TRI-COUNTY BOYS Lisbon hopes to garner 2nd title

Last season's TCL championship gave coach Joe Siefke the distinction of owning both girls and boys crowns.
By JOHN KOVACH
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
LISBON -- Joe Siefke, in his third season as the Lisbon High boys basketball coach, is grateful for the six years he spent as the girls basketball coach at the school.
"My tenure with girls was real special for me in a lot of different ways," said Siefke. "It prepared me to be a boys coach."
It also helped him to win the job as the boys coach, after guiding the girls to five Tri-County League championships and a 97-32 record.
"It was easier for the boys to buy into the program. They hadn't won a TCL title since 1995, and before that in 1953," said Siefke, who also has found success on the boys side.
Defending champions
After steering the Lisbon boys to 13-11 his first year, he lifted them to 17-3 last year, including 12-2 in the TCL for the championship, making them the team to beat this season.
That title also gave Siefke the distinction of owning both girls and boys TCL championships. He enters this season with an impressive 127-46 overall record for eight years.
"The girls prefer to be coached just like a boy prefers to be coached. They don't want any preferential treatment and they don't want to be treated different," said Siefke, who coached the Lisbon junior varsity boys team before becoming the girls coach.
Challenging job
He said coaching the girls was a demanding job, because many of the girls were just starting to play while most boys had been playing their whole lives.
"There is a lot of teaching," he said. "You have to have a lot of different scenarios and plays because" girls tend to function better within a set framework.
He said the girls were "more team-oriented" and preferred being part of a planned play, while boys tend to be more independent and "were able to create more off the dribble and get more things."
But he admitted girls have made great strides in the past few years, and are becoming more like their male counterparts in making individual plays happen.
"We had a system with the girls and implemented that system and they bought into it," he said.
Career objective
Siefke said he switched from coaching girls to boys because he wanted a change, but primarily to achieve his career objective.
"It was a natural progression to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a boys coach," he said.
Also, "I think every coach gets to the point where they want to try something different. I was real close to the senior girls [in his sixth season] and it was a good time to get out."
Siefke is a 1985 graduate of Lisbon High who earned his bachelor's degree from Kent State in 1989, and his master's degree from Ashland University in 1997. He also is working toward a second master's degree, and is in his 14th year as a teacher at Lisbon Junior High. He teaches mathematics.