Former Hastings Senior High Boys Basketball Head Coach and HHS Attendance Coordinator Lance Creech returned this year after a four year break from HHS, but is now coaching on the women’s side.
He brings 28 years of men’s basketball coaching experience, 22 of which were as a head coach.
“I’ve seen a variety of things: the evolution of shot clocks, different styles of defense, and what’s trendy,” Creech said. “When you’ve been in it for 30 years, you see a lot of different things.”
Lance Creech had a constant coaching job from 1994 until 2020. He spent three years as assistant at Doniphan, three years at Hastings College as a graduate assistant, two years at McCook Community College, returned to HC as head coach for 11 years, and spent seven years at HHS. He was the boys head coach of Hastings High School from 2013 to 2020 when his youngest son graduated. Creech made his return to Hastings High this school year.
“Getting back into it this year was kind of always on my bucket list to do. So I figured, ‘What the heck? Let’s give it a shot,’” Creech said.
He is adapting to coaching girls instead of boys, but is excited about the change.
“This year, being my first year on the girls’ side, it’s probably made me a better coach,” Creech said.
Creech has changed his basketball philosophy and goals over time. He wants to encourage his athletes to improve and have fun without adding extra pressure.
“I used to be a coach that said, we want to get to the state tournament, we want to win a conference championship, and we want to get this many wins. As I get older, I reflect on the pressure that puts on kids,” Creech said. “When you get towards the end of the year, the more that I realize that now it’s just about improving on a daily basis.”
Creech looks to prioritize the team having fun above everything else.
“It’s about making sure your kids are learning on a daily basis, and they’re enjoying it. You play games to have fun, so it’s no different than if we were playing tag or dodgeball,” Creech said. “You want to have fun with it, but it takes some success to have some fun.”
Creech believes the first trial he will face is consistently having the numbers to allow for the development of girls before they play at the varsity or JV level. In response to this, he encourages girls to play multiple sports even if basketball isn’t their primary focus.
“Participation in girls basketball is dropping in the state of Nebraska as you can see with Grand Island (Senior High) completely dropping their junior varsity and varsity programs this year. So I think the biggest obstacle is trying to get kids to understand that we can be good in multiple sports,” Creech said. “It’s just going to take a little bit more time and effort.”
Creech would say many athletes have what it takes to be successful on the Hastings High basketball team and one won’t know until they try. After all, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.
“Just because basketball maybe isn’t your first love, we can still use that athleticism, that competitiveness, that drive to be successful, and it can be relevant in other sports and have kind of a crossover or a carryover into success in multiple things,” Creech said. “And I think too many times with the evolution of youth sports, we get to a point where we’re specializing kids in a sport at a very young age. I think that hinders participation and success in other kinds of sports.”
As head coach, Creech’s main goal is to bring opportunities for the girls to get better and support the team in any way he can.
“The message that I try to deliver to any team is I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong. So if it’s not something you feel comfortable sharing with me, just letting me know that there’s an issue, and I can try and find somebody that you feel comfortable talking to,” Creech said. “Maybe it’s not me that you need the shoulder of but maybe it’s somebody, either in the building or outside the building that we can try and get you squared away and get you the help that you need.”
The season has been all Creech could ask for so far.
“There’s been so many positives. I think the girls are doing a really good job of really trying to learn and they want to be good,” Creech said. “I think if you can get some effort and a desire to be good, you can start moving the ball in the right direction. So (we’ll) just kind of have to see how that plays out.”
