Hinton – When Chad Meador took over the Summers County Girls Basketball program in 2017, he was thrust into an uncomfortable situation.
He always considered himself a career assistant and made that known when former head coach Wayne Ryan, who led the program to six state championships, stepped down following the 2015-16 season. Meador didn’t want the job, thus Sarah Blevins was tapped to succeed Ryan.
She left after a year and Meador took over.
But early in his tenure doubt began to creep in.
It came to a head on Jan. 18, 2018 when his Lady Bobcats dropped a 50-34 decision at home against PikeView.
“My first year as the head coach we were getting thrashed,” Meador said. “We had lost five or six straight and the natives were getting restless. Hannah Taylor, Tiffani Cline and Erica Merrill said ‘Coach, we need a team meeting.’ And I said okay. It was after a terrible loss to PikeView here. Terrible loss. We were all deflated and PikeView was pretty good but we got whipped. We sit in that locker room and they said ‘Coach, we need to make some changes. We don’t know what it is,’ and they were looking at me. I said ‘Give me the weekend and I’ll figure something out.'”
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Meador’s path to the girls basketball program was a unique one. He didn’t have much basketball experience prior to Ryan asking for his help.
“So 22 years ago I was approached by coach Ryan to help Jonathan Hanna coach the middle school basketball team,” Meador said. “My wife and I left back from Columbus – we were born and raised here – but went to Columbus for about six years and came back. My cousin, Lindsey Keaton was a player here. She was on the staff that same year and I said “Coach, I think I’ll do it.’ My cousin Lindsey got a job with State Farm and moved to Maryland.
“We were down here at the baseball field and coach Ryan says ‘Chad, I’ve got an opening and I’d like for you to be on my staff.’ I said ‘I’ll do it, Immediately.’ He asked me if I wanted to think about it and I told him no.”
When Ryan tapped Meador to join him it had little to do with basketball initially.
“Two things – you always try to surround yourself with quality people and Chad’s a quality person,” Ryan said. “He had helped coach the middle school boys and I knew that he wasn’t going to be able to do that because he was also the county health official and was going to have to take some training classes. I caught wind of it and thought it was maybe a great opportunity to bring him on to help us.
“I understood he had some major conflicts but I told him I’d work with him and it ended up the conflicts weren’t too great and he didn’t have to miss too much. He was on after that. Chad would be a good fit in any program in any role because he understands people. Lindsey moving away was a factor but I had seen Chad work in the middle school program and with our football program and knew if I could get Chad in our program I wanted him there.”
Under the tutelage of Ryan, Meador honed his basketball chops. He was on staff when the Lady Bobcats lost three straight regional championship to James Monroe – none by more than four points – which ended up playing for three state championship after beating Summers, winning two.
He was there when the Lady Bobcats returned to the state tournament in 2004 and ’05, reaching the state championship game in 2006 before falling to Winfield.
Then he got to experience the ultimate success as Summers established itself as the most prolific girls public school dynasty in state history, ripping a string of five consecutive state championships and a state record 102-game winning streak.
During that run of success it became apparent what Meador could do.
“There was no doubt when it came to the basketball aspect Chad could be the head coach,” Ryan said. “All you had to do was watch JV games and see how he worked his JV players and made his game adjustments to know he was capable of being a head coach.’
Part of Meador’s fine-tuning was what he was asked to do.
Often Ryan would ask him to take note of substitution patterns or foul situations or any tendencies he could possibly pick up on.
“Coach Ryan said ‘If you’ve got anything for me, let me know,'” Meador said. “He said ‘I may not take it but you tell me what you got.’ I don’t think I said a word for five years. He was the master and his accomplishments speak for themselves. I was telling somebody else and anybody else, the foundation was laid in 1988 by Ron Williams and coach Ryan right after that.”
Eventually, Ryan accepted a job as an Executive Director for the WVSSAC and Blevins succeeded him for a season, before giving way to Meador.
“I had no want to be the head coach,” Meador said. “I was a career assistant, the man in the ditch. Tell me what to do and I’ll dig it. And I was a pretty good assistant – I think a better assistant than I am a head coach. Sarah Blevins decided to stay on and asked me to help her and I said I’m in. She coached a year and we made it to the state semis. She elected to get married and start a career in North Carolina and at that point I said if I take this, it’s going to be a six-year commitment because my daughter at the time was in seventh grade.”
During his time as the head coach he’s built his own impressive resume, leading the program to state tournament appearances in five out of this six seasons, though this season has been his masterpiece even if he won’t admit it.
In the shadow of regional foes Wyoming East and Mingo Central – the only other two teams to occupy the No. 1 spot in the Class AA AP Poll this year – his Bobcats have quietly labored.
