Learning lessons in team building, responsibility, and life

Players participated in a team building exercise where they were led over various markers labeled with characteristics of being good teammates.

A Duchesne teacher and girls basketball coach from the past returned to share her deep knowledge of the sport with the Lady Pioneers. 

Girls Basketball Head Coach Jerel Taylor first reached out to Coach Marita Malone last year regarding a return to Duchesne to run a workshop on team building. 

Coach Malone was the second girls basketball coach in Duchesne history, leading the girls from 1974 to 1983. She also taught English, coached track and field hockey, and assisted on the softball team.

“This is now becoming a yearly tradition,” said Coach Taylor. “Her wealth of knowledge and experience is valuable; our girls learn a lot from her.”

Coach Malone was happy to return to spend time with the Lady Pioneers, discussing team building, culture, and character on the court.

“It was an honor to be asked by Duchesne,” said Coach Malone. “Through the years that I coached at Duchesne, I was blessed with phenomenal players. They were willing to accept my coaching style: firm, intense, and driven to be better at the sport and as a person; the latter was more important because I taught that through sports, they would be able to handle life better or as I often say, “to handle hard better.”

“I thought she was a very wise person,” said senior and guard Madisyn McCarthy. “[She] taught us a few things about responsibility and teamwork, and what we needed to put out on the court to be better for each other and ourselves to play.”

Women’s sports in coeducational schools began thanks to Title IX in 1973. This school year marks the 50th anniversary of Duchesne’s girls basketball team.

“I felt like I was giving back to primarily all those women I had coached, and, secondly, to the long string of women who succeeded me, all those who were attempting to follow the footsteps of the original players,” said Coach Malone. “Duchesne womens athletics has a long history of winners in the sport and life in general ... My hope is that I made a difference for them.”