Hunter Gremore
Hunter Gremore, who has led Arlington High School’s girls’ basketball program the last two seasons, is the new coach at East Hamilton High School.
A life-long resident of the Memphis area, Gremore, 42, has coached boys and girls basketball at Cordova and Arlington high schools.
In the past two years, Gremore led the Lady Tigers to a 51-18 record and one appearance in the TSSAA girls’ state tournament.
Gremore also applied for the girls’ job at Cleveland High School, but, ironically, former East Hamilton coach Tony Williams was hired for that position in early April.
“I thought Cleveland could be a good situation,” Gremore said Wednesday morning in a telephone interview. “Then I saw the East Hamilton job was open as well. I was really intrigued by East Hamilton and saw a whole lot of potential in that school.
“So, I decided to come over there and try to make something good happen.”
East Hamilton principal Gail Chuy is a close friend of Cleveland principal Autumn O’Bryan and during the process of Williams leaving the Lady Hurricanes for the Lady Blue Raiders the two exchanged information on other coaches who had applied for those jobs.
“Autumn told me she was very impressed with coach Gremore, so I called him,” Chuy said. “He came over for an interview, we interview three or four other coaches, and I was very impressed with coach Gremore, especially with his experience with girls’ basketball.
“I’m all about giving people that first leg up, if you will, hiring young people and giving them a chance to gain coaching experience. You have to be careful when building programs because it requires a different skill-set. We liked coach Gremore a lot and he’ll step into that role very nicely.”
Once Gremore interviewed at East Hamilton, the two sides came to an agreement within a week’s time.
Gremore attended high school at Kirby High in Memphis and the University of Memphis.
He was an assistant boys coach at Cordova for six years before moving to Arlington High as an assistant boys basketball coach before moving to Arlington, where he was head basketball coach for seven years, starting the program from scratch.
Gremore then switched to girls basketball, served as an assistant coach for two years before taking the head coaching position for the 2014-15 season.
That first year the Lady Tigers went 26-10, lost to Bartlett in the District 14-3A title game, edged Bartlett for the Region 8-3A championship, squeezed past Ridgeway in the sectional and lost a first-round game to Morristown West in the state tournament – it was Arlington’s first state appearance.
For his initial success, Gremore was voted the district’s coach of the year.
This past season Gremore’s squad went 25-8 and suffered a 67-66 double-overtime loss to Dyer County in the district semifinals.
“That was tough,” Gremore said.
Gremore said he is being constantly asked why he’s leaving a solid Arlington program for an eastern school that until this past season has struggled in Class 3A competition.
Prior to Williams’ arrival, the Lady Hurricanes 11-41 overall and 3-21 in district play after enjoying much greater success in Class 2A. Williams turned the program around with a 24-9 overall mark and 9-3 (second place to perennial champion Bradley Central) in the district.
East Hamilton lost to host McMinn County in the district semifinals, but bounced back with a win against Walker Valley in the consolation game and was ousted from the postseason with an opening round loss to Cookeville in the Region 3-3A tournament.
“Arlington is a very good school and we have a good girls’ basketball program,” Gremore said. “We have a lot of good players coming back next season, but this move is more about family reasons.”
Gremore’s son is finishing up his senior year at Arlington and will enroll at Tennessee-Chattanooga in the fall. The coach has a 4-year-old daughter.
“We thought if we were ever going to make a move this is the perfect time to do it,” the coach said.
Gremore liked the idea of having a middle school and high school in the same building advantageous to accomplishing what he’s got in mind for the Lady Hurricanes.
“If the girls learn in the sixth grade what I want in terms of basketball that’s a huge advantage,” he said. “I’m very happy and real excited about the opportunity. We’re going to finish the year here at Arlington and I’m looking to be at East Hamilton on June 1 and get started.
“I’ve already lined up a couple of camps and we’ll start practicing on June 1. I’ll get to know the girls and they’ll get to know me.”
Chuy will probably be one of the first people to greet Gremore.
“We liked him a lot in the interview process and I think he’s going to be a really good fit for us,” she said.
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)