MAGDALENA’S JORY MIRABAL ALWAYS WANTED TO COACH
The Magdalena boys basketball team has reached the state final each of the last five seasons. The one constant with each team is head coach Jory Mirabal. “My first coaching experience was in kindergarten,” Mirabal said. “In the Mount Taylor trailer park in Grants, there was a group of us that wanted to beat the other kids, and so we got together, came up with a little plan, and put those plans together on the court. I’ve always wanted to coach.”
Mirabal has now been the head coach at Magdalena for 18 years. “I’ve been lucky to have a place to learn and grow,” he said. “I think I’m a better coach now than when I was hired. I think a lot of schools bail on people right away. I feel fortunate that the community has stuck behind me and let me learn through some of my tough times and try to get things figured out. I don’t know that we do anything really special or different, but having been in place for 18 years you get some continuity.”
If you ever watch Jory on the sidelines during a game, he’s quiet and pensive. He says he gets vocal at practice, but rarely in games. “I had a really good band teacher and he always had us really prepared for the performance,” Mirabal explained. “That impacted me at a young age, knowing I wanted to coach. So, I do the same thing here. The games are like a performance, putting on a show. All the work needs to come before that. If I haven’t fixed what we need to fix, then me making a fool out of myself in a game is probably not going to change it at that time.”
Jory wears a lot of hats; basketball coach, athletic director, elementary school principal, pre-K director. He’s also on the high school rodeo board. “I used to golf, but I don’t do that anymore,” he said. “I look at my job as my pastime and fun.”
One of the challenges of a smaller community can sometimes be transportation for the student-athletes, and the coach. “I tease them because I drive 30 miles of dirt road myself,” Mirabal said. “When they tell me they can’t get to practice, I’ll say, ‘I’ll switch ya roads sometimes if you want’,” he joked.
Mirabal has over 400 career wins and three state titles, but that’s not how he judges success. “I don’t think success, as far as win-loss record, defines us,” Mirabal said. “I enjoy what I do and I want the kids to enjoy this experience. I tell them all the time, ‘This is my program and each year it’s your team’. Within those two frameworks we try to have as much fun and try to get as much as we can out of every experience. I’m always sad at the end of the year, when we win or lose, because it’s our last game as a group. That’s how I approach my job.”
Magdalena will take on Ft. Sumner/House on January 2nd in a rematch of last year’s state title game.
