Centennial’s Karen Weitz to coach boys, girls basketball teams

No coach has received much more games in Nevada superior school basketball heritage than Karen Weitz.

Weitz has 691 wins as the women mentor at Cheyenne and Centennial, where she has created a dynasty with 13 state championships, including 7 straight.

Weitz will continue to rack up wins as the Bulldogs’ women coach, but she’s having on a new title upcoming season — Centennial boys basketball mentor.

“The timing of it was suitable,” Weitz reported. “It’s been a joke from some of my colleagues and earlier gamers that I have to have to coach the boys. I have been at Centennial considering that 1999, and all my loyalty is to that university, so it had to be here. The opening arrived up, I’m retiring (from educating), so it was just coincidentally the ideal time.”

The process of turning all-around the boys software won’t be simple. The Bulldogs concluded 10-14 final season and 3-7 in the Southern League, a ninth-place finish that left them a person location out of the playoffs.

Weitz emphasized that the girls application has not always been the machine it is now. She does not hope to turn factors around for the boys right away, but said they will have a lot more composition.

“The boys are now familiar with how the women application has been operate,” Weitz explained. “They know it is heading to be a great deal distinctive. They are likely to be held to some various benchmarks, but they are not specifications that are unrealistic. Show up to observe? That’s not unrealistic. Don’t be late? That’s not unrealistic.”

Weitz has already experienced her 1st setback in developing a new system. The Centennial health and fitness center is currently being resurfaced and repainted, so she’s possessing to make alternate arrangements to get the team alongside one another.

A person of the motives the Centennial girls have been so productive beneath Weitz is since the team stays alongside one another calendar year-spherical and performs as its possess club workforce.

That likely will not be the circumstance with the boys, she reported, for the reason that the valley has numerous higher-degree boys club groups. She claimed she will have the boys collectively for the slide intramural season, during the winter and in June, when they are off from their club groups.

There was truly only a single impediment that could have stopped Weitz from coaching the boys, she mentioned, and that was if the women team did not approve.

“They have been the priority of my daily life by way of some of the ideal several years of my lifestyle,” she stated. “I had to have their blessing. I didn’t want them to truly feel slighted. We’ve acquired a fantastic group correct now and have experienced them for the past pair years via COVID. The philosophies are set up, so it is mostly wonderful-tuning every single day with them.”

It is not unusual any more for girls to mentor high college boys teams, but it’s scarce in basketball and even rarer for a single coach to run both systems.

Weitz said scheduling was her initial problem, but the administration assured her there would be handful of conflicts for game titles. She said she strategies to have techniques back to back.

Weitz explained she experienced her to start with assembly with the boys team, and there were “30-furthermore guys in there.” She advised them that she had 14 women on the varsity group in her to start with year at Centennial. By the end of the season, there had been seven.

She didn’t mince terms in telling the boys the very same could come about with them.

“This is a entire new rebuilding system,” Weitz reported. “We have to come across the main of the plan, fellas that want to devote them selves and sacrifice the time it requires to create a prosperous method.”

Speak to Jason Orts at jorts@reviewjournal.com. Comply with @SportsWithOrts on Twitter.