November 8, 2021
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
WEAVER — When Gary Atchley took the Weaver football job back in the spring he thought his days coaching basketball had come to an end.
In the immortal words of Lee Corso, not so fast, my friend.
True, Atchley had surrendered his girls basketball spot, but when his successor, Jamie Burns, went on maternity leave after having a baby in the fall and there really wasn’t anyone available in-house to pick it up, Atchley stepped back into it.
So, between wrapping up his first season as the Bearcats football coach and making plans for the upcoming softball season he’ll have one more basketball season to fit on his plate. He’ll have it all year, even when Burns returns after Christmas.
“I thought that my basketball days (were over),” Atchley said. “I already gave a lot of stuff away and put everything up; I thought I was done. I put so much work into football and softball I thought I’d be doing that. Now I’m squeezing basketball back into both sports.”
It’s not like there’s going to be a big learning curve. Most of the girls on the team he has coached for the past six years. He’ll have the largest class of seniors he believes he’s ever had.
“I thought it was going to be weird coming out of football; now, I’m back involved with Beau (Winn, the boys coach) and talking about how we’re doing things,” he said. “It’s not a transition even. All they know is me.
“It’s not like football where we had a big feeling-out process all summer. They come in, they know all the plays, all the lingo, and me yelling at them. We scrimmaged Friday and I yelled at them.”
Some things never change.
The Lady Bearcats open their Second Act under Atchley Friday night at Ashville.
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