AMBOY – A red and white Amboy Clippers jersey was filled by Tyson Powers from 2009 until his graduation in 2013.

Fast forward playing Division III football at Augustana College in Rock Island and coaching for a few college football teams, push play, and he’s coaching where his athletic career started.

After taking a teaching job as a business teacher, football and basketball varsity assistant coach and fifth grade basketball coach (promoted to freshmen-sophomore coach last year) in Amboy three years ago, he has official entered the head varsity coaching ranks as he has been named the boys basketball coach. 

“Being an Amboy High School alum and being born and raised in Amboy, this place is special to me,” said Powers, who is taking over for Brad Dunlap who accepted an assistant varsity boys basketball coaching position at Sterling High School. “I want to be as involved as possible and give our kids the best four years as possible. I love being involved with all of them.

“Being the frosh/soph coach last year gives me a little bit of experience, but I know going to varsity will be a different animal in terms of game plan and preparation making sure we’re prepared for every game and every practice. From a program perspective, we want to make sure we’re doing things the right way on and off of the court. With the varsity job, you’re overseeing the whole thing. That will be my biggest challenge as we get going.”

With being a teacher and having a year of high school basketball experience, he has went through the everyday routines of a school day, practices, and games with everyone on his roster.

In other words, he is no stranger and they’re ready to get to work even if it’s July and the season doesn’t start until November.

“You have to have a good relationship with your players. That’s kind of how you get the dual respect of them respecting me and them earning my respect,” Powers said. “We want to be about relationships. We’re building a person. We’re not just focusing on the basketball player; we want them to walk out better men at the end of four years. That comes with the relationship piece of it.”

“The transition of a new coach went smoothly during summer camp. We had as good of a turnout as we’ve had in quite a while. Kids showed up and I think we got better from Day 1. That is all I’ve asked of them. All we want to do everyday is get one percent better than the day before. We’re going to focus on our process. The daily grind. The little things to then create results.

“I’ve said it a thousand times this summer, ‘We need to be process driven and not result focused.’ We need to let our process take care of the results.”

One person who is just as excited about the coaching hire is Amboy Schools Superintendent Josh Nichols.

It didn’t take long for Nichols or the Amboy school board to figure out Powers was the right person for the job.

“It’s always great anytime we can get an Amboy native and Amboy High School graduate to come back and coach,” Nichols said. “He’s really helped us out in the classroom over the last couple of years. He’s jumped in and has helped coached basketball. He’s helped supervise anything associated with the program.

“He’s a great addition to the district and I’m happy to have him here.”

On the court, Powers is expecting a different type of team.

Actually, he is hoping they’ll be so fast opponents don’t even see them coming.

“I think we’ll be different. There will be some things that remain the same. We still want to defend the basketball,” Powers said. “From a tempo standpoint, we’re going to play at a much faster pace than we have in years past. We want to get as many stops as we can and race the ball down the floor to get as many easy baskets as possible. We want to play in transition because that is where the easiest looks come from.

“Teams do that by being good defensively. Our basketball pillars are going to be, we’re going to defend, rebound, and run. That’s what we’re going to build everything on. We have some size this year for the first time in a little while that we’re going to try to use in our favor. We’re going to try to utilize our kid’s skillsets as best as possible.

“We want to be open to a bunch of different looks that maybe fit this team better than previous teams or teams in the future. This team, we want to run and play fast.”