I have been teaching and coaching in the education field for 11 years, with all of these spent at the high school level.  As a teacher, I hold a Specialist Degree in Teacher Leadership from Valdosta State University.   My teaching certifications include Health and Physical Education, Special Education General and Adapted Curriculum, and an Online Teaching Endorsement.

My vision is to cultivate and foster an environment promoting growth among coaches and athletes physically, mentally, and spiritually through sports.  My goal in education is to aid in preparing students I work with for life after high school, whether that is attending college, gaining employment in the workforce, or joining the military. I think sports are a great way to teach student-athletes about facing and overcoming adversity, which is bound to happen over a lifetime.  As an Athletic Director, I look forward to collaborating with students, teachers, coaches, and the community on how we can best serve the students at Walnut Grove to reach their post-secondary goals.

@zblack712

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The Championship Vision Podcast is coming at you with the "Champions series" Girl's High School Basketball Edition! We have Georgia Girl's Basketball 5A State Champion Coach Kimberly Lawrence joining the show from Woodward Academy. Watch and listen as Coach Kim talks about her journey as an amateur, collegiate, and professional athlete, to now a state championship coach! Coach Kim is definitely paying it forward by giving her knowledge of the game to young girls, while in the process, bringing fun back to the game of basketball at the same school where she won a state championship as a player in 1999.

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@WoodwardBBall

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@lumpkinwbb

Ed Wilson is in his first year as a middle school teacher and Head Girls Basketball and Golf coach.  He spent the previous 2 years as the Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach at Oglethorpe University, in Atlanta, Georgia.  Before that, he was the Head Boys Basketball Coach and Dean of Students at Athens Academy for 3 seasons.  Wilson got his first head coaching job at Frederica Academy in 2006.  He spent 10 years on St. Simons as the Head Boys Coach, Athletic Director and teacher.  Wilson started his coaching at Oglethorpe University where he was the Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach and Women’s Golf Coach.  Wilson is married to his wife Stephanie, and has two sons, Charlie (12), and Sam (9), who attend LOA.

@elwilson101

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Coach Joshua Jones has been coaching at the varsity level for 18 years at Elbert County high school in Elberton, GA. He has been coaching varsity girls basketball at Elbert County since 2018. His team just won the 2022 GHSA 2A Girls Basketball State championship in Macon, GA. They are the 2021 8-AA Region champions, 2021 Elite 8, 2022 8-AA Region Runner-up, 2019 8-AA Region Runner-up. 

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@ECCHSBBALL

@iamJonesy22

Coach Kim Hixon is in her 22nd year as Head Girls Basketball coach and physical education teacher at Marist high school in Atlanta, GA. She has had 2-state runner ups in 2006 and 2007 and won the 2022 Region 8AAAA championship with an undefeated record of 13-0. This season they captured the 2022 GHSA 4A State title, the first in school history. 

[email protected] 

@MaristBooster

Mike Ricks was hired as Birmingham-Southern's fourth women’s basketball head coach on April 9, 2015.

He boasts a 95-83 record at BSC in six seasons on the Hilltop with two regular season championships, a conference tournament title, and a second round appearance in the NCAA tournament.

Ricks led the Panthers to their second consecutive Southern Athletic Association regular season title in just his second year.  BSC went 17-11 overall, 10-4 in the league to earn the championship and hosted the tournament for the second year in-a-row.  Ricks was named SAA Coach of the Year and saw four named to all-conference teams.  Freshman Emilee Olsen marked the second straight Panther to earn SAA Newcomer of the Year and first-team honors.

mike [email protected] 

@COACHRICKS

Kim Stephens enters her sixth year as the Head Coach of the Lady Pioneers basketball team.

Last season, 2021, the Lady Pioneers and Kim Stephens went 12-4 overall and 10-2 in conference play. They finished 2nd in the Regular Season in the South Division of the MEC. They also fell in the MEC Tournament Championship to the UC Golden Eagles. It was their fourth straight season making it to the MEC Tournament Championship and the fifth straight season they made it to the NCAA Tournament before falling to Tiffin. Also in 2021, Coach Stephens had Zakiyah Winfield earn All-American Honors.

