\u201cThe more time I spent with (Griego), the more I see our personalities are alike,\u201d McHenry said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be exciting to coach with him. With him being very local and me being from Dolores, the fans will get to see the intensity we bring that we used to have as athletes on the court and now get to use on the sideline. They will see our enthusiasm while we push our athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Dolores, the league I was part of included Ignacio and Mancos and those surrounding communities. I definitely feel like it gives kids at those schools a chance to see there are options to progress in athletics when you really put your mind to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
McHenry was a three-sport star at Dolores High School, as she competed in volleyball, basketball and track and field. It was basketball that took her to the collegiate level, as she played at Adams State University. She graduated in 2017 and averaged nearly 10 points per game her senior season. She also grabbed nearly four rebounds and dished out 2.7 assists per game while she played an average of 33 minutes per contest.<\/p>\n
McHenry then served as a graduate assistant for the Adams State men\u2019s basketball team and spent last season as the assistant coach for the Adams State women\u2019s team under head coach Jaime Green.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like playing in the RMAC helped me a lot as a coach,\u201d McHenry said. \u201cA lot of the coaches don\u2019t change that often, so I had that knowledge going in about what kind of offenses and defenses teams used and what kind of athletes each school tends to get.\u201d<\/p>\n Griego was happy to add a coach with that RMAC experience to his staff.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m extremely excited to have her come aboard. She is going to be a big asset to the team, program and school,\u201d Griego said. \u201cShe brings a lot of energy, which I love. She communicates well and has experience on the men\u2019s and women\u2019s side. She understands player development and understands RMAC competition and recruiting. We are going to work really well together.\u201d<\/p>\n Previous FLC head coach Jason Flores, now an assistant athletic director at FLC, first reached out to McHenry. He knew she would be the right fit on the Skyhawks bench, especially with Griego.<\/p>\n \u201cShe loves Durango, and she wants to be here,\u201d Flores said. \u201cShe was a great player, and her dad was a longtime coach. She\u2019s going to do great.\u201d<\/p>\n McHenry is the daughter of John and Joye McHenry. John coached her basketball teams at Dolores High before he took a job at Montezuma-Cortez High School, where he coached until 2018. Though McHenry wasn\u2019t always sure she wanted to follow in her father\u2019s footsteps as a coach, it became clear during her college playing career that she still wanted to be involved in basketball.<\/p>\n \u201cI always knew I loved being in the athletic world. Going through college basketball, I said, \u201cGosh, I can\u2019t imagine doing anything else,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBeing in the gym all the time, I knew I didn\u2019t want to work at a desk. Having my dad there all the time helped me understand the game a lot more and got my toes wet in what it\u2019s like to be a coach.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be a basketball coach. I\u2019ve enjoyed every experience I\u2019ve been part of and the relationships I\u2019ve been able to cultivate. To be a head coach some day and put together a team of characters I like is my long-term goal. (Griego) and I have the same taste in types of kids we want here at Fort Lewis, so I\u2019m excited to get this going.\u201d<\/p>\n The FLC athletics administration is confident in the direction of the women\u2019s basketball program under Griego and McHenry, and the coaches can\u2019t wait to once again lead a team in front of their hometown fans.<\/p>\n \u201cThe intent was to hire a real strong assistant coach,\u201d FLC athletic director Brandon Leimbach said. \u201cWe have high aspirations for that program. They won\u2019t miss a beat, and I think we move forward at a strong level.\u201d<\/p>\n jlivingston@ durangoherald.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" coaches now lead Skyahwks women\u2019s basketball<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[600,992,21,38,132,28,29,2343],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-66745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-cortez","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-sports-group"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66745"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=66745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}