The Clinton County Lady Bulldogs now have a new coach at the helm after hiring Tim Moons last week.

Word came from the Clinton County School District that Moons was recommended by the Site Based Decision Making Council last Thursday, June 3, and since then, Moons has been in the gym gearing up for summer ball as the Lady Dawgs’ head coach.

Moons said he is excited about the new opportunity and looks forward to this summer in the gym.

“We met on Friday and had about an hour and 45 minute session, but practiced only 30 minutes,” Moons said. “We’ve not had everybody in yet. What I’m really excited about is our quickness and speed. We aren’t real big as far as height and size goes, but we are really quick at four spots. They are aggressive and they like the thought of getting up and down the floor playing fast and up tempo.”

Moons said he doesn’t really have a style of play he tried to push on a team, but tailors a style best suited for the team he has in front of him.

“I’ve always been the type of coach, in all my years of coaching, you have to play to your team. With the small school in Clinton County we’ve had teams that were big and teams who weren’t as big,” Moons said. “I’ve always said play to your strengths, and play away from your weaknesses.”

Playing a slow style of play will require a post player and Moons said they don’t really have that right now, so playing fast will be the key to the Lady Dawgs’ success this season.

“Even when we are playing slower in a half court game, we are going to have to spread it out,” Moons said. “We don’t really have the option to go inside and have a bruiser type of player.”

Moons said he has been in the coaching business for 20 plus years, starting out at Clinton County as an assistant under former Head Coach Darrell Thompson from 2002-2005.

Moons also coached middle school basketball during that time as well.

Moons was an assistant coach under former Head Coach Jennifer Preston during the 2009-2010 season with the Lady Dawgs.

He spent three seasons coaching the Pickett County Bobcats boys’ basketball and baseball teams.

“Other than that, it has just been AAU teams from fourth grade on up,” Moons said. “I’ve also been the middle school baseball coach for the past four years and helped with the high school softball team.”

Moons said he got his inspiration from Clinton County Coach Ronnie Guffey, who he played under in high school.

“Coach Guffey was kind of my mentor and he pushed me into coaching,” Moons said. “I loved it, but I didn’t know I’d be any good at it and he kind of pushed me into it. I started coaching probably two years after I graduated high school in 1999.”

When the seat became open after Ansley Nelson resigned last month, Moons said he has wanted to get back into coaching since he left Pickett County.

“I applied at Cumberland County a couple years back and it didn’t work out. They didn’t have a teaching spot available and they pretty much offered me the job as basketball coach, but I had to be a substitute teacher. Having a family, I couldn’t afford to take that big of a pay cut, so I couldn’t give up my teaching job to be a sub full time and be a coach. I’ve been kind of looking to get back in to it for five or six years now. The options are limited when you have kids playing here and you’re asked to apply for a job 40 or 50 miles away. I didn’t want to give up not seeing my kids play their sport to do what I liked to do.”

Moons said he is excited to be back home.

“I missed it when I was at Pickett County,” Moons said. “This is my home and it’s always been home. I’m excited to be back and to give it a whirl. Hopefully we can keep it growing and keep on building what they have in the last couple of years.”

Last season the Lady Dawgs finished with a 12-8 record despite having a shortened season due to COVID-19.

Two years ago, the Lady Dawgs finished 4-26, so to say the program was getting better would be a fair assessment. Up until last season, Clinton County hadn’t had a winning season since 2014-2015, when the Lady Dawgs finished 24-6.

Moons hopes to continue that and build a program fans and players can be proud of.

“They had a pretty good year last year and Coach Nelson did a pretty good job building them,” Moons said. “We have some good pieces coming back and we are going to put it together.”

During the summer months, basketball can start at the end of May. Clinton County had filed an emergency hire order to speed up the process in order to get a coach in place quickly.

According to a text response by Superintendent Dr. Tim Parson, a school level position is hired by the principal in collaboration with the SBDMC. Athletic hires also involved ,Athletic Director Brandon Pharis.

Moons said he has about 14 games scheduled for the summer.

“We are excited to get on the floor Thursday,” Moons said.

Also on the sidelines this season will be Gina and Lucas Thacker, Bozie York, Ben Prewitt and Junior Cecil.

“Gina will be our freshmen coach if we have enough to play freshmen. She will be listed as the freshmen coach and assistant on varsity,” Moons said. “Our JV coach is still kind of up in the air. We are looking at Ben Prewitt. He played some college basketball at Eastern and his dad was a 27 year coach out of Williamsburg. He’s going to have a roll, whether it’s volunteer or as a full time assistant. Junior Cecil will be a volunteer and Lucas Thacker will be a volunteer.”

Moons said he has a very diverse coaching staff and that will be necessary to put together a complete team.

“I really focused on surrounding myself with different pieces,” Moons said. “We will try to build a staff who is knowledgeable and can bring something to the table.”