Jarrod Gay named Head Coach at Tates Creek

Per Josh Moore of the Lexington Herald Leader on twitter.

Jarrod Gay played at Bryan Station and at Kentucky State.

What is his prior coaching experience?

Very surprised and disappointed. With the experienced, proven coaches that applied this is hard to make sense of. Seems predetermined with him working in the school and some of the more experienced applicants not even being granted an interview.

To my knowledge he has been the freshman and/or JV coach at Henry Clay.

Congrats to Coach Gay! I'm excited for him but feel they put him in a very difficult situation.

The culture surrounding TC basketball is bad right now. Unless you are a veteran coach that understands ways to change that culture, TC will continue to be a bad job.

Holefully he can get things turned around.

Doug Garth isn't walking through that door

@Juke, what "experienced" candidates applied if you don't mind sharing.

Also I would like to add, hiring a coach isn't as easy as some people on BGP tend to think it it is. Honestly, I want a coach that is in the building. If the applicants don't fit into the present openings that a school has for teaching positions & I can't offer them a teaching job, why would they want to coach there? I took over an athletic department at a school with roughly 50% of all the head coaches in the building, when I left that school, I had 90% of my head coaches in the building & it was glorious.

When I was an AD & had an opening, if there are a bunch of out of district applicants, I would tell them straight from the beginning if there were no openings in their curriculum and let them decide from there if they wanted to continue the process at that point, 99% of them said thanks for the info & didn't continue. No reason wasting their time or the hiring committee if they didn't fit our needs in the classroom & as a coach. I had to pass on several coaches I would have liked to have had to coach my teams due to them not fitting the puzzle of staffing.

On the flipside of this debate is a school like Douglass in Lexington, who is building a teaching staff & can easily fill all of its coaching positions due to the availability of openings at a new school. Its a dream position for an AD as if you find someone you want, you have a spot for them almost guaranteed.

Johnny,
You bring out some valid point. A coach working within the building is important. But having a coach that understands the culture surrounding an athletic program (and had to build it) is just as important or more.

Over the past 6 seasons the TC Boys Basketball program was a 28% winning percentage, the FB program had a 40% winning percentage while the baseball program has over a 70%. (5 season '17 season is not over)

The biggest concern should have been to hire somebody that can change the culture around TC Basketball. It should not of be to hire a coach that is a teacher.

Of course that is just my opinion.

I respect your opinion!

Hard to change the culture of a high school program if you are not in the building though. It just makes it a tough row to hoe if you know what I mean. The players dont have a coach to turn to in the building if they need it & the coach isn't there to handle any day to day issues that might crop up.

I played against him in aau when we were younger. He played for the Eastland Gators, the Benjamin's and Warriors. Good for him.