"My greatest failure as a news anchor led to my great success as an interviewer. You learn more from the bad times than the good." - Barbara Walters
My time at Starmount was one of excitement, determination, frustration, and sadness. I spent my 1998-2002 years coaching boys basketball for the Rams. In all honesty, I should have been the head varsity girls basketball coach there the year before, but somehow the lines of communication fell apart between May and August of 1997. Through the Stealers (early 1995-1997) I met a number of girls who played at Starmount and I developed a strong relationship with the players and parents. I interviewed there with former football coach and athletic director B.W. Holt and principal Brad Storie in May of '97. I took in a softball game that day vs. East Surry, and felt as though I would be their new head coach.
Coach West had even prepared to advertise that there was a job open on his staff as he was sure I was taking the job. Well, I heard nothing again from Starmount throughout the summer, so I decided to go back to Reynolds. Eventually Mr. Storie called me in August wanting to know my decision, and I told him that I had committed to work at Reynolds again. Not sure what happened there, but I look at it now and understand that it wasn't meant to be. I was not going to coach the girls at Starmount in the Northwest 1A, but I was going to coach girls someday in the Northwest 1A at another school.
The boys job came open at Starmount in 1998, and I again, interviewed. They called me this time within a few days and offered the job to me. I took it, and ran with it. I called all of my new players about the summer program and I was filled with so much excitement. I was going to be a varsity boys head coach at the age of 26 and I knew great things were in store. I scheduled us against every single school in Forsyth & Guilford county that was playing that summer, and even though we got our brains beaten out several times, the goal and determination was there to get better and show them that there was a much bigger world of basketball out there than just the Northwest 1A and Yadkin Valley areas.
Our football team, under new coach Joe Hutchens, advanced to the state championship in my first season, so I didn't get a full squad until late December. We got behind the eight ball quickly, starting off 1-10, but I didn't give up hope. We hadn't played a conference game yet, and even though I could've made our non-conference schedule a little easier, my goals were to make us a state power, not a local or conference power. We needed to be able to play at a state level in my opinion, so the schedule was raised. When January started, we had the entire team back, and started off 3-1 in the league. So even though we were 4-11, we were in second place in the league.
We eventually qualified for the state playoffs, at 7-18, but lost in the first round to Graham. I thought a foundation had been laid and was already preparing for year two as we had the majority of the team back in 1998-99.
I had my share of critics though, who thought I was scheduling too hard, working too much in the off-season with the boys who thought they needed a break, and that my style of play was too hard for the team to learn. I had three parents in particular that kept questioning out-loud "Where in the world did you find this coach? "He has no idea what he is doing, he doesn't play the right players, and needs to go back wherever he came from ! " I kept pushing along, maybe from being somewhat naive to what was going on around me, or maybe just working so much to make Starmount into a great team and program.
I felt as though we needed to get our fan base engaged as well, so the school had a "Robinson's Ram Rowdy" sign hang over our student body section, and T-Shirts with the same phrase made up. We had a solid second season, going 14-10, and finishing in third, making the state playoffs again. However, selfishness, jealousy and in-fighting amongst our players and eventually the parents led to our downfall at the end of the season.
The next year, we had an entirely new team, made up of freshmen, JV players and returnees who hadn't played much in the previous seasons. We struggled again, and I was becoming frustrated. I had no assistant coach help, and one JV coach that was doing his best to make it to [practices and games when he could. There was a lot of murmuring going on around me saying that I wasn't a good coach or that I was in over my head. I was now a little older and a little wiser, and was now a little more aware of what was being talked about around me. I didn't feel that way; I felt that I got some consistent and loyal help on my coaching staff, things would get better. I had such high expectations for myself, and honestly maybe expressed my expectations too early to the players. We had talent in my opinion, but it wasn't ready mentally to make that jump. Those expectations caused our program to basically run in mud, as every time we got some momentum it would fall apart either from a parent / player who became upset with their role on the team, a off-the-court and non-basketball issue that caused us to lose or suspend a player, or outsiders entering their thoughts into our program which threw things off.
