Cost Mesa hires new girls’ basketball coach
Costa Mesa High can thank one of its security guards for finding the next girls’ basketball coach at the school.
Athletic Director Sharon Uhl said the Mustangs have hired Lauren Coleman, who learned of the opening through her brother, Brandon Greathouse, who’s also an assistant football coach at the school. Coleman will be leading a high school girls’ varsity program for the first time.
While the 23-year-old hasn’t had much experience leading girls, Coleman knows the sport. She played small forward for the Florida State University women’s basketball team, her final season was in 2014-15. Coleman was there for five years, redshirting her sophomore season because of a torn Achilles.
Uhl said Coleman stood out the most from the 15 applicants.
“Personally I like female coaches coaching females,” Uhl said. “She’s coached boys in AAU in Florida. She seems like the kind of person who can turn the program around.”
One area Uhl wants Coleman to address is the low number of players involved with the program. The Mustangs only fielded two teams last season.
Coleman said she held her first workout on Monday and 16 players showed up. She came away impressed.
“I told them that I’m not that much older than you guys and I was in your position not too long ago,” said Coleman, a 2010 graduate from Parkview High in Lilburn, Ga., where she was named the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Gwinnett County Player of the Year as a senior. “A lot of people were saying the girls needed a lot of work. The program has a lot of potential.”
Coleman takes over for Nichole Maddox, who stepped down after six seasons.
In Maddox’s final season, the Mustangs finished 8-19 and 3-7 in the Orange Coast League, failing to qualify for the CIF Southern Section Division 4AA playoffs. Costa Mesa missed the postseason for the first time since the 2008-09 season, when Jay Supple was in charge.
Supple has been the last on-campus coach at Costa Mesa and he lasted one season, going winless in league. Coleman will be a walk-on coach, just as Maddox was during her time in which she went 76-86 with the Mustangs.
“She’s going to bring a lot of energy to the program,” Uhl said of Coleman, who will also coach the Costa Mesa Middle School eighth-grade girls’ basketball team.
Coleman said she initially wanted to coach boys in high school. When she applied for the Costa Mesa girls’ job, she didn’t know that the boys’ basketball position was also available at the school.
“I found out when I was interviewing for the girls,” said Coleman, who has made the move from Tallahassee, Fla., and now lives in Long Beach. “But I wanted to get my foot in the door. I like a challenge.”
Uhl said the Mustangs have someone they would like in place for the boys’ job, and they’re just waiting for approval from the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to make the hire official. Uhl said an announcement could come this upcoming week.
