Jim Bittick

My passion for basketball started in the 3rd or 4th grade when I was watching the varsity team at Notus play in the state tournament. When I was in the 5th grade I was the Jr. Varsity team equipment manager and the coach would have me practice with the team because there weren’t 10 players. From then on I was hooked on basketball. The same year I started playing on a church youth team. We played different churches here in the valley and won the end-of-season tourney. Then in the 6th grade, we had a team that played a team from Star and Middleton. The 7th grade was the start of my playing actual organized ball. From then on I played through jr. high and high school. As luck would have it one of my dreams came true and was given a scholarship to play at the C of I. I played one year in college and had the time of my life.

During my time in college, Notus Jr. High called and needed a referee for their games and I started officiating. After Loma and I got married she suggested (kind of forcefully) that I start officiating high school ball for extra money. I was working at Campbell Tractor in Homedale and I asked Darren how to get into officiating. He said for me to attend a meeting with him and see what I thought about it. Well by the time we started to go home, he had me signed up and on my way to working high school. I worked high school ball for 14 years and loved every minute of it.

My coaching career started in High School when the first 5 girl basketball started at Notus (Loma was one of our players). They didn’t have money to pay a coach but they got a teacher to be the advisor. She didn’t know anything about basketball so she asked if a friend of mine and I would coach the girls. It was a lot of fun but we weren’t at all successful. We didn’t win a single game. Fast forward to my having kids. I coached my youngest in club ball. After he got into middle school I was a little lost so I would help Loma coach club volleyball and give suggestions to her for the high school basketball teams she coached (sometimes she probably didn’t like it). When Loma started coaching volleyball at Greenleaf I helped her when I could. I started officiating volleyball 10 years ago. In 2021 I became the volleyball commissioner and didn’t have much time to help her. One evening she came home and said Greenleaf was looking for a girls’ basketball coach. I told her to do it and I would help her. She went back to school the next day and told Larry Taylor (the A.D.) that she would do it but as the assistant coach and that I would do the head coach's spot. I didn’t know that until the day before practice started and she said I needed to make my practice plan. Of course, I asked why and she said you’re the head coach. Well, Larry and Loma played that just right! I coached for 2 yrs. with her as my assistant until the crash happened. As you all know we were headed to the district championship game the night of the crash. That night my other assistant Randy Fisk took the team to play the game. Liberty Charter’s coach said that we would be co-champions. Randy with the help of his wife, Karri took the team to the state tournament. I was extremely proud of the girls and coaches for the guts they showed to go on to play after the crash. The next season Randy, Karri, and Ashley Rule were helping me coach. That was my last year to coach.

The interaction with the kids was the most enjoyable part of officiating and coaching. What a great way to stay young at heart! If I had it to do all over again the only thing I would change is to have started officiating and coaching high school athletes sooner.