We did not make the state playoffs and I had a choice: stick with it or move on. I looked into the latter first. I felt as though things weren't going to change, and I would forever be running into a wall there. I wanted everyone to be on the same page, and it just wasn't going to happen. I interviewed, at the urging of a parent in my Stealers' program, for the girls basketball job at Reynolds. I didn't want to at first, especially since I had told Mr. Elrod a few years earlier that I had no desire to coach girls in high school. However, the thought of coaching at my alma mater, from the girls side, with the success that I had built up coaching girls with the Stealers, started to appeal to me, so I interviewed.
Coach West had even prepared to advertise that there was a job open on his staff as he was sure I was taking the job. Well, I heard nothing again from Starmount throughout the summer, so I decided to go back to Reynolds. Eventually Mr. Storie called me in August wanting to know my decision, and I told him that I had committed to work at Reynolds again. Not sure what happened there, but I look at it now and understand that it wasn't meant to be. I was not going to coach the girls at Starmount in the Northwest 1A, but I was going to coach girls someday in the Northwest 1A at another school.
The boys job came open at Starmount in 1998, and I again, interviewed. They called me this time within a few days and offered the job to me. I took it, and ran with it. I called all of my new players about the summer program and I was filled with so much excitement. I was going to be a varsity boys head coach at the age of 26 and I knew great things were in store. I scheduled us against every single school in Forsyth & Guilford county that was playing that summer, and even though we got our brains beaten out several times, the goal and determination was there to get better and show them that there was a much bigger world of basketball out there than just the Northwest 1A and Yadkin Valley areas.
Our football team, under new coach Joe Hutchens, advanced to the state championship in my first season, so I didn't get a full squad until late December. We got behind the eight ball quickly, starting off 1-10, but I didn't give up hope. We hadn't played a conference game yet, and even though I could've made our non-conference schedule a little easier, my goals were to make us a state power, not a local or conference power. We needed to be able to play at a state level in my opinion, so the schedule was raised. When January started, we had the entire team back, and started off 3-1 in the league. So even though we were 4-11, we were in second place in the league.
We eventually qualified for the state playoffs, at 7-18, but lost in the first round to Graham. I thought a foundation had been laid and was already preparing for year two as we had the majority of the team back in 1998-99.
I had my share of critics though, who thought I was scheduling too hard, working too much in the off-season with the boys who thought they needed a break, and that my style of play was too hard for the team to learn. I had three parents in particular that kept questioning out-loud "Where in the world did you find this coach? "He has no idea what he is doing, he doesn't play the right players, and needs to go back wherever he came from ! " I kept pushing along, maybe from being somewhat naive to what was going on around me, or maybe just working so much to make Starmount into a great team and program.
I felt as though we needed to get our fan base engaged as well, so the school had a "Robinson's Ram Rowdy" sign hang over our student body section, and T-Shirts with the same phrase made up. We had a solid second season, going 14-10, and finishing in third, making the state playoffs again. However, selfishness, jealousy and in-fighting amongst our players and eventually the parents led to our downfall at the end of the season.
The next year, we had an entirely new team, made up of freshmen, JV players and returnees who hadn't played much in the previous seasons. We struggled again, and I was becoming frustrated. I had no assistant coach help, and one JV coach that was doing his best to make it to [practices and games when he could. There was a lot of murmuring going on around me saying that I wasn't a good coach or that I was in over my head. I was now a little older and a little wiser, and was now a little more aware of what was being talked about around me. I didn't feel that way; I felt that I got some consistent and loyal help on my coaching staff, things would get better. I had such high expectations for myself, and honestly maybe expressed my expectations too early to the players. We had talent in my opinion, but it wasn't ready mentally to make that jump. Those expectations caused our program to basically run in mud, as every time we got some momentum it would fall apart either from a parent / player who became upset with their role on the team, a off-the-court and non-basketball issue that caused us to lose or suspend a player, or outsiders entering their thoughts into our program which threw things off.
We did not make the state playoffs and I had a choice: stick with it or move on. I looked into the latter first. I felt as though things weren't going to change, and I would forever be running into a wall there. I wanted everyone to be on the same page, and it just wasn't going to happen. I interviewed, at the urging of a parent in my Stealers' program, for the girls basketball job at Reynolds. I didn't want to at first, especially since I had told Mr. Elrod a few years earlier that I had no desire to coach girls in high school. However, the thought of coaching at my alma mater, from the girls side, with the success that I had built up coaching girls with the Stealers, started to appeal to me, so I interviewed.