GREENE COUNTY
The Greene County girls basketball program is coming off its first winning season since 2013-14, and they look to continue to build off that success with newly hired head coach Steven Hopper.
Hopper takes over the position with multiple years of coaching experience in a variety of different sports.
The Monticello native began coaching basketball as early as 19 years old and said his father, who was a long-time high school coach, helped get his coaching career started.
Over the course of many summers, Hopper helped out at the middle and high school levels. He started off coaching middle school football as well as junior varsity and varsity basketball for the Hurricanes all the way through his college career.
Once he graduated, Hopper returned to Monticello full-time to help out with multiple fall and spring sports. For the next five years, he helped coach girls and boys tennis, girls and boys basketball, and football for the Hurricanes.
In subsequent years, Hopper coached at multiple different schools before ending up at Greene County as an assistant to the boys team. Now, he’s picked up where former head coach Derrick Williams left off in developing a young group of girls.
Hopper had already gotten a chance to meet with the players this summer, and he acknowledged how important it is to have a close-knit group when a new coach is introduced.
“You know, it’s been about five years since I’ve coached girls basketball because I’ve recently just been coaching boys, but basketball is basketball,” Hopper said. “We have a small core of seniors and a great overall core of young talent. To be honest, we have about 12 girls that can get in and play, we’re that deep, so I’m excited to see what the season brings, and I’m confident that these girls have what it takes to embrace the changes head-on.”
The Lady Tigers return all but two girls from last year’s squad and will be led by a small group of experienced seniors that have been playing together for years.
Erin Dixon and Amauria (Osy) West are two of the older players that Hopper has seen take leadership in the scrimmages the team has played in so far this offseason. Senior Anirah Merritt and junior Sonovia Reynolds were also instrumental in the Lady Tigers’ success last season, and have performed well this summer.
Greene County has only participated in a few summer events so far this offseason, but Hopper understands that it takes a lot of hours of hard work to build something special, and that’s something he wants to implement now that he’s working with the girls.
“I’ve learned that it takes long and intense hours to be successful. Sometimes being at the gym at six in the morning or staying late to watch film until whatever time is what it takes,” Hopper said. “It’s going to take a high level of dedication in our program, and a willingness to do what others don’t want to do to get to where we want to be. I respect [Williams] and what he did for the program, and we want to build off that success even further.”
Looking ahead to the regular season, Hopper wants to run a variety of different schemes on both ends of the floor, because he believes his squad is equipped to do so.
From full-court presses to half-court zones, the Lady Tigers will have multiple girls that will fit into many of the systems Hopper wants to incorporate next season.