Abby Drake
Staff Writer
After four years of enriching students and building teams, head girls basketball coach Jerry Hoffman will not to return next year to Coppell High School.
Hoffman has been a large part of the CHS staff for four years. In addition to coaching, she has taught social studies during her tenure.
Hoffman considers teaching to be a wonderful experience and she loves to work with students one on one, but her greatest achievements came from her basketball team. This last season, the team qualified for the Class 5A postseason after several years of coming up short.
“Coach Hoffman has such a huge heart and did everything for the greater good of the team,” senior forward Ella Thomas said.
Hoffman is also leaving behind a solid program that has been redesigned in order to start developing strong basketball skills at an early age so that by the time they are in high school, they are well equipped.
“I think that the program is going in the right direction and I am excited to leave it behind,” Hoffman said.
Despite the amazing time she has had, Hoffman considers it time to move on for several different reasons. For a long time, her husband has lived in Waco where, he coaches football as the offensive coordinator at Class A Mart High School.
Hoffman has a job secured at the same high school, but she has not been able to take it until now. Hoffman had a girl from Lithuania, Egle Kavaliauskaite, living with her and wanted to see graduate. Also, she wanted to finish off her career with the 2011 seniors since she started with many of them when they were freshmen.
In January of this year, Hoffman’s mother past away and she no longer needed to be in Dallas to take care of her. To put it simply, it was the timing of it— everything had come to a neat close and it was time to move on.
“I love it here and it is going to be hard to leave, but I have to do what is best for my family,” Hoffman said.
Next year Hoffman will teach at a school with a considerably smaller student population than that of CHS, and she will most likely teach physical education and take over as the head coach the girls basketball team.
“Coming into CHS for the first time, I was terrified because of the size, but now that I have been here for so long I have a new level of confidence to take on the new, much smaller, school,” Hoffman said.
It is not going to be easy leaving the school that has made her the teacher and coach she is today. Although not having to make the two-hour drive to Waco every weekend will be a good perk, she will miss all of her players and friends that she has made along the way.
“Coach Hoffman constantly challenged the girls to not only become better athletes and basketball players, but better women,” assistant coach Jonathan McKinney said. “She will be sorely missed by all here at CHS and has laid the groundwork for future success. We are all excited for the new coach [Nicole Collins] and the direction the program is headed.”
