About Suiting Up Varsity

I am a school teacher and have been since 1990. I currently teach Senior English at Hastings High School where I have been since 2007. Before that, I taught primarily junior high English at Blue Hill from 2002 to 2007. My first teaching job was at Hastings Junior High (Middle School) from 1990 to 2002.

I was also a basketball, football, and track coach until 2022.  I was the head girls' basketball coach at Hastings for 15 years. We won district championships in 2015 and 2016 and the Greater Nebraska Conference in 2016. We played in district championship games five times in my final eight years, losing two on last-second shots.

I coached junior high basketball at HJH from 1990-1997 and was the 8th-grade football coach for the Panthers from 1990-2001. From 1998-2000 I was a varsity assistant for Hastings High working under Joe Sajevic. In 2002, I became the head boys' basketball coach in Blue Hill. We won the Twin Valley regular season in 2003 and played in the league tournament final in 2006 and 2007, losing to Franklin in both. I took over Bobcat football for one season in 2005. We went 8-1 and won a pair of playoff games including a 12-6 upset of #1 East Butler in the second round. I also coached junior high track at Blue Hill, winning a pair of conference titles.

The Hastings Tribune printed this when I retired from coaching. 

I am a Hastings graduate from 1986. I played football and basketball, and read Jerry Mathers' Nebraska High School Sports from cover to cover. I began collecting and chronicling Tiger athletic history early in my teaching career.  I have self-published a volume on HHS. 

Around 2016, I began to expand my research beyond HHS to the entire state with the idea of creating a sequel to Mathers' 1980 volume.  I began this daunting task by producing a podcast, hoping to build the history one episode at a time.  Since then, the project has continued to grow and build. 

I have met people all around the state who have lent a hand and shared the stories they know.  Without them, this would be impossible. 

The same is true without my brothers, Tren and Tate Mays who have offered aid, expertise, and effort throughout this project,  dating back to those days of trying to update Hastings High basketball and football records. 

Also key is my wife Ann, now a teacher at Hastings High but soon a retiree and flower farmer, and our children Zoe, Ryder, Emma, and Hayden.

As I wrote, the ultimate goal is a book, a history of Nebraska high school sports and the athletes, coaches, and schools that made them special.  The deadline, I always say, is death.  I better get back to work.

Email: 

GMAYS at HHSTIGERS.COM

Twitter DM: 

@SuitUpVaristy or @CoachMays