GREAT FALLS — Following 11 years of having Jerry Schmitz as head coach of Great Falls High girls basketball, the Bison alum announced his resignation from the position.
On May 11, Great Falls Public Schools announced their recommendation for assistant and freshman coach Kassie Dixon to take over.
Dixon spent the past five seasons on Schmitz's staff. It'll be the first time she's been a varsity head coach, she said.
"Starting to think of things like, how can I get them to bond a little bit better? What team bonding can we do? How can we make basketball fun for them? How can we build basketball IQ?" Dixon said Tuesday at Great Falls High.
"At the end of the day, it's high school basketball, and it's for making those memories, right, that are going to last a lifetime."
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She acknowledges the fact it may be a bit for her players to get used to learning a new system.
"It doesn't matter if I was already in the program. I'm not Jerry," Dixon said. "He did such an amazing job that it's going to take time for the girls to shift their perspective of this is what Jerry would want, to, this is what I would want."
But, Dixon said she's very used to the players in the program.
"I've had a lot of our seniors that are going to play for me this year as freshman when I was their freshman coach," Dixon said. "It's been so much fun just to see them grow. Not as only basketball players, but just as people. They've really matured and it's so fun to see them be leaders on the court."
Dixon is from Belt and won three state championships in her time with Huskies under coach Jeff Graham — who currently leads the Montana Tech women.
As someone who knows what it takes to achieve state titles, Dixon said she's already trying to implement that mindset into her players.
"We've just been preaching to them like, guys, it's the little things that add up to that big moment, the state championship," Dixon said. "It's the thousands of shots that you shoot in the summertime that lead up to that game. It is every pass that you make in preseason. It's every box-out that you get."
She also played at Sheridan College (Wyo.) and Division II Black Hills State (S.D.). One of her college coaches was Taylor Cummings, the current coach of the Gallatin High School girls.
Dixon said Graham's, Cummings' and Schmitz's leadership got her here.
"You have the excitement of Graham, you have the knowledge of Cummings and the ease of Jerry, which is really cool," Dixon said. "So hopefully I can take everything I've learned from those three and hopefully make a good program for Jerry."
She said "toughness and integrity" will be two of the main ways she wants her program to look.
"Because the girls that, you know, we have in our program, they're just tough as nails. I just love them," Dixon said.
