Former Cowley basketball players now excelling as high school coaches

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Former Cowley basketball players now excelling as high school coaches

Wed, 01/27/2021 - 14:18
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A pair of former Cowley College basketball players, Michael Massey and Mike Abasolo, have gone on to establish themselves as highly successful basketball coaches in the state of Kansas. The two recently had an opportunity to coach against one another and reminisce about their time at Cowley.

Massey was a part of then Cowley head basketball coachMark Nelson’s first recruiting class. He played at the school from 1993-1995 and helped the team to a 25-7 record and second place finish in the Jayhawk East as a sophomore.

“I loved playing for coach Nelson and developing relationships with my teammates,” Massey said.

After playing at Cowley, Massey went on to play at Emporia State University where he was named an Honorable Mention All-Conference selection as a senior.

Following his playing career at ESU, coach Nelson asked Massey to come back to Ark City and be an assistant coach for the Tigers. He helped the 1997-98 Tiger basketball team to a record of 25-7. On the team that season was a sophomore by the name of Mike Abasolo.

“Mike was a team leader and a wonderful teammate,” Massey said. “He would do anything that the coaches asked of him. He was always there to support his teammates. Another thing that I remember and it is still true today is that he has a high basketball IQ and truly cares about his teammates and players.”

After that one season as an assistant at Cowley, Massey returned to Emporia State to serve as an assistant coach for the Hornets men’s basketball team.

“I left Cowley because my mom got sick with cancer and Emporia was only 17 miles from home and I could be closer to my family during that tough time,” Massey said.

In 1999, he began teaching and coaching in the Emporia school district and taught there for seven years. During that time, he met his wife Christel and the two were married in 2002. In 2006, the couple moved to Lyndon, KS and he became a head coach for the first time.

He has coached football, basketball, and track at Lyndon High School for the past 15 years.

“My parents were each in education for 30 plus years, so I have always been around a school setting,” Massey said. “I love working with young people and enjoy their successes. I also have a love for sports, so coaching just came naturally. I have been blessed to have great coaches when I played and saw the impact they made on my life and my teammates. Coach Nelson is at the top of the list. He held us to a higher standard on the court and more importantly off the court. He was very disciplined in his life and it helped shape me into the person I am today. I think coach Abasolo would agree that he was a wonderful coach and role model.”

Abasolo would definitely agree as he lists playing for coach Nelson as having one of the most impressionable effects on his life.

“I developed as a student, an athlete, and really began to gain the confidence that I could become a coach,” Abasolo said. “As the first person in my family to attend college, and as a minority, the diversity on the Cowley campus helped me find my identity as a young adult. And all those in the academic setting, helped form a foundation to help a barely C average high school student graduate three colleges with a 3.9 GPA, that’s what Cowley did for me.”

After Cowley, Abasolo transferred to Newman University where he played and coached under Mark Potter, who is in the Cowley Tiger Athletic Hall of Fame.

Abasolo was the first player to sign to play for coach Potter as the Newman men’s basketball program was shut down for a decade before restarting in 1998.

“We were a bunch of junior college transfers that had a lot of success in our second season. We set a national record for consecutive wins and made it to the NAIA Sweet 16 in only our second year,” Abasolo said.

Abasolo began his coaching career at Newman University in 2000. After five years at the school he went on to coach at Wichita South High School for one season, and was later the head girls basketball coach at Campus High School in Haysville. He went on to become an assistant boys basketball coach at Mulvane High School in 2008 and is currently in his sixth season as the head boys basketball coach at Mulvane.

“My passion for basketball led me to coaching,” Abasolo said. “I discovered my purpose after I was in coaching. Coaching to develop young people through sports is a very rewarding venture. Thankless, but rewarding. I discovered once you humble your ego and you start to enjoy other people’s successes, seeing young athletes succeed, it has such a better return on investment.”

Also rewarding for Abasolo is the opportunity to coach his sons, Trey and Kaiden, who both start for the Wildcats.

Trey, who is a senior, was ranked as the No. 9 player in the region by the Wichita Eagle this season. He is currently averaging 23 points, nine rebounds, four assists and four steals per game. He is on pace to become Mulvane High School’s all-time leading scorer. While, Kaiden is the team’s glue guy as a freshman.

“He does whatever we need on whatever night,” Abasolo said of his young son. “He can score, he can defend, he can rebound, he will be on the floor diving for loose basketballs, he is an effort guy for sure. invaluable.”

With his sons in the fold, Abasolo has the Class 4A Wildcats unbeaten at 9-0 and ranked No. 2. The team’s previous win coming over previously unbeaten Lyndon (5-1), coached by coach Massey. Lyndon was ranked No. 2 in Class 2A entering the contest.

“Without one of our opponents being quarantined, and our game being canceled, and without coach Massey’s team needing to fill games because of their opponents being quarantined, our two teams would have never crossed paths,” Abasolo said. “Having an opportunity to catch up with an old friend, and do it in the arena of a basketball game played more of a role in my decision to play Lyndon. Coach Massey’s team is an extremely good team and obviously well coached. I was not overly confident we could win, but getting together with Massey was more important for me than wins and losses. Within a few seconds of greeting each other, we spent the next half hour, talking about Cowley memories, basketball practice stories, practicing after road game losses until the early morning, laughing about Coach Nelson and former Tiger assistant Coach (Craig) Fletchall. Coach Nelson and coach Fletchall are both influential in my life still today. It’s calming to know I can call either one of those guys at any time and rely on them.”

Interestingly enough, Lyndon is also led by a pair of coach Massey’s sons. Darian Massey is a junior and the team’s starting point guard.

“He is the vocal and emotional leader of our team,” Massey said.

Darian was an Honorable Mention All-League selection as a sophomore while averaging 6.2 assists per game. While, Jalen Massey is a freshman member of the varsity basketball team.

“It is very rewarding coaching them,” Massey said. “I know I am biased but they are both really good people (thanks to their mother). They both work extremely hard at everything they do and are really good teammates. I am 10 times harder on them than I am the other kids, which isn’t fair to them, but they handle it very maturely. It is a great feeling to get to hug them after big wins and tough losses.”

Fortunately, the losses have not been many as coach Massey led Lyndon to a record of 19-4 last season and the team returns everyone from last year’s team.

“My time playing under coach Nelson and coaching with him and coach Fletchall was invaluable,” Massey said. “I still use the defensive principles that I learned from them. The drills and how intense practices need to be are also things I use. Mark Nelson, Darin Spence, Brent Atwater, Craig Fletchall, and Gary Abner were all coaches during the time I was at Cowley. It would be impossible for you to find better people than these guys. They truly made each and every one of us better people, better sons, better brothers, better husbands, better fathers. That is what coaching is about.”