Tony Williams has been hired as the new girls basketball coach at East Hamilton High School, succeeding Derek Morris.
East Hamilton principal Gail Chuy confirmed Williams’ hiring in an e-mail on Thursday.
Williams was offered the job on Monday and accepted on Tuesday.
“I’ve had a desire to be a head high school girls coach for a couple of years now,” Williams said. “I had a great group of girls at Rhea Middle last year that went 27-2 and lost in the East Tennessee sectional game. That tournament experience and the preparation for it gave me the itch to be a high school coach again.
“I started looking at job postings and thought East Hamilton was one with tremendous potential. I talked with my wife (Traci), applied for the job and waited to see what happened.”
Williams will begin his duties at East Hamilton “within a couple of weeks” and met on Wednesday with the team’s players.
In a second e-mail, Chuy said of Williams: “We are excited to have coach Williams at East Hamilton. He was highly recommended by previous administrators and his coaching colleagues. He has an ambitious vision for the girls’ basketball program here and experience in building successful programs.”
The 40-year-old Williams already has put his home up for sale.
“My goal is to relocate to the community where I’ll be working,” he said. “I think that’s very important. I feel tremendously blessed and thank God for the opportunity to coach at East Hamilton. I appreciate the school administration showing confidence in me to take over for coach Morris, who did a great job in his time there.”
Williams played high school basketball at Lenoir City – the Panthers reached the sub-state his senior season – and later at Roane State Community College and Tennessee Wesleyan College. At TWC in Athens, Tenn., Williams helped the Bulldogs to an NAIA national tournament appearance as a senior.
His first head coaching job was at Newbern Junior High in Dyer County. He was an assistant boys and girls coach at Dyer County, with two boys state tournament berths in 2000 and 2001.
Williams took over the boys basketball program at Lenoir City in 2004-05 and went to Rhea County and coached the Golden Eagles from 2007-12. That same year he founded the Greenwave travel basketball program, consisting of girls’ teams in various age groups.
Most recently, Williams served as head girls coach at Rhea Middle School and also is affiliated with the McMinn County Fire where he coaches a fourth-grade team. He is also still connected to the Greenwave organization.
Williams and his wife, vice president in charge of institutional research and effectiveness at TWC, have two daughters who are in the fourth and sixth grades.
The 39-year-old Morris, the only coach in East Hamilton’s six-year history, resigned in late March after suffering through two straight sub-.500 seasons in District 5-AAA following successful runs in District 6-AA, where the Lady Hurricanes went 48-8 in four seasons
In East Hamilton’s first season, the Lady Hurricanes went 14-11, but was 71-32 over the next five years with back-to-back regular season and district tourney titles in 2010-11 and 2011-12. The following year the Lady Hurricanes went 24-11 with a district tournament championship and a loss in the Class AA sectional.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)