Valenzuela takes over as girls’ AC in Jacksboro

news@jacksboronewspapers.com

Sometimes all you have to do is ask.

Charla Valenzuela was a student teacher at Abilene Wylie High School, a former basketball player at Ballinger High School. The girls basketball coach there remembered her from her playing days and asked her if she’d consider coaching.

Valenzuela, who had gotten into athletic training and worked as a trainer during college at McMurry University, took the coach up on his question and the rest is history. Valenzuela, Jacksboro’s new girls athletic coordinator and head girls basketball coach, has taken a different path throughout her career but still wants her players to succeed and be the best people they can be.

“I’ll be the loudest person on the court,” Valenzuela offered. “But at the same second I’m chewing you out, I’ll be giving you a pat on the back as well.”

She started her career as an assistant at Brady for a year before moving on to Tuscola Jim Ned where she was both head coach and trainer.

“It’s really not as hard as it seems,” Valenzuela noted.

She got married to her husband Brian and went to Andrews for the next three years. She and Brian then went to Denton as Brian went to start the football program at Guyer High School. She took time away from coaching to raise a family and become an independent Advocate distributor for the next six years.

In the Spring of 2018, she took a job as a long term sub. The family had moved to Breckenridge and Charla saw a need.

“My oldest daughter was going into seventh grade and I asked Coach (Casey) Hubble if I could coach my daughter which had been a dream of mine,” Valenzuela said. “It was more of a telling Coach Hubble.”

She spent two years there before the family headed east to Canton for two years before arriving in Jacksboro last Spring. Valenzuela admits the while wins and trophies and great, there’s something much deeper that keeps her going. “Your goal is always to win, of course, but you want your players to see their own gifts in life,” Valenzuela offered. “To see their value in life. I want to be their biggest fan and to be optimistic.”

And maybe, just maybe, to get a player excited about coaching.