2003 Year in Review

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Meet Coach Dale Trott

With Mr. Navarra’s basketball coaching career ending last season, a vacancy was open for a new head boys’ basketball coach at Morrison High School. Dale Trott was one of the applicants, and with 30 years of basketball coaching experience to his name, he was hired.

Dale Trott has been coaching all levels of basketball since 1973, but his first head coaching position was 26 years ago in Chester, Illinois. He has spent the last 20 years in Clinton, Iowa, where he currently teaches biology. Mr. Trott is also very familiar with the community of Morrison; he even spent some time teaching at the Junior High for a few years.

Coach Trott has made a few changes in the way that the team runs, including a motion offense, which means more freedom for setting up shots. He feels that the new “pay-to-play” system in Morrison Schools is a disadvantage to many, but it has not hurt his numbers particularly, as they have 12 combined juniors and seniors. With the kids having to pay for the sports, he is going to try and give everyone a chance to earn game time, and then decide who plays. He also stressed that he was ultimately hired to win games, so his philosophy is to “ let the kids who make up the best team play, not necessarily the best individual athletes”.

He feels that his biggest competition for the season is going to be Newman, Bureau Valley, or Fulton, but mentioned that any team could come out on top. Morrison’s first game was on Monday, November 24, and it is the beginning of the New-Mor-Roc-Ster tournament. Coach Trott saw that tournament as a good measuring stick to see where they are after playing a variety of teams of different sizes, and also as an indicator of how far the team still has to go.

Dale Trott’s assistant coaches on the varsity team are Chris Powers and Tim Duncan. Coach Trott also helps with the Freshman-J.V. team, which is coached by Corey Ottens and Randy Stralow.

by larryg
2003-12-16 17:29:04