Ever since Gil Hooker was young, coaching seemed to be in his future.

“In fourth or fifth grade, I used to make playbooks,” Hooker said. “I’d buy those Dollar General playbooks, and I would just draw plays and always I thought I would be an NFL coach of some sort.”

Fast forward to the present and Hooker was hired last week to be the new Missouri Military Academy basketball head coach following Roger Siwak stepping down due to family reasons. Hooker has been an assistant with the basketball program while also being an assistant for track and field since joining MMA in 2021 and is an assistant football coach at Mexico Middle School. He has been coaching since 2015 when he was a football assistant coach at his alma mater Van-Far. 

This will be Hooker’s first high school head coaching opportunity as he has only been a head coach at the middle school level for Mexico, when he led the Bulldogs to an undefeated season after returning in 2020 from a brief hiatus. He is excited to lead a program after dreaming of it for so long.

“Football was always my favorite sport, but when I got into coaching and I coached both basketball and football, I think basketball is more of my niche,” Hooker said. “There are a lot of layers to coaching football versus basketball.”

Hooker said he ultimately thinks being a basketball head coach will be a better fit for him due to the difference in roster size. It doesn’t simply boil down to one being easier to coach compared to the other but rather it is simpler to give players one-on-one time in basketball.

This is important to Hooker because he considers building relationships and culture to be at the top of the priority list. There are 30-40 players on a football roster typically while basketball is around 10 players, and he wants all of those players to be on the same page.

“I’m big on relationships,” Hooker said. “I work as a behavioral interventionist over at Mexico High School. I believe, through relationships, you can influence and impact at a way higher level.”

Athletic director Brian Meny knows Hooker well from his days coaching him on the court. Hooker played four years for Van-Far basketball prior to graduating in 2006, being part of district title teams during that stretch, while also being an all-district football player and track record holder in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. 

Since the head coaching position opened up, Meny valued somebody he could trust and knew would do a good job. Hooker being familiar with MMA after coaching at the school for several years was also a big factor.

“He played for me on several championship teams when I was at Van-Far so I understand how hard he works,” Meny said. “He knows our kids and knows what we do here and things like that.”

Hooker’s athleticism was definitely notable due to him being a three-sport athlete, Meny said, but also because he earned a track scholarship to North Iowa Area Community College and played for championship semi-pro football teams. He said the work ethic is what will make Hooker a good head coach.

“You could never say anything negative about his work ethic,” Meny said. “He was always on time for my practices and did what I asked.”

Hooker said talent is a factor when it comes to team success, which was a big reason why his middle school basketball team had an undefeated season, but everything beyond that matters as well. When it comes to coaching younger kids or kids with no a lot of experience at MMA, he is glad to have such good assistants.

His younger brother Verlyn Johnson will be joining him after putting together a career that includes being part of multiple state championship track and field teams at Van-Far in 2017-18 and a state championship basketball team in 2018. Johnson also ran track at Culver-Stockton College while Traevonne Smith will be another assistant who was a collegiate athlete.

“I’ve been an assistant for so many years so I see the beauty of having assistants,” Hooker said. “Your head coach is always as good as his assistants, and your coaching is only as good as the players that you build.”

Meny said having a head coach that values relationships so much like Hooker is necessary for basketball and will especially be true with the revolving roster MMA has every year. Cadets come and go any given year, and many cadets come from all over the country and the world so they often don’t have much basketball experience. 

“He reaches out to a lot of kids,” Meny said. “Traevonne and Gil both really run a good track program here. There’s a lot of kids in track. It’s not just the basketball kids as he knows a lot of these kids.”

MMA will have a couple returning to the court for sure this season in Gihana Favour Nziza and Alexander McBride, Hooker said, but even those bringing some experience will be behind other schools. Cadets are away from town during the summer so there are no opportunities to have practices or shootouts like many area schools do. 

This is where establishing a solid culture and relationships helps but not having as much as time as other schools means the time needs to be used wisely. Instead of emphasizing plays or tactics, Hooker said he is a “players coach” that wants to show his players things that apply to the game.

“What you do in the classroom, what you do in the barracks and what you do on the court all applies,” Hooker said. “When you add it all up, that’s where you're winning or losing. Whatever you do matters. So when we do practice, we’re going to practice with a purpose.”