For the 2024-2025 season, the mens basketball team welcomes an entirely new head coach, Travis Myers, who could lead the team to victory again this season. 

In the 2022-2023 basketball season, the team ended their season first in the Three Rivers League. In the following season, they finished third in the league.

In 2008, while working at Polk Adolescent Day Treatment Center in the Dallas school district,  Travis Myers, a teacher at Polk, received an email asking if he had interest in coaching the school’s basketball team.

“[I thought] ‘Heck, I’ll give this a try,’” Myers said, who was a first-year teacher at the time.

16 years later, he accepted a position as head coach of West Linn High School’s varsity mens basketball team.

Myers grew up in Winston, Oregon, and had exposure to coaching throughout his life. His dad coached volleyball when Myers was a teenager, so he spent a lot of time in the gym. 

Myers is now going into his 17th year of coaching and his first year at West Linn High School. In addition to coaching, Myers works as a learning specialist where he supports students with special education services and works in math labs. Myers finds that the skills he uses in the classroom transfer to the court. 

“The part of special education that I take the most from is that structure and routine is so important, [and having] predictable outcomes for kids so they know what they’re doing each day, every day,” Myers said.

Myers then utilizes these findings to build and structure basketball practices and workouts. 

Over the summer, Myers got to see some of his former athletes who recently signed professional contracts in Spain and Portugal.

 “Watch[ing] them grow as adults and seeing them mature as human beings is a super fun, rewarding piece,” Myers said.

As someone who grew up playing sports, Myers spent a lot of time on the court. 

“Being in practice for me is the [most fun] part,” Myers said. “It’s the thing I can control the most.”

Last season, the basketball team played 27 games and they had a 0.56% winning rate. 

“I think it’s a huge life skill to be a competitor,” Myers said. “You want kids to learn how to compete, and then you want kids to have a great experience along the way.”

As a coach and teacher who has worked with kids for 17 years, Myers encourages student athletes to learn to healthily compartmentalize, as the athletes he coaches may have lots of things going on at once.

 “You’re going to have bad basketball days, but [that] can’t make it a bad school day,” Myers said.

As a head coach, wins and losses are a big part of the job. Myers, however, maintains a way of thinking that helps him succeed as a coach, and helps his athletes succeed at basketball. 

“You learn everything from wins and losses,” Myers said. “There’s things out there you can’t control, you can’t focus on that.”

As we approach the winter sport season, keep an eye out for Myers and his basketball team when they open the season on Dec. 10, for their first game of the year against Nelson.