Red Bank head coach Christel Brooks addresses her team during a Region 3-AA volleyball championship match against East Hamilton.Red Bank High School volleyball coach Christel Brooks has resigned her coaching position, citing a desire to spend more time with family.
Brooks’ daughters Kalyn and Ansley Helton played volleyball for her at Red Bank. Kalyn will be a junior on Lee University’s team next season. Ansley will start college next year and Brooks also has a son, Cooper, who is 2.
“If you’re going to coach, it’s time-consuming to do it right,” Brooks said. “I just felt like I needed that time for my family.”
Brooks started the program at Boyd-Buchanan in 2000 and by ’03 had the Lady Buccaneers in their first Class A state sectional. They were state-tournament participants each of the next two seasons.
Brooks came to Red Bank during the 2006-07 school year, then spent her first season on the Lionettes’ bench in the fall of ’07 as an assistant to Susan Thurman. That season turned out to be Thurman’s last season as head coach, although the now-retired Thurman was athletic director then and hired Brooks as the next head coach.