For the last four years at Perry, basketball has been a sport to watch, a mecca of entertainment, celebration, and a team that has been considered a force to be seriously reckoned with. At the helm of a very successful team, Coach Joe Babinski has helped the Pumas with a total of 81 games throughout the past four years, leading the team to semifinals for two of those years. He has had to bear the loss of two of Arizona’s finest basketball players (the Howard brothers) and has acted as a leader and enforcer of triumph, revival, and victory for Perry’s basketball team.

However, now after an impressive 39 year career as a basketball head coach, Mr. Babinski has stepped down, aiming his sights at retirement.

“It’s a good year for me to get out,” Babinski told AZCentral Sports. “My kids played the way I felt they should play basketball. They shared the ball really well. We got the most out of what we had. It is a good time to leave the game with a great feeling.”

Before he came to Arizona to not only teach math but also coach basketball, he resided in Oklahoma where he won a whopping 432 games over a span of 28 years. If the amount of wins he has led not one, but three teams to, isn’t enough to astonish you, just take into account that Mr. Babinski has been coaching basketball longer than most high school teachers have even been alive.

Though Coach Babinski will be missed and his coaching legacy has wrapped up, there is a new man that will be leading the Pumas to victory: Sam Duane Jr.

Duane Jr., a man who has previously coached at Corona Del Sol and has led them to four consecutive state championships, will be accepting the coaching job at Perry. After stepping down as coach at Corona following the 2014-15 season, Duane Jr. told AZCentral, “After I just explored some things personally and professionally, I think my true passion is coaching. I missed it.”

A common theme of huge influences stepping down and new beginnings has seemed to be reoccuring in Perry basketball; first with the loss of the Howard brothers, and now with the retirement of Babinski. However, as the Pumas have shown this last season, loss is not always a bad thing.

Expectations and a hunger for victory will be higher than ever entering the Pumas’  2016-17 season, and as a basketball fan for basketball fans ranging from parents to the students in the stands, we are beyond excited to see what the Pumas have in store for next year.