Under Kim all-time GSC has scored over 100 points 70 times. Coach Stephens is 123-20 overall as the Head Coach of the Lady Pioneers.

Stephens, who played her college ball at Glenville State and later joined the Lady Pioneer coaching staff as an Assistant Coach, was a team captain for the 2010-11 Glenville State team that won the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) Championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. That season Stephens was also named the WVIAC Student-Athlete of the Year.   During her time at GSC she made the WVIAC Commissioner’s Honor Roll during her junior and senior years.

A native of Parkersburg, W.Va., Stephens graduated from Glenville State in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in sport management with a minor in psychology. She earned a Master’s Degree in education from Ohio Valley University in 2012 and is also a certified personal trainer through the International Sports Science Association.

Before her previous stint as an Assistant Coach for the Lady Pioneers, Kim was a Graduate Assistant Coach at Ohio Valley University. She also spent three seasons at Sacramento State from 2013 to 2016.  She also has experience as an Amateur Athletic Union coach and as a camp counselor in basketball at camps such as the Future & Elite Sports Center. She resides in Glenville.

Kim was named to the 30 Under Thirty Coaches Club in 2016-17.

Career Head Coaching Record: 238-49 (.829), 10 seasons

One of the brightest coaching talents in the NCAA ranks, Ryan McCarthy has taken the Alaska Anchorage program to unprecedented heights in his nine seasons, producing a 224-36 record and making the Seawolves annual title contenders.

An Anchorage native, McCarthy is the winningest active coach in NCAA Div. II (.829, 238-49 in 10 combined seasons) after leading UAA to the best winning percentage in program history (.939) with a 31-2 record in 2019-20. Despite not featuring a single player among the NCAA top-50 stats leaders, the 2019-20 Seawolves also swept the Great Northwest Athletic Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament titles, finishing No. 4 in both national polls, landing McCarthy both the GNAC and NCAA West Region coach-of-the-year awards.

In eight seasons under McCarthy, the Seawolves have produced four All-Americans, two GNAC Players of the Year, 17 1st- or 2nd-team All-GNAC honorees, 26 Academic All-GNAC performers, and seen five players ascend to the professional ranks. Team-wise, UAA has posted victories over six NCAA Div. I teams, 11 wins over NCAA Div. II nationally ranked teams, and a 10-6 NCAA Tournament record.

Prior to UAA, McCarthy spent five seasons at GNAC rival Northwest Nazarene from 2007-12. At NNU, he served as an assistant, interim head coach and associate head coach, helping the Crusaders to two NCAA Tournament berths and a .633 winning percentage.

A 4-year starter and 3-year captain for the Crusaders from 2002-06, McCarthy was NNU’s Orrin Hills Male Athlete of the Year for 2005-06. He ranks third in program history with 256 treys over his career, setting the then-GNAC single-season record with 102 three pointers in 2005-06. Overall he posted 1,161 career points for the Crusaders.

McCarthy graduated from NNU in 2006 with a B.S. in social science education and is the proud father of two children, Donovan and Aurora. He and his wife Jenna, a former collegiate star at Florida Gulf Coast University, were married in 2019.

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@CoachRMcCar

Colton is a graduate of Harvard University with 13 years of experience working in basketball at the college and high school levels. From 2010 to 2019, Colton spent nine seasons on staff with Alabama Men’s Basketball. As Alabama’s Director of Operations, he was responsible for the program’s non-conference scheduling and analytics efforts, in addition to other duties such as opponent scouting, on-campus recruiting, running UA’s basketball camps, and facilitating team travel. Drawing on over a decade’s worth of experience analyzing and applying all manner of statistics, Colton has developed a deep understanding for how to effectively build a bridge from advanced statistical analysis to practical basketball application. Most importantly, he understands how college basketball programs function and how to communicate insights to coaching staffs in a productive and efficient way.

[email protected] 

@Colton_Houston