Beatty grad returns home to coach basketball

Joe Serrano is the new coach for the Beatty Hornets men’s basketball program at Beatty High School. He takes over after a year of Leo Verzilli leading the program.

Under Verzilli, the team went 6-8 overall and 3-3 in league and ended the season losing in the second round of the playoffs. The team has not had a winning record since Brian Hayes was there. In Hayes’ last year the team was 21-12. Serrano was under Hayes in 2009 where the team went 24-6.

Verzilli is also the Athletic Director of the school and was very happy to get Serrano.

“He’s a Beatty grad, he wants to be a coach for life somewhere and he had three years’ experience under two good coaches. Serrano knows the game, but his age will probably hold him back coaching at a higher level. He had good letters of recommendation, his practice schedules were well organized, and so let’s give one of our own something more to put on his next job application. If I can help this kid achieve his goal of becoming a full-time basketball coach then I’m all in,” he said.

Serrano feels his team can get back to those years if they could just get some confidence and some wins under its belt.

“It pretty much boils down to a lot of hustle. Some of the bigger schools had a lot of good players, they had it set in their heads they were going to win. They knew what it was like to win. Pahrump was still in the losing stage and they forgot what it was like to win. I think that is where Beatty is now. I think if I was to get winning in their heads, they can be winners again,” he said.

Serrano spent a year with the Lake Mead Christian School in Las Vegas and then spent two years coaching in Pahrump with Brian Hayes.

At the time, Hayes said he was training Serrano to take his place, but it did not work out that way. Pahrump went with another coach.

Hayes had this to say about his former coach, “I think that the Beatty basketball program will benefit tremendously with the addition of Coach Serrano to their coaching staff. If I were to define coach Serrano in one word it would be passionate. The kid loves the game of basketball and is a true student of the game. Some might look at him and say he doesn’t have experience, but that would not be true. Joe worked as an assistant with coach Jeff Newton at Lake Mead Christian Academy before coming to Pahrump to help me out as my lead assistant. The plan was to get him some experience so that he could take over for me when I left, which obviously did not work out…”

Serrano was asked what he learned from his head coaches when he was an assistant coach and he replied,

“When I was at Lake Mead I learned a lot from Jeff Newton, his approach to kids and how to talk to them a certain way. From Hayes, I learned to be sterner. I have learned a lot from both coaches and living in Vegas I watched a lot of basketball. When I was in Pahrump I learned from just talking to the junior varsity kids and I dealt with more parents. I feel am a little bit more ready for a head coaching job.”

Serrano said his first order of business in Beatty is teaching them his defensive philosophy. He said he will be bringing change and running his own system which he has borrowed from his past two head coaches.

“A lot of the stuff I ran in Pahrump and a little bit of Jeff Newton’s stuff. I might run a little of their zone defense. I am really big on defense this year. I will try to stick to a lot of man defense. Pretty much the same thing I ran in Pahrump, try to force the baseline and look for help defense a lot,” he explained.

On offense he hopes to run a lot of fast break, which he hopes to get from defensive turnovers. His offense will be driven by the post. The post will pop the ball out to his corners, a lot of give and go and pick and rolls.

As far as returning players, Beatty should have veterans in the key positions.

“Jake Zamora will probably be one of our best players and his brother Nick. Then there is Luis Flores, he is my point guard and has pretty good basketball IQ. I also have a younger post player named Angel Hernandez. He has shown a lot in just the first four days of practice. I like him and a kid named Wyatt Henry. Wyatt is 6-2,” Serrano said.

Beatty’s first game is at Trona on Dec. 4 and then on Dec. 6 they are at the Lake Mead Tourney in Las Vegas.