By Sam Wilson
wilson@emporiagazette.com
When Yvonne Burris Gardner and Patrick Gardner watch a basketball game on television, the mother and son often opt for a recorded version instead of watching in real time. They’re not trying to save time by fast-forwarding through commercials.
Instead, they’ll rewind the broadcast when they see a play that interests them so they can watch it again. They’ll analyze the play, seeing how it worked and why it was successful. Then, they ask themselves, ‘Will that work for Hartford High School?’
That question has become more pressing for them this year. Yvonne Gardner is set to begin her first season as the girls basketball coach at Hartford. Patrick Gardner will be in his first season leading the boys squad.
Patrick Gardner was the first Gardner to get his coaching job, and he was a logical choice. A 2003 graduate of Hartford (his mother is a graduate as well), Gardner moved closer to home after stints as a basketball player at Fort Scott Community College and Bethel College. He finished college at Emporia State as he began working his way up the Jaguar coaching ranks in both basketball and football.
Football was the first sport to open up the varsity head coaching job to him. He took over in 2009 and just finished his second season leading that squad. Basketball took another year, but Chuck Ewy’s departure opened up the spot for him for this season after five years as a varsity assistant coach.
“It didn’t surprise me that he was stepping into that role,” Yvonne Gardner said. “Because he’s always had that determination and that’s always been a goal in his life. And he pretty much got his dream job here at Hartford.”
Patrick Gardner says his mother’s assessment is spot on. When he finished high school, he decided he wanted to become a teacher.
“The dream job was always to come back home and coach,” he said. “And when I came back to finish school here at Emporia State, it just so happened that the junior high assistant job had opened up. I got a chance to coach with a guy that had coached me in junior high. That was great.”
Gardner’s first boys team is one he’s familiar with. He has been a varsity assistant coach for five years, but he’s also been their head coach before. For this year’s senior class, Gardner was their head coach in eighth grade. It was his first head coaching job at any level.
Things went well. The ’06-07 squad went undefeated. Like he does today, Gardner would watch basketball on television looking for things he could implement with his own team. But he says he has more of a filter now than he did back then.
“Everything would work,” he said. “You see something on TV, or you see something here, you think, oh, you know, ‘I could put that in, that would work.’ And back then, it would.”
Since then, Gardner has dealt with some leaner years and realized he has to be more selective in poaching plays.
Three key players from that past junior high squad remain after a few other members transferred out of Hartford. Colten Barrett will play point guard for the Jaguars, Michael Wilson will play shooting guard, and Chris Schwinghamer will play center.
When Patrick Gardner was playing sports growing up, his mother was the one to drive him to and from games and sometimes coach the team. When she took over the girls basketball job weeks before practices began, Yvonne Gardner had been coaching the junior high girls basketball team. She has been an assistant coach with the high school girls team in the past, though she didn’t serve in that role in recent years. She also coaches volleyball, having been an assistant at the high school level and a head coach for the junior high team.
Despite her variety of experience, Yvonne Gardner said she expects the varsity basketball job to be different than the coaching jobs she’s held in the past. It’s a job she said she’s been interested in for years.
“Being an assistant coach, you have a lot of responsibility, but you don’t have all the responsibility,” she said. “And with being a head coach, it takes on a whole different, you deal with parents, administators, newspapers for instance, you have deadlines to meet.”
Yvonne Gardner initially didn’t apply for the girls basketball job, thinking an outside coach might come in and bring along an assistant. As the job remained open and the season inched closer, she was approached by the administration and agreed to take on the job.
Just because they are mother and son doesn’t mean they have the exact same coaching style. Eventually, there will be a Friday night when both the family’s coaches take losses. Yvonne Gardner said their reactions will likely be different.
“You know when he’s on the court and you know when he’s on the football field,” she said. “He’s very strong-voiced and whatever. I’m actually pretty reserved and I’ll talk about the game, but I won’t mell on it. Now he will, he’ll want to talk about it three days later.”