By MATTHEW BROWN
Journal Sports Writer
Greg Nix, Houston County High School boys basketball coach for the past six years, planned a trip back home to Alabama Thursday. He and his family were to be the guests of the superintendent for Boaz, Ala., city schools at their board’s regular meeting.
Nix said Wednesday night that, while strange things happen sometimes, he expected to be named boys basketball coach at Boaz High School.
Boaz, Nix explained, is 20 minutes away from where he grew up and where his mother still resides. Nix said his father passed away two years ago and that his mother had a stroke 20 years ago.
“She gets around good. She’s real active, but it still wouldn’t hurt if her son was close by,” said Nix, who also has a sister who lives two hours from Boaz. He said there are people in his mother’s community who look after her, but he and his wife have always believed if the opportunity came up to return home they should do it.
“Boaz was the right fit for both of us, teaching and coaching,” said Nix. He said that Alabama’s public schools are divided up into six classifications and that Boaz is a AAAA school of about 600 students.
Nix has been a high school basketball coach head coach for 16 years. He’s had several brief stops before arriving at Houston County High six years ago. Before that, he coached both the boys and girls teams at Schley County High for one season. His longest tenure so far has been with the Bears.
“I’m real proud of what we’ve accomplished in six years,” said Nix, who has 91 wins in those six seasons, which averages to just over 15 wins a year. He has led the Bears to a Region 1-AAAAA championship and to the state playoffs four of the last five seasons. Houston went to the Elite 8 once and the Sweet 16 twice under Nix.
“I had the pleasure of coaching some fantastic young men and had the opportunity to impact their lives,” said Nix. “I’ve been real fortunate for my time there. We had good support from the parents and the community. We built this thing together, the students, the faculty and the administration.
“It’s been good for my kids to grow up in Houston County.”
