St. James stays in-house and names Hall new basketball coach
Mark Hall has led the St. James softball team for the last seven years and will now coach the boys basketball team. (File Photo)
By TIM GAYLE
St. James continued its recent trend of looking inward, announcing on Thursday that current Trojan softball coach Mark Hall would become the school’s head boys basketball coach.
The school will hold a press conference on Friday morning to formally introduce the new coach.
“Coach Hall has been part of our Trojan family for many years, and we are excited that he will lead our boys basketball program and continue building on the success of the softball program,” said Dr. Larry McLemore, head of school. “As a current member of our athletics staff and the parent of an STJ alumna, he lives out our Trojan core values of character, commitment, courage and community in all he does and sets a positive example for the players and students he coaches. He believes in intentionally making team sports an experience for developing character and teaching students lessons that will benefit them throughout their lives.”
Hall joined the St. James coaching staff in 2017 when his daughter KK enrolled in the school. He joined the girls’ basketball and softball staffs as an assistant that year, moving up to take over the head coaching duties of the softball program the following year.
Earlier this month, the Trojan softball team set a school record for wins and reached the semifinals of the 3A state tournament.
“I’ve dealt with basketball, with the girls’ program, but I’ve also done my softball duties and my football duties,” Hall said. “To be able to do it full time, and to lead a program, is just something I couldn’t turn down. It’s just a passion.”
He was a member of the Robert E. Lee basketball team in the early 1990s when the Generals reached the 6A state finals and was considered one of the state’s best. He then went to Auburn University Montgomery and played for Larry Chapman. Ironically, Nigel Card was an assistant under Chapman and coached Hall in the mid 1990s before later accepting a job at St. James in 2010-11.
Now, Hall will replace Card, who retired in May as the Trojans’ winningest boys basketball coach after 14 years with the program.
“I played at AUM for Coach Chapman and Coach Card,” Hall said, “so coming in and following one of my mentors, Nigel Card, and watching how he did things with that basketball program, there’s a lot of stuff I’ll take away from that and use. He’s so smart when it comes to the X’s and O’s of basketball that it would be silly not to pay close attention to what he did and use some of those things.”
Hall has spent the last eight years as an assistant on the girls’ basketball team under Katie Barton and while he said there will be some aspects of Card’s coaching style that will continue because of Hall’s familiarity with the program, there also will be some pieces that will come from previous stops at Georgia Washington Middle School, Capital Heights Middle School and Evangel Christian Academy prior to his tenure at St. James.
“I think every new coach that comes in wants to put in their own style and their own way of doing things,” Hall said. “I think, for me, it’s using the blueprint that Katie Barton has done and just engaging all the way from youth and elementary age all the way up to varsity level, just to try and create some excitement in that program.”
He is currently the executive director for Montgomery Habitat for Humanity and will have to step down from that position to take on full-time coaching duties at St. James, which will include work as a middle school and high school physical education teacher, an assistant middle school football coach under Keith Lucky, head boys’ basketball coach and head softball coach.
While the basketball and softball seasons overlap at times, Hall didn’t see it as a conflict.
“That’s something I’m familiar with from being involved with the girls’ basketball program,” he said. “That’s an annual juggling act to try to make sure your softball team is ready but also trying to advance in the (basketball) playoffs. We’re going to try and be as successful as we can in every program at St. James. The good thing about it is I have good, established assistant coaches in softball that can help with that transition.”
Hall is the fourth change in the St. James athletic department this year. Katie Barton announced that she would be stepping down from her role as athletic director, but would retain her position as girls’ basketball coach and add volleyball duties to replace the retiring Karen Lee. Larry Ware, a longtime community football assistant, took over as athletic director on May 1. In addition to Card’s retirement and Hall’s new role, Aubrey Blackwell was named as the Trojans’ head football coach after Neal Posey accepted a collegiate coaching position.