Elida tabs Durham to replace Isler as girls coach, AD

CLOVIS — Some are hard to replace, but nobody’s irreplaceable.

Jaden Isler guided the Elida girls basketball team to four consecutive state championships, compiled a 93-18 record during that span, and was named the USA Today’s New Mexico Girls Basketball Coach of the Year.

Last week he left that program to coach boys basketball at his alma mater, Clovis. Replacing all those accomplishments at Elida would take someone else with a stout basketball reputation.

Enter Keith Durham.

Striding into Isler’s long shadow comes a coach who’s been an assistant for the Boise State women’s basketball team. Durham was also an assistant coach for the Eastern New Mexico University women’s team and head women’s coach at Division II Fort Lewis College. His prep basketball time includes two titles at Texico — where he was also athletic director — and an assistant’s spot on Clovis’ 30-0 girls champion in 2005.

Durham, who was coaching the Clovis girls track and field team as recently as last Saturday in Albuquerque, will also replace Isler as Elida’s athletic director.

If anyone can step in for Isler at both positions, someone with Durham’s background can.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Isler said. “We really wanted to leave the program in great hands so Elida could continue where it left off this year. So we wanted to be selective about who we hired to be A.D. and coach, and Keith was a great fit for both those jobs, as he’s done well as an A.D. and obviously his record as a basketball coach stands for itself.

“Keith is a heck of a basketball coach and he’s shown that everywhere he’s been. He’s a really good fit, he’s excited about being back in coaching at the varsity level, and we’re excited to have him take over as girls coach.”

Durham plans to have a program he can mold from top to bottom.

“Certainly the thing that led me to make this decision was the opportunity to have another feeder system where I get to work with the kids all the way through high school, like I had at Texico,” Durham said. “I’m just a big believer that coaches should work with kids, teach them fundamentals to the point that when they get to high school, all you have to do is get them to come together as a team.”

Durham had been in contention for Clovis High School’s athletic director position, which had been filled on an interim basis by Dale Fullerton. That position, however, went to Clovis boys basketball assistant coach Lonnie Baca.

Durham says his one spring as the Lady Wildcats’ track and field coach, a job for which he had no specific experience, helped him grow as a coach and a delegater.

“I was put in a position where I didn’t know a whole lot about the sport,” he said. “It certainly humbled me and it forced me to rely on other people. I think that was the biggest lesson — that I can rely on other people, because I was forced to. And I’m telling you, the assistants at Clovis were awesome. ... I didn’t know it was going to be a great experience, but it certainly turned out to be.”

Durham inherits an Elida girls basketball team that loses its top post player, Kasyn Creighton, and guard Lacy Ferguson, but has been a sterling Class 1A program throughout this decade, right up through this past winter. On March 9 at The Pit in Albuquerque, Elida defeated area rival Melrose, 58-44, to win the Class 1A state crown. It was the team’s eighth-consecutive small-school crown, including winning all four years Class B existed.

“It’s the first program I’ve ever gone to that was already winning,” Durham said. “So I’m excited that they already know what it takes on a daily basis to put themselves in position to win.”

Isler is moving over to a Clovis boys program that used to be coached by his late father J.D. Isler. He will have at least one opening on his staff because Baca had been an assistant under Scott Robinson, who resigned last month. Baca’s former position has yet to be filled.

“Those jobs have been posted,” Isler said. “They’ll be open for the appropriate time frame and we’ll go through applications and start the interview process in the coming weeks. But no selections have been made yet.”