Jackson Zuber is an ASU student at the Cronkite School assigned to cover Valley Christian by AZPreps365

Greg Haagsma has won 626 games and five state titles. But winning isn't everything for the coach and Athletic Director of Valley Christian.

Character matters.

The Trojans were one of the first schools in Arizona to implement the Character Matters program. “As a Christian school we put a lot of emphasis on having good values, a lot of coaches are great with the X’s and O’s,” said Haagsma. “But the Character Matters program is something helps them and reminds them we are mentoring these kids into young adults.”

The emphasis on mentoring young athletes is why Haagsma has stayed with Valley Christian and all of his children have gone to the school. “My oldest son graduated in 2014, I was lucky enough to coach him to a state title. I had a daughter who graduated in 2015,” said Haagsma. “Now I have my youngest Shane here who’s on the football team and won the state title with me last year.”

Haagsma started coaching at Valley Christian in 1991. He coached baseball and girls basketball until 2002 and 1997, respectively. 

He took over the boys basketball team in 1997. Even though he played college baseball at a Division 1 level, basketball is the sport he most loves to coach. “In baseball there’s only so much you have to do when you throw out a pitcher that throws 95 there is only so much you can do,” said Haagsma. “But in basketball there is so much more to the coaching.”

It was through his early days playing basketball in high school he first learned about what it really meant to coach. His head coach as the time was Jerry Nickel. “He was an old school style coach, tough on guys expecting 100%,”  said Haagsma,.“Well my grandfather passed away during my senior year and I will always remember he came up to me in the hall and checked on me asked me how I was doing and he really meant it. He may have been hard on me, but he truly cared about me.” 

That moment has followed Haagsma throughout his career, helping him see the players and the game for what they are: Young men and a tool to get them ready for the rest of their lives. 

“The kids do have to learn that we have a target on our back, other teams when they beat us they do get excited it's a big deal,” said Haagsma. “That's a good place to be as a program but I have to make sure the guys take it game by game and only compare them to themselves, not any of our past teams”

Success at a young age can be hard to handle but Haagsma knows how to have a team that respects its opponent win or lose. “As a team you want to be successful and you strive to be able to teach kids what it means to be a team at the top and how to be humble and to be good with humility,” said Haagsma. “We teach the kids we want to be great but do that will humility and that means sometimes you lose and you gotta just congratulate the other team” 

He has found a way to make his players buy into him year after year, always ready to change up his philosophy with the X’s and O’s and how he communicates with his players.

“Some years you got post players, others you’re guard-heavy” said Haagsma. “Like this year we’re gonna be real guard-heavy and shooting threes and there's a lot of fun in that figuring out what strategies you are gonna use and then adding in all the different personalities you get makes it a whole lot of fun”