Published: November 17, 2008 09:04 am      

Clinton assistant shows wit at MAC outing

DAVENPORT — It’s been a few years since Bill Misiewicz has been a head basketball coach, but he certainly hasn’t forgotten how to address and audience.

Filling in for Clinton High School boys basketball head coach Dave Shovlain, Misiewicz entertained the crowd Friday as the Davenport Noon Optimists Club welcomed the Mississippi Athletic Conference coaches to their meeting to speak about the upcoming season.

Official practices don’t start until Monday, but Misiewicz was in midseason form.

“Well, Dave gave me some notes to look over and read,” Misiewicz said before pausing, then crumpling up the sheet of paper and tossing it aside.

Misiewicz, the former girls head coach at Clinton who now is an assistant with the boys team, welcomed first-year head coaches Steve Hillman of Pleasant Valley and Brandon Welsch of Muscatine to the league and told them some things they might hear. Such as:

“Coach, my boss at Subway is going to work around my basketball schedule.”

“Hey, my dad’s hoping we’ve got a new offense.”

Then, there are the problems the other MAC schools are facing, such as:

Davenport West coach Mark Bigler talking about how young his team is, with the sippy cups on the water bottles as evidence.

Getting told at North Scott that the cake auction at halftime is only going to last 15 minutes.

“We understand you have problems at Bettendorf, Kevin (Skillett, the Bulldogs’ coach),” Misiewicz said, then adding, as illustrations, “When we go to the state tournament, should we stay downtown or out in the burbs? And should we get a T-shirt for the kid after we win it or a ring?”

Misiewicz did show his serious side, though, and told a bit of what fans should expect to see from the River Kings this winter.

“We’re hoping some of our athleticism takes over,” he said and mentioned three players. “Dave Johnson, I think, is going to take it to the next level. We’ve got a big kid in the middle (6-foot-6 Matt Murphy), and you need that in this conference. He knows his way around the basket. I think the biggest key for us is Darryl Sexton. He can really stroke the ball.”

None of the coaches made any bold predictions about the conference, although several coaches mentioned Pleasant Valleyand Bettendorf as teams to watch.

Pleasant Valley has three starters back, including first-team all-conference player John Lindstrom. Bettendorf has the best size in the MAC with 6-9 Drake signee Seth VanDeest and 6-6 George Dexter; and Davenport.

Davenport Central also has one of the top players back in all-state guard Hal Bateman.