Ed Costley has always considered the future in his coaching career.

His future is why he decided to officially step down as the Mexico girls basketball head coach on April 29 after leading the program for 20 years. Costley has been a head coach for 26 years, amassing 456 wins during that time, seven North Central Missouri Conference championships with the Lady Bulldogs and four district titles, including two in his six years with Bunceton and two with Mexico in 2005 and 2006.

Costley said the timing of his decision resided after considering to stay on but before a period he hopes will give the administration ample time to hire someone else for a smooth transition into summer scheduling and next season. His decision happened also after many years of devotion and dedication to the program that has left him unable to plan a Christmas vacation or visit his mother during the holiday for at least 15 years but mainly felt it was the right time.

“It just kind of felt right at this time,’” Costley said. “There was nothing that made the trigger, ‘This is it’ or ‘I got to move away from this and get out of it.’ I was ready to step away, recharge and kind of get a different look at some things.”

By his own admission, Costley said he didn’t always love basketball as he grew up in Texas loving the state’s unofficial sport of football. For a while, he said he had misconceptions about basketball like the game was “for kids that were soft or scaredy cats” and wasn’t a “tough enough sport” until his coach made him play the game in middle school, erasing his misconceptions and introducing an understanding and love for the sport.

Eventually, the student Costley became a teacher as he was hired for his first job at Bunceton as the boys and girls coach, where he also served as a physical education coach, similar to his employment at Mexico. The boys program had a rough beginning under Costley as freshmen were at its core after many players graduated in a competitive conference. Costley said his first game resulted in a 97-12 loss and his first season ended 0-22, confirming to him what the administration said to not “plan on winning any games this year,” but then that same group of freshmen earned a pair of district titles by the time they were upperclassmen.

“The plan was that I would only be there one year until the original coach returned,” Costley said. “Well, I stayed there six years so I guess everything worked out for me.”

Of course, most of Costley’s career has been spent on the sidelines in Mexico, experiencing some success early in his Lady Bulldog tenure by winning district titles in his second and third seasons. Winning isn’t the only important thing, however, in Costley’s mind as the long-term health of a program should be considered as well.

“There’s times when you get so fixated on winning that you actually forget just to enjoy and also understand to keep teaching to allow the kids to learn,” Costley said.

Costley said he wants to convey basketball well enough for kids to coach at the YMCA or in a summer league or play in college. His players don’t have to pursue a career in basketball as one of his daughters and former players, Adria, studied dietetics, but emphasizing the process will leave the program and his players in a better state for the future. Costley’s older daughter and former player, Brooke, was recently hired as an assistant coach with Wichita State girls basketball along with former Mexico head boys coach Nick Bradford.

Rachel Baker finished her career at Mexico with three all-state selections, two district titles and many school records before going to Arkansas State and then playing for William Woods University in Fulton.

Stephanie Robinett (Schutte) currently teaches at the middle school but learned from Costley on the court as a player. Costley describes her as someone who didn’t garner much media attention due to impacting the game in areas other than scoring, leading to him to tell Robinett and others like her, “You made a difference more than you know, other than scoring, in everything else.”

Someone Costley is happy will be on staff next year for Mexico girls basketball is Makenzie Mudd, who served as his assistant for five years after playing for him from 2005-09.

“We’ve got a mix of younger girls coming in and coach Mudd is still there as an assistant coach,” Costley said. “I think it’s a good foundation with the program because some of these girls helped coach when she was at the middle school level and still continuing on. I think, whatever happens with new coaches, they can build off of what coach Mudd has to say.”

Mudd said she coached the middle school girls for four years so she has technically spent about 13 years in Costley’s program. His regular presence will definitely be missed, but she and other players had misconceptions about him until they learned that was far from the truth.

“It’s actually funny that whenever the girls now sat things about ‘He doesn’t understand’ or ‘He doesn’t get what’s going on’ because the way he’s treating them or ‘He’s too mean,’ it’s a nice viewpoint I could tell them, ‘Well, I understand why you think that because I felt the same way as a player,’” Mudd said. “‘But this is where he’s coming from’ because it’s hard for them to see why he does what he does or why any coach does what they do.

“I was somebody who was very much I want to do what I’m told and I want to do what he wants me to do. He is one of those people that will tell you what he wants from you and kind of wait for you to figure it out. He’ll be there if you ask questions. He’s got the answers for you, but he’s very good at knowing what each player is capable of and what their strengths are, making sure to put them in the position that they need to be the best member of the whole team.”

Mudd said Costley thinks about the “whole picture” and how players complement each other. In Mudd’s case, Costley taught her knowledge that benefitted her during her career and still helps her now as a coach.

“I was a post player so we spent a lot of time working on different post moves and rebounding approaches and strategies,” Costley said. “Now, he put me in that role in practice to work with the post players to work on these different post moves, these different down-low concepts and he spent more time with the guards. By helping me figure it out as his player, I was able to do more of that on my own with the players.”

Working with players one-on-one on their skills is what Costley will miss the most about being the head coach. Since he will continue to teach PE at Mexico, he wants to still be available to any coaches that need his assistance so can help individual or small groups of players because that is what he’s proud of more than any career accomplishments.

“The biggest thing I’ll miss is obviously working and developing the girls individually and improving them to see that growth in the game and that mental part of the game,” Costley said.

The moments of triumph will stick with him, obviously, as did the Lady Bulldogs’ appearance in the district title game in 2006 against Moberly at Moberly Area Community College. The Mexico fans and community, however, had much to do with that making the “greatest moment” of that year.

“Right before the jump ball, we were getting ready and the referee steps out, the Dawg Pound comes walking down in MACC with the Bulldog clap and chant,” Costley said. “Right before that, it’s dead silent and all of a sudden, you can feel this – it gets me now – this energy that came through the whole side of our bench.”

Costley said it will be difficult to get accustomed to not serving as the head coach early on and meeting regularly with other coaches and athletic directors in the conference. He said will assist Mudd and the program with summer scheduling but will mostly try to enjoy not being on a year-round schedule anymore because that is a misconception some people have about basketball coaches. Figuring out what the plan is for next year is the routine after a season ends. To this day, he said he has trouble switching his coaching mind off and still tries to write down plays or rewinds video from games to figure things out.

Without the support of the Mexico administration and other coaches like head boys basketball coach Darren Pappas, Costley said he couldn’t have lasted 20 years as the Mexico girls coach so he hopes he has left an indelible mark on the program.

“Working with my wife (girls tennis head coach and former girls basketball assistant coach Kim Costley), hopefully our impact has just been finding ways for girls just to find their niche and find their ways to be strong,” Costley said. “Whatever activity it is, the male side is always going to get the attention, but you’ve just got to take care of you and take care of yourself. Don’t worry about the outside stuff.”

“He is Mexico basketball,” Mudd said. “He has built the program from where it started in the early 2000s when he took over. He is one of the biggest reasons that I know what I know and that I am comfortable being a coach and sharing that with players now and players in the future.”