After suffering a pair of regular season losses to East, he instilled a confidence in his team that changed the outcome when they met a third time.
Trailing by six heading into the fourth quarter of the sectional championship at East, he led Summers to a 50-47 win over the then No. 1-ranked Lady Warriors, earning a home regional game. He again worked his magic in the regional round, leading his team to a win against No. 2 Mingo Central.
The wins caught the eyes of his peers who voted Summers as the No. 1 seed in the Class AA field ahead of next week’s state tournament, an honor the program hasn’t had since winning it all in 2011 (Summers was in Class A when it was the top seed in the 2017 state tournament).
The current status of the program isn’t one that was anticipated when the season began.
Coming off a first-round exit in last year’s state tournament, the Lady Bobcats were ranked No. 5 in the preseason AP Poll.
They steadily rose to No. 3 in January. Then came the surge.
After a January loss at Wyoming East in which his team led by two in the fourth quarter, Meador led his team to an upset win over then No. 1 Mingo Central in Hinton.
It started a stretch in where the Lady Bobcats defeated the No. 1- (Mingo), No. 1- (Wyoming East) and No. 2- (Mingo) ranked teams in Class AA at the time in a 17-day stretch. It wasn’t at all the way Meador imagined the season playing out.
“The team has put in a lot of work the last three weeks and we kind of defied the odds,” Meador said after the regional win Tuesday. “I kind of saw this season ending a little bit different. I did not anticipate hosting the region and I thought we would end our season probably at Chapmanville. But we had a conversation a month ago and at Wyoming East, even though it was an eight-point loss, I felt we grew up a lot. That loss, typically you grow up after a win, but we were able to put ourselves in position to win that game but we were determined at that point we belonged and knew if we kept chugging away and chugging away, good things might happen and listen, 850 people here tonight saw a great game.”
Seven years removed from Ryan’s departure, this team has become all Meador’s with some of the overarching philosophies that predate even Ryan still in place.
He doesn’t boast the perennial Player of the Year candidates and winners Ryan maximized but the common thread still stands – he’s maximizing the talent he has and putting it in the best position to win.
“I think anybody that’s ever been involved with coaching a program knows there’s something special about being involved,” Ryan said. “Chad’s had to make adjustments in his role. But he’s also had to make adjustments to how we did things. I think’s he stayed a lot with the programs foundation which goes back quite a ways, but he’s put his own personality and own administrative ways into the program. And he has certainly proven successful. That’s the only advice I’ve ever given Sarah or him – I think we do some things right and we had a solid foundation, but you’ve got to do it your way. I think’s Chad’s done a great job doing it his way and I think this group of kids and him have blended together really well.”
Ryan, who doesn’t see as many Summers County games these days with his office based in Parkersburg, has followed his protege closely but took time earlier this season to come down and watch the team. His impressions were a direct reflection of what Meador has done with the program.
“I think Chad’s team really speaks to this in that they have a lot of grit and they don’t fold under pressure,” Ryan said. “I think believing in yourself and having a system you’re confident in and teammates and coaches you’re confident in has really showed in this group.”
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After that loss to PikeView in 2018, Meador tapped into the knowledge he acquired as an assistant and utilized as a head coach. He came back after the weekend and instituted a switch that propelled a state semifinal run.
“It dawned on me, a change we had made 10 years prior,” Meador said. “Jenni Wynes was playing and Emily Blevins was playing and we changed positions. I can’t remember the exact scenario but it got us where we needed to be that year. I thought ‘You know what, we need to move Hannah (Taylor) to the five.’ We moved Hannah to the five (center) and moved Taylor Isaac, a freshman, to the one (point guard) and won 10 of the last 11. It was after that change, and Hannah ended up scoring about 600 points that year, we went back to PikeView and she dropped 40 from that five position and she went to that foul line and she looked at me and did one of those head nods like ‘I got you coach, we’re here,’ and she did that and I’ll never forget it.
“That moment I thought “We did this. We made that change and we made it work.’ We stayed within our scheme of what we know and after that it just became contagious and what we could do next and sustain that. We went on to beat a young Parkersburg Catholic (in the state quarterfinals) and advance to the semifinals. I think that was probably the moment I thought I could do this. I’m most proud though that we’ve stayed relevant. We haven’t won every game and every region but we’ve been able to sustain, as the old coach from Scott (John Porter) said “The Machine of Summers County.” We’ve puttered a little bit and I’m not saying we’re that but we’ve remained relevant.”
The machine has rolled on even if it has new parts and a different, yet talented operator at the helm.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94