Sports

HUNTSVILLE — It wasn’t a well-kept secret, but it was made official Monday morning when Scott County Director of Schools Sharon Wilson announced that Jackson Sharp had been named the head coach of Scott High School’s girls basketball program.

The announcement concluded the search for a new head coach that began after Chad Marcum was not rehired for a third year as the team’s coach.

“I’m excited about the opportunity and look forward to getting to work with the team,” Sharp said Monday afternoon. “Hopefully we can accomplish some good things.”

Sharp will be making his head coaching debut in the high school ranks, but has spent several years as an assistant coach at the high school level and as a head coach at the middle school level, where he enjoyed solid success at Huntsville.

Sharp coached the Huntsville boys’ team to a 37-7 mark during two years at the helm there. The Bears won the Scott County championship both years under Sharp, and also won a district title. His team made two state tournament appearances, reaching the semifinals two years ago.

Last year, Sharp left middle school coaching to accept an assistant coach position on Jeremy Hamby’s staff with the Highlanders.

A driver’s education instructor at Scott High, Sharp has also served as an assistant football coach under Gary Sexton and David Gillum the past three seasons. He began his coaching career as an assistant football coach at Fairview.

Sharp was a standout player during his high school playing days, garnering all-district and honorable mention all-East Tennessee recognition as a Highlander. After graduating from Scott High in 1990, he played collegiate basketball at Roane State Community College.

While Sharp becomes the fourth head coach of the Scott High girls’ program in just six years, his name is one that is likely familiar to many coaches around District 4-2A. He joins the Lady Highlander squad just a decade after his father, Doug Sharp, retired from coaching high school basketball.

One of the winningest coaches in SHS girls’ basketball history, Doug Sharp coached from 1991 through 1998. His teams amassed at least 20 wins each season, and won four district championships, never finishing lower than second place in the district. The Lady Highlanders made two sub-state appearances during the tenure of Doug Sharp, who is an assistant principal at Scott High today.

Sharp said that his father’s coaching philosophies have had some influence on his own.

“When there’s a resource like that, you’d be crazy not to tap into it and take some of the knowledge and experience he has, as well as some suggestions,” he said. “I have in the past and I certainly will in the future.”

Sharp said he prefers to be flexible as a coach, employing whichever offensive and defensive sets fits his personnel the best.

“I like an up and down the court game, shooting a lot of threes. That’s the style I like to play,” he said. “Defensively, we’ll be multiple between some presses and some man-to-man at times and some zone at times.”

An assistant coach or coaches have not yet been named; Sharp said Monday he is working on assembling a staff. “We don’t want to put the cart before the horse, so to speak,” he said.

Basketball teams are currently in a TSSAA-mandated dead period, other than strength and conditioning programs. Sharp said he planned to meet with his team later this week to begin preparing for the upcoming season. A five-day practice session is permitted during the spring, and 15 days of activity are permitted during the summer for workouts and camps, giving Sharp and his team 20 days to prepare before the season rolls around in the fall.

“We hope to get a lot of work done in those 20 days,” Sharp said. “We’ll be looking forward to it.”