Calvin Head was selected on Thursday to fill the girls’ head basketball coaching position at Bowling Green High School.
Head spent the last three seasons as head girls’ basketball, softball coach, and athletic director at Russellville High School before resigning to take a teaching position at Bowling Green High, but pursued the head coaching job for the Lady Purples after the dismissal of longtime head coach LaVonda Johnson on August 3.
Johnson posted 20 wins in each of her 10 seasons with Bowling Green while leading the Lady Purples to eight 14th District titles and four Region 4 Championships.
Although there are very large shoes to fill for Head as he steps in for Johnson, he looks to put all of the controversy behind him.
“I don’t think any of the outside business, luckily, had any bearing on the players,” said Head in Thursday’s media sit-down. “My focus now is to get them re-focused on becoming better basketball players and better young ladies.
I’m excited to be able to coach at one of the top programs in the state of Kentucky. I’m ready to jump in, get my hands dirty, and continue that success.”
Head says that one of his primary goals in transitioning from a smaller school to a much larger school is to increase the numbers on the team, getting more athletes on the floor for the Lady Purples.
“The pool is very deep compared to Russellville,” said Head. “There’s probably still some kids out in the school that I need to reach out to. I think that once we are able to create a positive atmosphere and energy, the kids will recruit for you.”
Head’s eagerness to create a positive vibe within the program once again was the main aspect that caught the attention of Bowling Green athletic director Mark Spader.
“We were in a really tough situation on what decision we were going to make for our girls’ program,” said Spader. “It’s refreshing to know that we have somebody like Coach Head to bring some enthusiasm and to get our numbers up and to ultimately get more people out to watch our girls at tipoff.
We had a number of candidates that we interviewed that we were really impressed with, and it took a lot of time to make our decision, but we feel like we found the right guy for the job.”
Head compiled an overall record of 29-53 in his three-season stint at Russellville. He also recorded an 8-18-1 record as the girls’ softball coach for the Lady Panthers in 2016.
Sports Insider Clay Manlove can be reached at (270) 724-9620 or at clay.sportingtimes@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ctmanlove58.
