Chugiak is under new management
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January 25, 2010 • Wesley Rabung, Guest Contributor
Filed under 2009-2010
For the first time in eighteen seasons, the Chugiak High boys’ varsity basketball team is seeing a new face at practice and that face is Orin Wear.
Orin Wear is the new head boys’ varsity basketball coach at Chugiak.
“It’s just basketball, it’s been an easy transition. The guys have really responded well to my teaching,” said Wear.
Wear is transitioning from eight years coaching at Galena High School, a smaller 2A school, to coaching for Chugiak, which is a 4A school. (The “A” system is based on the number of students attending the school.)
It’s been an easy transition, we had a fall league and that really helped,” said Wear, “They’re just a different group of kids playing the same sport, basketball.”
At Galena, Wear compiled a record that included a 75 winning percentage, five out of eight years going to the state tournament and in 2003, he coached the Hawks to a state championship, a goal he hopes to bring to the Chugiak program.
“We have a talented group of guys, I hate losing, and those two things, I think, will make us successful,” said Wear.
But athletics is not all Wear thinks about, as a teacher he believes grades are the most important. In his years at Galena he won academic awards for his students having the highest GPA.
“They are ‘student athletes’, students coming first they must have grades, and I expect them to be A’s and B’s,” said Wear.
If you ask Wear, he will be the last to tell you that he thought he would be the coach at Chugiak, but it seems that fate stepped in and had a different idea.
“It started when I came back from coaching a year at WOU (Western Oregon University.) I tried for a Palmer job, but did not get it so a friend told me that I should go for the Chugiak job,” explained Wear. “I called and found out that the interview process was still going on, got an interview, and the rest is history.”
Being coach of the year for the 2003-2004 season and also being the 2008 sports winter coach of the year, it’s safe to say that the Chugiak program is in good hands.
“You can tell the kids have been well coached; I’m just here to make them realize how good they are. I try to make them take responsibility. I’m just here to manage all of it,” said Wear.
Wear brings a unique and different spin to the Chugiak program: a change that the players and supporters hope is for the good.
“At the end of the day, if you can sit in front of the mirror and say you gave it all you got, that’s all a coach can ask for and I think I have kids that will do that here,” said a pleased Wear.
