McGaughey takes over helm of LAMP basketball program
Rob McGaughey led Pike Road for three years and takes over at LAMP beginning in 21-22. (File Photo)
By TIM GAYLE
It didn’t take Robb McGaughey long to find another head coaching position in the Capital City, taking over as boys’ basketball coach at LAMP following the retirement of Marcus Townsend.
For McGaughey, the move into the magnet school program was a dream come true.
“When I was getting into coaching, I told several people that if this job ever came open, that would be a job I would be interested in,” he said. “Because you’re getting kids that are dedicated to academics -- that shows me they have a strong work ethic and they’re disciplined -- and I’ve known Marcus since I’ve been in college. I just had a lot of respect for the way they’ve done things and how hard their kids have played.”
It also helps that McGaughey was familiar with the principal in charge of the hiring, LAMP principal Matthew Monson.
“I worked for Matthew a little bit my first year at Catholic,” McGaughey said. “I was positioned at Holy Spirit when he was the principal there. The main thing with him, on top of basketball, is he knows I care about teaching and I want to do the right thing in the classroom, too.”
McGaughey will fill the position as a physical education teacher that was vacated by the retirement of Townsend at the end of the 2020-21 school year.
“The thing that separated Robb from the other candidates that I had is not only our previous relationship, but also his reputation in the community,” Monson said. “That’s a big draw for me. When you say his name, people know him, they know what he’s about. I know who I’m getting. I’m getting a great basketball coach but I’m also getting a great teacher, a great husband, a great father, someone that I want my own son to look at and say, ‘That’s my coach.’”
McGaughey served as a junior varsity coach and assistant varsity coach at Montgomery Academy for six years, then served as the head coach at Catholic for three years and at Pike Road for the last three years before being forced out in April.
At every stop, McGaughey has been a staunch supporter of the Hoops League, a youth basketball program that could help in broadening LAMP’s appeal to future basketball players.
“That’s one of the factors that I considered when I thought about who was the best guy for the long-term health of my basketball program,” Monson said. “It’s not so much about going and identifying new talent as it is about keeping the talent that is already there.”
McGaughey said he planned to work immediately on building relationships with the middle school magnet programs.
“One thing I’m going to do is try to work with the feeder programs in the magnet program to get them more involved in camps, clinics, leagues, and just build relationships, whether they end up coming to LAMP or not,” McGaughey said. “We like to influence not only basketball but for them to be better versions of themselves.
McGaughey also said he hoped to retain community coach Floyd Mathews, the former head coach at St. Jude and Sidney Lanier who served as Townsend’s assistant the last seven years.
“I’m definitely open to keeping him around, if he wants to,” McGaughey said. “I haven’t talked to him directly yet, but I’m going to meet with the players on Monday. I know Coach Mathews, not in a formal sense, but he coached a lot of my friends over at Lanier and I’ve always had a lot of respect for him.”
McGaughey is the second coach hired by LAMP in recent weeks. Monson also hired Tanielu Mose, a community coach who previously worked at Prattville High, to replace volleyball coach Dee Wilson.
Wilson, who led the Golden Tigers to their only state tournament appearances in the last two years of her three-year tenure, left the school after her husband Drew, an assistant men’s basketball coach at Faulkner University, accepted a job as director of operations at Arkansas State University.
“That is a huge loss for us, but it’s a win for Dee Wilson,” Monson said.
In Mose, the Golden Tigers have hired a coach that “is big in the club volleyball scene in Montgomery and Prattville and has worked at the high school level before. Talking to people who know volleyball, his is the name that kept coming up.”
In addition to being the first LAMP coach to lead her team to the state tournament (in 2019), Wilson is the only Golden Tiger volleyball coach to post a 20-win season in every season she was at the school.
Wilson’s first head coaching experience was at LAMP in 2018 when she led the Golden Tigers to the semifinals of the area tournament with a 20-11 record. She was a science teacher at the school when athletic director Anthony Norris offered Wilson her first head coaching position.
“We desperately needed a volleyball coach and she absolutely turned the program around,” Norris said.
Wilson continued building LAMP into a championship contender, finishing second in area play (and qualifying for the South Super Regional) in 2019 and 2020. The 2019 team went 22-20 before losing to eventual state champion Bayside Academy in the semifinals of the 4A state tournament, then went 23-11 in 2020, finishing third in the super regional before losing to Curry in the semifinals of the 4A state tournament.
“She knows the game and had to virtually teach every kid every aspect of their position but she did it,” Norris said. “She’s one of the hardest working coaches you’ll see.
“But I think she’s a good read of talent, too. She doesn’t just stick a girl on the front row just because she’s tall. She knows who can play well with others at the same time on the court and builds that lineup and rotation to make it work. Not everybody can do that. She’s just a great volleyball coach. Whoever gets her will be getting a gem.”