proud of what we did. Did a lot of hard work, just built it day by day, brick by brick, and that’s kind of what we’re looking at here, the same thing.”
About the girls’ basketball team, Simmons says, “What we see we like. What we’ve got to do is make sure that we’re grounded, and we understand where we’re coming from and where we want to go. I think once we realize that hard work, discipline, accountability, things like that are kind of our basis of what we do, then they’ll start to reap the rewards of success. Success is not easy. It’s something you’ve got to build on. Nobody’s going to just roll it out and say, go win a game. It’s about building from the ground up and making sure that we do everything right and we do our part of it and if we do that, I think what you’ll see, not tomorrow, but in the future, what you’re going to see is a basketball team that’s highly competitive and plays hard and our efforts undeniable. That’s what we’re after. I’ve had some great people in my career that kind of showed me the model on how to do things, and we kind of take that and that’s what we build on. I think they’re going to like what they see eventually, in what we put on the floor.”
Simmons teaches Health Classes, which is a bit of a change from his past couple decades of work. “I was an athletic director/athletic coordinator for the last 17 or 18 years, so getting back in the classroom has been quite a change for me. I don’t get to wear shorts to school every day anymore, but it’s been good because I get to know the kids on a little different level than athletics. That’s what you build on, is relationships, whether it be in the classroom or on the basketball floor. If we can establish that and get what we need done every day, I think we’ll be a competitive bunch. I really do.”
Simmons says, “I had great coaches here in Jal, New Mexico. Of course, Coach Fouts was a very instrumental part of my junior high days, and he’s longer—he passed away a few years ago. Ken Ferguson was probably my biggest mentor as a coach and as a player. I think probably I give most of the credit to him for getting me into the field. Him and I had a great relationship as a player/coach, and now as a great friend of mine. I still contact him and his family about once or twice a month or so and check on him and everything like that. Those were tremendous people that I got to play for and be a part of. I could name a couple others, Coach Gage was a big influence on me. He was our football coach. I had great mentors in my life. I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had to figure it all out on my own. You’ve always got people to reference. There’s nothing else I could have done. It was either go to work for El Paso Natural Gas or go into the coaching business, so I felt like coaching was probably my calling at the time, because I really wasn’t an oilfield guy at the time, that’s for sure.”
Simmons will also be assisting with the baseball team, which he has coached before, but not as a head coach. He played little league baseball in Jal. “It’s part of my background, I just never got to the place where I was a head baseball coach.”
He says the relationships he builds is his favorite part of being a coach and an educator. “My biggest thrill is to go back and see a young lady with her family and her kids and they still call you coach, and they come up and hug your neck or send you an email and say, ‘Hey coach, come to my wedding,’ you know, that’s what makes my life enjoyable. Some people want all the money; I just wanted to enjoy life. If you’re a coach, you really don’t go to work. It’s a passion. You’re not going to get rich from it, so it’s a passion. If I didn’t think I would get anything out of it, I probably wouldn’t have done it for forty years.”
About the Jal School District as he has been experiencing it these past few months, Simmons says, “I just think their movement’s real progressive here. I like the direction we’re headed. I think we’ve got great leadership in our principal, and I think our superintendent is a great leader. I think they have a vision and they’re trying to get to it and I’m happy to be a part of that vision. If we can make it better, let’s make it better. Let’s go do things that’s going to help these kids out and be successful in life and make sure that they’re on the right track for what they’re going to do.”
“I appreciate the opportunity. Hopefully, we will put a product on the floor that this community can be proud of. I’m proud to be back and looking forward to what we can do. I’m excited. I’m excited for the season. I’m a very passionate person, so when you come to the games, you’re going to see somebody that’s very passionate about what he does. Hopefully, we can get some followers and come follow us everywhere and see what we can do.”