March 29, 2024

Senior Coach; It’s Not What You Think!

Jeremy Shuster helping Coach Mitaritonna during the game against H.S. East.
Jeremy Shuster helping Coach Mitaritonna during the game against H.S. East.

All teams have players and all teams have coaches, and some teams even have player-coaches, or player managers.  However, it is very rare for a team to have a student that is a coach and only a coach.  With our 8-1 team comes a young man named Jeremy Shuster.  Shuster is a Senior here at Hills West, but has directed his talents toward coach.  This year, he has been named an official assistant coach on the team.

You would think that, because he is only a student, Shuster would be merely a towel-boy, or a helper on the team.  However, this is not the case.  Shuster is given many big responsibilities on the team.  He is the frontcourt coach, or the coach of the centers and forwards, commonly referred to as “big men”.  He is also the stat-keeper and video coordinator.  It is clear that Shuster has a big role on this team as a coach, evident by the fact that his classmates call him coach, on and off the court, as they would to a 40-year old man coaching the team.

There is no doubt that this coaching responsibility has helped Jeremy get into college, as he is going to Duke University next year.  Duke is easily one of the top basketball programs in the country, and although he is not committed to Duke for any basketball related scholarships, Coach Mitaritonna says that he will try and help Shuster become involved with Coach Mike Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils during his time at Duke, as coaching is something that Jeremy would like to look into as a future career.