Hansen hits 100th win as head coach

Bigfork High School head girls basketball coach Mark Hansen hit a big milestone in his coaching career Saturday when his varsity team beat Ronan, giving him his 100th win as a head coach.

"I've been blessed with a lot of good teams," Hansen said. "That's the way I feel about it."

Hansen has had a unique coaching career in that he has headed up a successful boys program as well as a girls program at the same high school. He is in his second year serving as head coach for the BHS girls and was previously the head coach of the boys program for five years.

This year his girls are 15-3 so far. Last year, they finished the season 15-9 with three of those losses in post-season play, including last year's Class A State Tournament. Hansen, who is a Bigfork alumnus, had a great deal of success during his time with the boys program as well,

However, most of his 57 loses came from that era of his coaching career, two of his five years leading the Vikings program he took the boys to state, and all but one year his team played in the game at divisionals to advance to state.

Although Hansen has put in more years with the boys program, he said he has enjoyed coaching both the boys and girls equally. He also added that the two really aren't that different.

"I try to run a similar program with the girls as I did with the boys," he said. "I like to sit back and let them play their game. I try not to over-coach. I have noticed that the girls are more literal than the boys in the way that they interpret what I say. Also, in my eyes, the girls are better listeners. It's been my experience that when you talk to them about what they need to work on they seem to listen better. They seem to take what I say to heart more and they really work on their weakness."

Working with the girls took a little bit of getting used to for Hansen, who has four sons and no daughters.

"The first time I had to call a time-out during summer league for one of the girls to fix her ponytail — that was a little different for me," Hansen said.

He wasn't completely foreign to girls basketball, though, as five of his eight siblings were girls and all but one played basketball for Bigfork. While in high school, Mark and his siblings excelled in sports and most of their 14 children have already followed in their footsteps playing integral roles in a variety of sports at Bigfork, especially basketball.

Hansen had a four year gap between his inaugural year with the Vals and his stint as head coach of the boys. During that time, he coached his youngest son Zac's middle school teams and he was an assistant coach for the high school boys team. That time off has led to what Hansen said is the biggest change between his coaching career with the boys and the girls — himself.

"The biggest difference is that I'm a different coach," Hansen said. "I'm more mellow. You just figure out that there's different ways to get where you want to go."

Through the ups and downs over the years, Hansen said he has enjoyed his time working with the kids whether it be with the boys or the girls.

"They both bring different things," Hansen said. "Once you get in the with the kids you get a connection and there isn't a preference with one or the other. The girls bring a different aspect to the games and the practices. It can be pretty interesting sometimes. Coaching isn't so much about the games it's about the kids — I've been blessed with really wonderful kids."