Danny Crawford is back in Lowndes County.
This time, the longtime coach intends to make his stay a little more permanent.
Last week, the Lowndes County School Board approved the hiring of the former West Oktibbeha County High School coach as the new boys and girls basketball coach at West Lowndes High School in Columbus. The move comes after Crawford’s old school and East Oktibbeha County High were consolidated into the Starkville School District at the end of the 2014-15 school year.
“It was an easy transition for me because I knew all of the kids and the area,” Crawford said. “I think it had something to do with my success last year.”
While the closing of West Oktibbeha was bittersweet for Crawford, who coached all of the sports at the school in his final two years, he said he is excited to be at a new school that has been like a home away from home, of sorts, in the past six years he served as a coach for the West Oktibbeha teams. In that time, Crawford made numerous trips to West Lowndes High. One of the most memorable experiences came last winter, when the West Oktibbeha boys basketball team rallied for a 72-71 victory against East Oktibbeha in the semifinals of the Class 1A, region 5 tournament. West Oktibbeha then made history by beating West Lowndes 72-71 for the first region title in school history. The team’s run ended in the second round of the Class 1A state tournament with a loss to Montgomery County in the second round. The Timberwolves finished the season 18-13.
Crawford hopes to have similar success this season with the Panthers. He replaces Roosevelt Bridges, who also served as the school’s athletic director, as the boys basketball coach and Tiffany Phinisey as the girls basketball coach.
Prior to working at West Oktibbeha, Crawford worked for three years as boys and girls basketball coach at J.J. McClain High in Lexington. Before that, he worked as boys basketball coach at Ridgeway High in Memphis, Tennessee. He is a graduate of Aberdeen High (Class of 1995), Rust College, and Mississippi Valley State graduate school. He played for longtime Aberdeen boys basketball coach Roy Hazzle.
Hazzle established Aberdeen as a state power in basketball in part because he worked so long at the school and developed a rapport with the players and their families. Crawford hopes to build the same relationships at West Lowndes, which has had a number of boys and girls basketball coaches in the past eight years.
“This is a great school with great facilities,” Crawford said. “It has a great central office staff and an administration. Like you said, the athletes are here. I hope this is my last stop. I have 13 more years to work, and I am not interested in going anywhere else.”
Crawford, who lives in West Point, hopes to get a chance to coach his son, Danny Jr., a seventh-grader, through junior high and high school. He anticipates incorporating things he learned along the way into a pressure defensive, high-energy attack at West Lowndes. He said his goal is to be “a lot more humble” and that he doesn’t feel he will need to be as vocal as he was at West Oktibbeha at West Lowndes.
“I have so many athletes to choose from that I don’t have to push myself as hard,” Crawford said. “With age comes wisdom. I am 38 now and I am in the latter part of my career. I can’t be as loud and as animated as I was in the past. … I am going to calm down and do all my teaching in practice and sit back and let the kids play.
“They anticipate the kind of rambunctious and animated coach Crawford. They will see that guy in practice. They won’t see that guy in games. I think all kids want discipline. I still anticipate my teams being disciplined. I still anticipate my teams being well coached. I am going to be the same guy, but I am going to sit back and let the kids do more thinking.”
Crawford will teach World History and World Geography at West Lowndes High.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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