Joe Chacke has had 18 years, under four head coaches, to observe approaches to running a girls basketball program.
Now, it is time for Chacke to put those observations to work in his first assignment as a head coach.
Chacke ran his first practice at Wyoming Area Friday when winter sports season preparations officially began around Pennsylvania.
“I’ve had the opportunity to coach under several different head coaches – all of them with different styles; all of them with different strategies,” Chacke said. “I think I’ll be able to pull a little bit from everybody.
“I can see what worked, what didn’t work so much and just some things that I have thought about over the years.”
Chacke has worked with those four coaches at Wyoming Area, but spent the majority of his career as a high school assistant at rival Pittston Area.
After taking his first assignment in Kathy Healey’s last season at Wyoming Area in 2006-07, Chacke stayed on for one year as assistant to Mike Judge. He moved over to Pittston Area with Healey’s hiring in 2009 and spent 11 seasons coaching with her there.
When Healey’s run at Pittston Area ended, Chacke returned to Wyoming Area where he assisted Chad Lojewski for two seasons, then Mark Casper for three. He replaces Casper, making a move he has thought about on occasion during his time in other roles.
“I had considered it a couple times over the years,” Chacke said. “I was always happy to be an assistant. I enjoy more the Xs and Os and the strategies, not necessarily being the lead guy.
“But when Mark decided to step away, I chatted about it with Mark, I discussed it with my family and I thought it was an opportunity to give it a shot and I think I hopefully can continue to build what Mark had started and build a program and bring success to Wyoming Area.”
Although high school basketball coaches see and work with team members in different capacities in the offseason, Chacke still had some mysteries about his squad Thursday night when he talked about what was less than 24 hours ahead.
“I’m not sure exactly what my team is going to look like,” Chacke said. “We’ve had some injuries and we have some players who are not sure if they are going to come back or focus on field hockey and things like that.”
Regardless of how the roster fills out, Chacke expects some changes from a year ago when the Lady Warriors went 5-9 for fifth out of eight teams in Division 2 of the Wyoming Valley Conference and finished 7-16 overall.
“I think you’re going to see some of what you’ve seen in the last couple years, but I also think you’re going to see some new things that Wyoming Area hasn’t done before,” he said.
