Rodney English named new East Hamilton Hurricanes coach

Arkansas-SEMO Live Blog
photo Rodney English

East Hamilton has named former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga assistant coach Rodney English as its new boys' basketball coach.

The former East Tennessee State star is the third former UTC coach named in the last week to take over a local high school basketball program, joining former Mocs head coach John Shulman at McCallie and David Conrady at Chattanooga Christian. English and Conrady worked together on Shulman's UTC staff.

English has been a teacher at East Hamilton since the start of the current school year, but he did not work with the basketball team previously.

"We're very excited to have such a quality coach take over the program, and especially one who was already in our halls and knows the kids," East Hamilton principal Gail Chuy said.

English takes over for Michael Stone, who had been the Hurricanes coach all five seasons of the program's existence before being let go. After going 17-10 in 2012-13, East Hamilton moved up to Class AAA this season and finished 6-21, losing 12 of its last 13 games.

"I think we're sitting on a gold mine of talent here," said English, who worked as an assistant with the ETSU women's program after his Buccaneers playing career and also coached at Gordon Central High School for three years.

"I like coaching at the high school level because you get to make an impact on young kids and guide them in the right direction," he said."There are a lot of good players here, and I think we can do some really good things."

Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.

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