Semoball

Jackson promotes Adam Stoneking to head girls' basketball coach

Jackson girls basketball assistant coach Adam Stoneking was promoted to head coach.
File photograph ~ Southeast Missourian

Adam Stoneking is looking forward to the opportunity to take over as head coach of the Jackson girls' basketball team.

“My main reason for being excited is the girls,” Stoneking said. “The commitment that I’ve seen from these ladies over the last couple of years is extraordinary. Their work ethic and their want to come in all the time and try and better themselves is hard to look past as a coach. Those are the things that get you excited about being a coach.”

Stoneking has been an assistant coach for the Jackson girls for the last two years under Tyler Abernathy who had been at the helm for the last decade. Abernathy stepped down from coaching after being named a Jackson Middle School assistant principal.

“A lot of what I learned from Tyler was just coming in with great work ethic every day,” Stoneking said. “The way he’s able to stay positive in some situations where it’s kind of hard to be positive, and his ability to get out and scout games is impressive. I don’t know that there’s a coach in Southeast Missouri that watches more film on other teams than he does.”

Stoneking ran the boys’ basketball program at Oak Ridge from 2009-2017, where he was the school’s all-time winningest coach with a 133-96 record.

“Oak Ridge was my first head coaching job and I absolutely loved it,” Stoneking said. “I learned so much and we did a lot of first there. That was one of the best things is that we had a lot of firsts.

“I was super lucky to have some really good players to play for me there. I just try to always look back on the positives of it like all the relationships I made. I had four groups that went through there that I got to be their coach from seventh grade through 12th grade and, to me, that’s a bigger accomplishment than how many wins you have.”

Stoneking began his coaching career as an assistant boys’ basketball coach at Notre Dame in 2007 and was part of the school’s state championship team in 2008. He also was the head volleyball coach at Bell City from 2017-2019 before accepting a job teaching English at Jackson Middle School.

“I loved it at Bell City, but it was a situation where I could be three minutes from home as opposed to 45 minutes,” Stoneking said. “John Martin called me, John was my coach when I was in high school at Zalma for a couple of years, and I knew Tyler from when we both coached boys. They called and asked if I would be interested in coming to Jackson and it just felt like the right thing to do at the time.”

The Indians are coming off a Class 6 District 1 championship, something Stoneking hopes to replicate in the upcoming season.

“I think the expectation is for us to always try and win a district championship,” Stoneking said. “After that, when you’re in Class 6, it’s just kind of a roll-the-dice-and-you-see-who-you-get-next situation, because once you get past districts, you’re going to see some really legitimate teams. You’re not going to see anybody that doesn’t have at least one or two players that are going to play at the next level.”

Jackson returns senior Jordyn McClellan who was named to the All-SEMO Conference and All-District teams in 2020, and

junior Katie Waller who was All-District.

“We only have one starter returning in Jordyn McClellan, but we have three to four other players that played a huge role in our success on varsity last year,” Stoneking said. “We also have a great group of juniors and sophomores coming up this year. We may not have a lot of height, but we have a lot of players that play taller than they are and some guards that can really get after you on the defensive end.”

Long-term, Stoneking hopes to make an impact in his players’ lives.

“I don’t count wins or look at Final Fours and that kind of stuff. I think if that’s what you’re looking at, you’re probably in high school sports for the wrong reason,” Stoneking said. “Our long-term goal is for these girls to have a great experience with high school sports and hopefully learn something from high school basketball that they can use in their next chapter in life, whether it be in the workforce or college. That’s really all I’m looking for is to develop relationships with these kids, be a role model someone they can look up to and at the same time teach them a little bit more about life.”

Comments
Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: