The principal, boys basketball coach and bus driver for Cedar Valley Christian School began plotting the team's road trips last week to make sure everything was in order.

Actually, it was the same guy.

Jeff Pospisil wears all three hats at Cedar Valley Christian - principal, coach, bus driver - along with numerous other duties at the private school in southeast Cedar Rapids.

As the principal, he wants to make sure his students are properly cared for. As the coach, he wants to make sure his team gets to the games on time. And as the bus driver, he wants to make sure he knows where he's going.

"I got on the Internet the other day and was kind of mapping out where all these schools were, just figuring out how long it will take to get there and stuff," he said. "Most of the places I've never been before. It will be a new experience."

The Huskies are entering a bold new world. They left the Northern Illinois Christian Conference after the 2010-11 school year and joined the Iowa High School Athletic Association as an independent in all boys sports.

Cedar Valley Christian has an attractive 21-game basketball schedule, but 19 of the games are on the road. That's the price the Huskies had to pay for putting their schedule together, but it should become more equitable in the future, especially if CVC is accepted into the Tri-Rivers Conference.

In the meantime, Pospisil has his map and directions to Lone Tree, Maynard, Bellevue, Montezuma, North Linn, Dunkerton, Fairbank, Winthrop, Kalona, Wellman, Springville, Goose Lake, Janesville, Calamus-Wheatland and other locales.

It's a big step for Cedar Valley Christian.

"I'm really excited about it," Pospisil said. "This is something I've been pushing for for a long time. We finally got it going this last year."

Pospisil is beginning his 20th year as the boys basketball coach at Cedar Valley Christian. He began the program in 1992 when CVC became a high school in addition to offering lower grades.

"I took ten 10th graders and we made a basketball team out of them," he said. "We've been going ever since."

The Huskies won approximately 25 games last season in the Northern Illinois Christian Conference, but Pospisil said many of the games were fairly easy.

"The last few years, we would maybe get six or seven really good games all year. And then a lot of games the starters had to sit most of the game because the competition just wasn't there," he said. "I'm looking forward to having good games week in and week out."

The Cedar Valley Christian football and volleyball teams struggled with their new ventures this season and the girls basketball team has only six players, but Pospisil is confident the boys basketball team will fare better.

"The football team was just starting out, so we knew they probably were not going to win any games," he said. "In volleyball the first year, we knew we were going to take a licking. But I think we're going to be pretty strong with boys basketball."

The Huskies open the season with a girl/boy doubleheader at Lone Tree Monday night.

Cedar Valley Christian has 13 players on the boys basketball team, including eight who have played before. They'll combine to play varsity and junior varsity games.

Pospisil thinks Jeremy Strutz will be one of the top scorers. "He's a good shooter and just kind of an all-around good player," he said.

David Sperling could be the top rebounder. "He has a good nose for the ball and works really hard," Pospisil said.

Will Muhlbach and Jon Landis are promising juniors, Luke Long is the man in the middle and Joe Spina has played before. Michael Nugent and Kameron Smith have joined the team this year and Tom Scroggs is the only freshman on the squad.

The other players are Nick Henderson, Evan Koch, Arturo Melendez and Spencer Zielke.

"We're definitely not big," Pospisil said. "We're all right around 6-foot or 6-1. But I think we've got speed. We're not going to really pound the ball inside and get anybody that way."

The adventure begins Monday night at Lone Tree.

"It will be a good experience for the guys and for the school, to show we can play basketball and we can do it the right way," Pospisil remarked.