Published: June 21, 2008 09:12 pm         

Changes abundant at Cushing

The Cushing athletic department has been a bit like a carousel this summer.

One position after another has seen one man leaving and another one coming. At the top, athletic director Pat Elder resigned to become the middle school principal.

He coached for 29 years before stepping down as the CHS girls’ basketball coach last season. He remained in his role as A.D. for a fifth year, but his career in athletics came to an end when he accepted the principal job.

“Change and new challenges are good for people — they really are,” Elder said. “At least, it is for me. I tell people it’s good for everybody, maybe it’s just me.”

He added, “There are a lot of things that are similar between being a principal and a coach. I’m finding out how many things are the same. It’s all about helping people accomplish goals.”

Replacing him as A.D. is wrestling coach Barry Patterson, who will coach the wrestlers one more year, trying to guide his son, Jarrod, to a fourth state championship.

The elder Patterson has coached the Tigers to three state team titles and five championships at Dual State. He said he would like to remain involved with the program — perhaps as an assistant — after next year, but he is unsure how much time he will have.

“Being the A.D. is a full-time job,” the Cushing native said. “I think as far as being a head coach of wrestling and the demand, there are a lot of things during the summer that you need to do. It would be hard to do both effectively.”

One of his first tasks as A.D. is to fill the openings left by the resignation of Brian Burden.

Burden has been the school’s baseball and softball coach. He will continue to teach, but he said it was time for him to get out of athletics.

“It was the most difficult decision I’ve ever made,” Burden said. “I felt like it was probably time for me to spend more time with my family.”

He will continue officiating basketball and may referee some other sports as well, but he does not plan to return to coaching in the near future. His replacement in softball is Don Amon, who was the assistant and is CHS’s soccer coach.

Amon has also been a tennis coach, an assistant baseball coach and a junior-high baseball coach in Cushing.

“I’m the utility guy,” Amon said. “Whatever needs to be done, I’ll do it.”

He said there should be minimal transitional difficulty with him taking the job.

“It should be almost seamless,” he said. “I know all the kids and they know me. I know the teams we play. It’s not like I’m coming into something foreign. I should have a pretty good handle on it.”

The Tigers have turned to another coach to fill the other half of Burden’s former head-coaching duties. Girls basketball coach Brad Crace has taken the baseball job on an interim basis. It has not been determined how long he will fill that role.

“I felt like I owed it to Coach Patterson, Coach Elder and the kids to fill in,” said Crace, who was a baseball assistant this spring. “It would be a smooth transition. The kids know me and I know the kids.”

     

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