At Prairie Valley, Mark Smith was hired a month ago to be the new girl’s athletic coach.
The previous coach abruptly resigned near the beginning of the basketball season which meant athletic director Seth Stephens was in the tough situation of coaching both boys’ and girls’ basketball teams in the same season.
Smith comes to Prairie Valley after teaching math for the last six years at charter school International Leadership High School in Grand Prairie.
His previous coaching experience before that came at schools of various sizes like 6A Byron Nelson as an assistant, 4A Lake Worth as a head coach, 2A Itasca as a head coach and 1A Advantage Academy in Waxahachie as a head coach. He started at 4A Kennedale and Spruce as an assistant.
Stephens said Smith impressed him and the administration with his emphasis on taking a program wide approach to coaching and trying to get girls to compete in as many things as possible.
“He has quite a bit of experience coaching,” Stephens said. “We thought with his personality, the way he wants to commit to not just focusing on one sport. He’s real calm and somebody we were looking for who could come in and give us some stability and consistency.”
Smith was attracted to the job since his daughter is about to enter the 10th grade and her previous school was starting to pressure athletes to start specializing.
Smith graduated from 1A high school Whiteface and wanted the small school experience for his daughter.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.