Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.  With the beginning of a new basketball season, the Nederland High School basketball players are being guided by a new coach. He is, however, not new to coaching.

Kirt McCracken began his coaching career when he was two years old and he sat on the bench while his father coached The Comanche, Iowa Indians. From kindergarten to sixth grade, from 1972-1977, he was on the sidelines while his dad coached the Fairview High School Knights, and the Boulder High School Panthers were their biggest rivals.

Now he’s on the Panthers’  side.

McCracken says he wasn’t much of an athlete but he knew the game inside and out and knew how to teach it. When he attended Morningside College in Iowa, he became a student assistant and coach, but he had no intention of going into coaching after graduation.

“I went to law school, graduated and decided I hated law and hated being a lawyer. I was miserable; it was not a good fit.”

After two years, he left the law business and headed to Florence, Oregon looking for a job. He was hired by Mapleton High School as a junior variety boys’ team coach and realized that he should have kept with coaching. He was much happier on the court than in the courtroom.

“I love being with kids, putting together a plan, our plan versus the other team’s plan. I love making the adjustments and at the end, knowing our plan was better than theirs. I can’t get out there and play for the boys, but I can give them a way to success. I can’t find that feeling anywhere else.”

McCracken spent a year with the junior varsity boys and then became the head coach for the high school girls. When he began, the team was 3-20 and in two years, they qualified for state with a 22-8 record for the first time in 20 years. Three members of his team went on to play college ball.

When McCracken got a job with a casino, he had to leave coaching. He worked at the blackjack table which had horrible hours but was a great way to make money. He soon became a manager and had the time to coach high school girls basketball at Siuslaw.

When he and his wife went through a divorce, McCracken came to Colorado where he was hired at the Isle of Capri as an assistant operations manager. He found his home on South Beaver Creek, but ended up moving to Boulder.

Now he works as a blackjack dealer, a four days a week, 10 hours a day job, that starts at 11 p.m. which gives him the time to be able to get back to what he loves: coaching basketball.

The Nederland High School position is perfect for him, allowing him to be here for practice with plenty of time to get to work.

“I will be very well-dressed for the road games,” he says, his work clothes being the white shirt and black jacket. He says he is grateful to his bosses at the Isle for allowing him to hook up with the Ned team.

“I am psyched for it,” he says.

This year’s team has brought in 13 boys, and McCracken, who is six feet tall, is happy to note that eight of them are taller than he is.

“We’re going to press like you wouldn’t believe. We’re going to press and score 100 points a game. I want to play a brand of basketball that will be exciting. I will sub five players every two and a half minutes and see if the other team can walk in the fourth quarter.”

Although McCracken says as of now he knows nothing about the boys, he watched them at their last football game and says they look tall and lanky and he hopes they can run. Conditioning is a priority.

He says he has no predictions for the season but he knows that: “We’ll be in condition and fundamentally sound. The freshman and sophomores will learn how to shoot properly and we’ll play defense. We will have fun and be entertaining. These boys will have passion, knowledge and commitment. Then we will reach out to the community and put our product on the court.”