Learning from mistakes, not dwelling on them and playing forward will be the style of play for the Grantsville boys basketball team coming this winter under new head coach Chris Baker.

“Playing forward is my coaching philosophy,” Baker said. “If a player is out on the court and isn’t making his baskets I don’t want him to pout about it. If a player keeps working out on the court good things will happen.”

Grantsville will be the first head coaching job for Baker at the high school level but he does have experience coaching in the Tooele Valley and Salt Lake as well. Former Tooele coach Gary Alverson was responsible for Baker’s first coaching position in the high school ranks.

“I coached the players when they were younger that later went on to win the state championship under coach Alverson,” Baker said. “He (Alverson) saw that I was close with the players and he talked to me about coaching and I quickly jumped on board.” Baker started coaching in that age group because he started coaching his brother Marcus at a young age.

Baker spent four years at Tooele when the Buffaloes won a state title in 2005 and were runners-up in 2006 then moved on to Granger High School in West Valley City. Baker coached at Granger for three years as a junior varsity coach but did notice big differences in the kids from the inner city athletes to kids from smaller towns.

“At times I was doing more counseling with kids in the bigger cities than I was coaching because sometimes basketball was the only positive going in their lives,” Baker said. “Kids from smaller towns seem to better understand the hard work ethic. I prefer coaching in a small town.”

Feeling at home while coaching Grantsville won’t be a problem for Baker as he has coached a number of sports in Tooele County for years. Baker likes that Grantsville principal Travis McCluskey and the school administration are kid advocates and put a lot of thought into who they hire.

“I am just thankful to principal McCluskey for giving me the opportunity to coach basketball down at Grantsville,” Baker said. “I really do like being down in Grantsville and the small town pride that comes with how the community supports its teams so much.”

Offensively and defensively Baker gets a lot of ideas from his coaching days under the late coach Alverson. “We play a very structured offense and I like to slow it down like coach Alverson did,” Baker said.

On defense, Baker likes to run a match-up zone that will cause problems for opposing offenses. “I just want the kids to play hard and I wouldn’t care if we won a game 2-0,” he said.

The season as a whole is split into three different sections for Baker: pre-season, regular season and the post-season with the ultimate goal of winning a state championship. “I always get excited as a coach for games because we get to go to battle together with these young men,” Baker said. “We need to do whatever we can to achieve our goal of winning a state championship.”

Baker also knows that he has great support behind him from past players to assistant coach Joe White who coached with Baker at Tooele and will join him in Grantsville. “I also have an unbelievable wife, Shilo, who is very supportive,” Baker said.

When Baker, who is a father of three little girls, is asked if he ever wants to try for a son he usually gives the same answer. “I just tell everyone that I have 40 boys of my own who play basketball every year,” he said.

Jake Gordon: jgordon@tooeletranscript.com