Billingsley, LAMP make coaching hires

By TIM GAYLE

Lanny Jones spent his first day at Billingsley High talking to a person regarding graphics at the field house. His second day was talking to someone about new lockers.

The Bears’ new football coach has hit the ground running in an effort to get the Autauga County program back to a competitive level it enjoyed in years past.

“I think it’s creating a program standard that will live up to any other program,” Jones said. “For instance, when I interviewed for the job, I told the board that when you show up at Billingsley High School, the only thing that should look different at Billingsley from Marbury, Prattville or any of those places is the size and number of kids. Everything else needs to look the same. I think a lot of times, people say, ‘well, we’re just at Billingsley, so we do it this way.’ I’m not going to be satisfied doing it that way. I’m going to do it like we’re going to do it at any 5A or 6A school I’ve ever been at.

“If you come to our practice at Billingsley, it needs to look just like it would at Prattville, but with less players.”

   He’s familiar with Billingsley and its past history. A recent graduate of Mississippi State, he was an assistant coach in Mississippi for a year, then at Calera in 2004 under Ken Adams, coaching running backs, linebackers and special teams. Calera went 10-1 that season, including a win over James Carter’s Billingsley team. 

The next year, after Adams left for another job, Jones was head coach at Calera and faced Billingsley again. Since then, he coached at Isabella for three years, took a job as Keith Etheridge’s offensive coordinator at Leeds in a 15-0 season, coached at Tishomingo County High (Miss). and taken over as head coach of a first-year Elberta High program. 

Jones was hired to replace Phillip Coggins, who left the Bears in late May for a job as a defensive coordinator at Chilton County High.  

 “We had a good number of applications submitted,” Billingsley athletic director J.T. Lawrence said. “And then you have to filter through those to determine who you’re going to interview. He was kind of a late comer to the party. They were currently down in the Gulf Shores area. He told me (Orange Beach High football coach) Jamie (Dubose) had offered him the OC position there and Lanny’s son was the starting quarterback as a freshman at Gulf Shores.”

Landon Jones, the starting quarterback as a freshman at Gulf Shores High last season, will join his father on the Billingsley football team this fall.

After leaving Tishomingo County, Jones returned to the central Alabama area and interviewed for the newly created position at Pike Road in 2015 before deciding to look elsewhere.

“I was taking the Pike Road job after Christmas,” Jones said. “It was a mess, so I ended up not taking it but we had already moved down to take the job. I ended up trying to find something to finish out the school year so I worked at Montgomery Public Schools for that semester, then I took the DC job at Montevallo with Brandon Wilcox.”

As a defensive coordinator with Montevallo in 2016, Jones and head coach Brandon Wilcox coached the Bulldogs to a 10-2 record. Jones went to the Gulf Coast to coach and was appointed as head football coach at Elberta High in December, 2020. He resigned four months later to enter into a private business venture with his brother that included a recruiting service and a prep school.

Jones and his wife, former Billingsley High standout Angela Hill, were considering several options when they discovered the coaching vacancy at Billingsley. 

“I was going to get back into coaching and I had several opportunities,” he said, before noting he had purchased land near the school. “It was a move we thought we’d make later, but the timing ended up being right.

Since Carter’s retirement at the end of the 2006 season, Billingsley’s football program has struggled to a .500 level (86-79) and a half-dozen coaches. Lawrence hopes he has made his last hire for the football program. 

“You don’t find these guys very often any more,” Lawrence said. “I think he could finish his career here if he chose to do so. I think he could be a good fit here. Some of the stuff he had prepared in a little handbook he showed to us in talking about how he runs things I think will fit in well here at a small rural school. He’s got small school experience and big school experience so he knows what to expect.”

LAMP hires Eubanks as volleyball coach

Recent hires by LAMP magnet program have often resulted in community coaches who do not teach at the high school. That’s what athletic director Robb McGaughey was searching for each time he talked with an area coach. More than once, he had someone mention Mark Eubanks.

“When I was interviewing some people, his name came up two or three different times,” McGaughey said. “I knew Mark from working with him on the basketball side (when both were assistants under Anthony McCall at Montgomery Academy), so I called Coach McCall and he recommended I give him a call about the volleyball job.

“I just asked (McCall), ‘Is he a good volleyball coach?’ I’ve never seen him coach volleyball and he said, ‘He knows his stuff. He’ll be great.’ Somebody else I interviewed, we were talking about different coaches and she said the same thing.”

Eubanks, hired in June, immediately put the players through an offseason strength and conditioning program, a first for the volleyball team. 

“When he brought (a job offer) to me, I paused,” Eubanks admitted. “My first instinct was to go find somebody else. He was persistent with me and asked me to come over and meet some of the girls. That pause turned into promise, it turned into enthusiasm. I was anxious to see if I have what it take as a coach to get to that next level.

“Coaching volleyball in the past, I’ve always been able to put a competitive team on the court. I just didn’t have the girls who played year-round.”

At LAMP, a competitive team probably would have been fine until Dee Wilson was promoted to varsity head coach in 2017 after a year as an assistant. Wilson immediately transformed the Golden Tigers into a state championship contender, leading LAMP to a pair of consecutive semifinal appearances before family considerations forced her out of state.

Last season, club coach Tanielu Mose took the Tigers to their third state tournament appearance. Now, despite a rebuilding year, Eubanks is expected to guide the program back to the state tournament.

“I told him the expectations we had, how LAMP is a very different environment from most places,” McGaughey said. “You’re going to have some give and take with parents and kids on times and workouts because of other obligations.

“Coach Wilson, who I’ve never met, built a solid foundation. Coach Mose filled in this past year and they were very competitive as well. I feel like we have some young talent and returning experience to combine in a team that does compete at the state level year in, year out.”

Eubanks is best known for his role as the head softball coach at Jeff Davis High over the past 12 years, but he also served the Volunteers as the volleyball coach from 2008-17 after a three-year stint at Montgomery Academy in basketball. He has volunteered his time the past three years with the volleyball program at Brewbaker Middle School. 

“He stayed after me,” Eubanks said of McGaughey. “He told me that sometimes God puts you in situations and circumstances. So many people kept bringing my name to him, he just felt like it was meant for me to come over. It’s going to be an exciting season. I know the expectations are high.”

The Golden Tigers are on their third coach in as many years, but they’re also coming off of a third-consecutive state tournament appearance, setting a high standard for the program.

“There’s a lot of potential,” junior Jailyn Dixon said. “I’m excited to see where we can go this year.”