A familiar face will lead the Powell High School boys’ basketball team next season.

Mike Heny — who headed up the Panther basketball program from 2009 to 2013 — is returning to the head coaching role, PHS Activities Director Scott McKenzie announced last week.

“Basketball has always kind of been my main passion; it’s really one of the reasons I went into education,” Heny said Friday. “And so I’m just super excited to be back.”

He replaces Chase Kistler, who recently became the head coach of the Panther football team.

Heny brings roughly 20 years of experience coaching high school and middle school basketball to the position, along with 13 years as an assistant PHS football coach.

“His knowledge of basketball is second to none,” McKenzie said. “And he will fit in nicely with the athletes we currently have in the program.”

The activities director also noted Heny’s “many successes” as a coach.

Heny led the Panthers to the Class 3A State Championship game in 2013, where they narrowly lost a heartbreaker to Star Valley. However, just weeks after the season ended, the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees adopted the recommendation of then-Superintendent Kevin Mitchell and terminated Heny as head basketball coach. No explanation was given at the time.

“Once the initial shock wore off, and the disappointment of how that all went down, you can either move forward or you can hang on to it,” Heny said. “And I just chose to move forward and use it in any way I could to be a better teacher, a better person, better coach. And that’s really what I’ve focused on.”

He added that many coaches get let go when they don’t think they should.

“At the end of the day, they felt like I wasn’t the right fit at the time,” he said. “And I’m content with it.”

Although Heny lost the basketball position in May 2013, district leaders retained him as both an assistant football coach and as a PHS business teacher.

In the years that followed, Heny said he worked to ensure that “if there was ever going to be another opportunity, that I had done what I needed to do to prove that I was worthy of
being in charge of the basketball program.”

“... I trusted God’s plan that if it was meant to be, I’d get another shot someday,” Heny added, “and here we are.”

Heny was away from basketball for several years before spending the last two seasons as a coach at Powell Middle School, where he “had a blast.”

Through that work, Heny realized he still had a passion for basketball.

“The longer I was away, the harder it got to be away,” he said.

He will now have the unusual distinction of serving as both Kistler’s predecessor and successor as head basketball coach.

Heny grew up in Powell and played basketball at PHS under Coach Ron Laird for four years, graduating in 1988. He later attended the University of Wyoming and it was while working in the basketball office there that he realized he wanted to coach.

After graduating from UW, Heny was hired at the Cody school district. He coached basketball at the middle school and high school levels for 11 years before coming back to Powell.

Heny spent three years as the freshman boys’ basketball coach at PHS before taking the head job in 2009. Now back in that role, Heny is eager to get started, but like so many others, he’s at the mercy of COVID-19. Coaches and athletes are currently prohibited from using school facilities until at least July 6, which will disrupt summer leagues, camps and exercise routines.

“Coming back, everybody’s going to probably be behind at the beginning,” Heny said.

He’s taught many of the Panther basketball players, watched them play and coached them on the football team. “So I have a sense and a basic plan on what I think we can do, and how to build off what their strengths are,” he said. “But, you know, until we can get it in the gym and see, then it’s just a plan.”

Heny intends to install a new system and new philosophy, so it will “take us a little bit longer to get up to speed,” Heny said. “But that’s part of the fun of it, as well as the challenge behind figuring it out.”

The coach prefers a “space and pace” style of offense — a speedier format that involves spreading out the defense. However, he won’t be making any decisions until working with his players, gauging their strengths and “figuring out what I can do to put those kids in positions to use those to the best of their ability,” he said.

Particularly with his role as an assistant football coach, PHS AD McKenzie predicted that Heny “will be able to hit the ground running this summer.”

“We are excited for the basketball program,” McKenzie said, “and look forward to the upcoming winter season.”