VIDALIA — Turning around the struggling Vidalia High School girls’ basketball program does not start with complex offensive schemes and multiple defenses designed to confuse opponents for first-year head coach Fred Marsalis. In fact, the foundation for a successful Lady Vikings team does not start on the basketball court at all, Marsalis said.

“We started out the season with three goals or principles,” Marsalis said. “First we want to be productive citizens, second we want to focus on academics and third we want to work on athletics.”

The former Morgantown Elementary School principal said if the Lady Vikings take care of the first two basic principles on the list then it will be easier to learn the basic fundamentals of basketball to work on the athletic aspect.

“We really take pride on the second part (academics),” Marsalis said. “The girls collectively have maintained a B-plus average all year.”

Marsalis, who is also an advanced biology teacher at Vidalia, said his team went about putting an emphasis on education in a unique way.

“Every Wednesday we don’t practice, but we have study hall for an hour and a half,” he said.

This idea was not a huge hit with the team initially, he said.

“At first we had to show them why it was productive,” he said. “Then they saw that their grades went up. A lot of teachers have bought into it and have come over and volunteered to help.”

On the court, Marsalis said he had to basically start from scratch.

“(The program) was at rock bottom,” he said. “The girls have been through a number of coaches in the last five years, and I wanted to try to establish some stability with them. A lot of teaching had to be done on the fundamentals.”

Marsalis said the Lady Vikings struggled with the basics of the game.

“(We had to work on) dribbling, shooting, the whole nine yards,” he said. “We had to work a lot on fundamentals, and we are just getting to that point now at the end of the season.”

Marsalis said the Lady Vikings are very young this season, with nine freshmen and two sophomores making up the bulk of the roster. In addition to youth, Vidalia has also had trouble keeping its players healthy.

“We are like Riverland Hospital here,” he said. “We have four kids with pending knee operations that would have helped us.”

Marsalis said he has seen progress with this year’s team despite its overall record (2-18, 0-9) looking a lot like it did in years past, and he believes that next season the Lady Vikings will start to turn some of those losses into wins.

“I think we are very close to being competitive,” he said.

Marsalis said he hopes to get the players working in the offseason to continue to develop their fundamentals.

“First we will get in the weight room,” he said. “We want to build up the muscles that are essential for basketball players. Second we want to get them in camps this summer.”

Marsalis said he has already started talking with Amateur Athletic Union and college coaches about finding camps for the girls to work on their basketball skills.

Marsalis said he also hopes to continue to change the team’s attitude.

“We hope one of the bright spots will be that of self confidence,” he said. “We hope to instill the idea that they can win if they have a winning attitude.”

Marsalis said the Lady Vikings have a chance to show they are developing that winning attitude in their final few games this season.

“With four players out, and all four are probably starters, we are just trying to survive and be competitive,” he said.

Marsalis said he also sees promise in his collection of freshmen, sophomores and juniors.

“The youngsters just have to get time in the gym and not get discouraged and keep focused and let that carry over into the offseason,” he said.

Marsalis was a longtime boys’ basketball coach at Vidalia until 1987 and was a member of the staff that led the Vikings to the 1979 State Championship.

He rejoined the Vidalia High family in August.

Marsalis said he credits his assistant coaches, Tyberia Bell and Fred Marsalis Jr., his family, the community and the administration at Vidalia for their support of him and the girls’ program.