Next basketball season will see two new faces roaming the sideline at Guyer, as neither boys coach Nathan Moses nor girls coach Charla Valenzuela will return for the Wildcats.

Nathan Moses

Charla Valenzuela

Both coaches have been at Guyer since the school opened five years ago, but both will now be going in different directions for family reasons.

Moses, who was an assistant basketball and track coach at Brownwood for two seasons prior to coming to Guyer, was an assistant under former head coach Fred Younkman for the inaugural Guyer season before taking over as head coach when Younkman moved into school administration.

A native of Slaton and a Texas Tech graduate, Moses has deep roots in West Texas and said he is looking to get back there.

“My wife and I are both from small towns in West Texas and we just want to get back out there,” he said. “There’s a whole lot of reasons we’re heading that direction, and they’re all family-oriented.

“My wife and I talked and we thought it would be better to start that process now rather than later. It’s one of those deals where my job is so good that if I stick around I’ll talk myself into staying out here.”

Moses was never able to notch a winning season for the Wildcats, but Guyer made its only playoff appearance last year before bowing out to Azle in the first round.

Moses said it was gratifying to see his program grow and his kids get to taste some success after seeing Guyer built from the ground up.

“It’s gratifying to know that it’s a program that our district opponents have begun to show respect for,” he said. “We wanted the other teams to have to worry when they had us on the schedule, because the first couple of years people just chalked our games up as wins. Unfortunately this year we were just a couple of bounces away from getting ready to play on [in the playoffs].”

After starting the Guyer girls basketball program from the ground floor, head coach Charla Valenzuela resigned her position after five years at the helm and will remain as a teacher at Guyer.

Valenzuela cited family reasons for her decision, as she has decided to take some time off after 10 years of coaching to spend more time with her three young children, who are 5, 3 and 2 years old.

Guyer’s season ended last Tuesday when the Lady Wildcats (11-21) were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by Springtown. It was the second playoff appearance for Guyer, which had the program’s lone playoff win in the 2007-08 season. The Lady Wildcats have not had a winning season.

“It wasn’t a decision that was made overnight,” Valenzuela said. “Fortunately, I’m blessed with the most awesome administration ever because I’ll still have a teaching job here at Guyer and they want to keep my family here. That helped my decision-making out.”

Valenzuela’s husband, Brian, is an assistant football and baseball coach at Guyer, and she said their busy schedules have just been too much to handle with the young children, which made her decision a no-brainer.

“Last year football and basketball overlapped for 7 1/2 weeks and the kids were 1, 2 and 3, and it was so much for them,” she said. “We’d only see them for an hour and a half at night if we were lucky. They need more stability. They go to everything and that won’t change. We’ll still go to all the ballgames, but there were nights when they didn’t know who was going to pick them up and that was a rough stretch.”

Valenzuela previously held head coaching jobs at Tuscola Jim Ned and Andrews before coming to Guyer. Her first job was an athletic trainer and assistant basketball coach at Brady in 1999-2000.

The coaches who replace the pair will have to make the adjustment to being a Class 5A program after the most recent UIL realignment on Feb. 1. The Wildcats will share a district with Southlake Carroll, Justin Northwest, Saginaw, Coppell and the Keller ISD schools.

“Just the timing of both of them deciding to go different directions will add excitement in the gyms, because it will be new coaches there and going 5A will bring excitement, too,” Guyer athletic director John Walsh said. “We hate to see them go, but there will be excitement moving forward.”

Walsh said both coaches will be missed and they were both instrumental in building programs at a brand new school.

“When you build a program, you definitely have lots of hills and valleys, and it takes strong people to get through them and do things right, and that’s what we’ll miss,” Walsh said. “Both Moses and Valenzuela did that. They were both a key to the whole atmosphere of Guyer, and they’ll be missed.”

ADAM BOEDEKER can be reached at 940-566-6872. His e-mail address is aboedeker@dentonrc.com.