T.R. Miller Tiger athletic director Jamie Riggs has announced that coach Juan Johnson will be the new T.R. Miller boys basketball coach.
Johnson will take over for Ron Jackson who coached both boys and girls teams in recent years. Jackson will go back to just coaching the girls team as he has done in the past.
“We have needed to kind of rebuild basketball for awhile now and hopefully he will be here for awhile to help us do that,” Riggs said of Johnson. “We have been in a situation for two or three years so hopefully Juan will help us out here some. We need some stability. We were pretty competitive this past year, but we need to be competitive every game. It will take awhile but I think we are heading there. He has worked with the B-team and coach Jackson some and has coached at Stanhope-Elmore. We are excited about having Juan coach our boys basketball team.”
Johnson said he is very excited about to opportunity to lead a great group of young men. “Coach Jackson did great job reestablishing the pride in Miller basketball,” Johnson said. “If you came and watched us play last season we were very competitive. We took steps in the right direction to becoming competitive.”
Johnson said he plans to start work this summer.
“I want to build on some things coach Jackson has started and continue to make this school and community proud,” he said. “The vision has to be build a team that’s competitive year in and year out. What I have learned the last few years it seems is simple the best teams throughout this state have two common traits: the ability to defend and rebound.”
Johnson has previous head coaching experience at the varsity level as he coached at Stanhope Elmore one season and went 8-18.
“Really the way in which I got the head boys job Stanhope Elmore is unique,” he said. “The head coach, Cane Young, hired me to be his varsity assistant from Opp. A month after I’m there he leaves to take head boys job at Chilton County, but recommends me for job to the athletic director. The experience I got at SE was great. I learned so much that season. We’re one play from making the playoffs and that charge call still bothers me. The game is played so fast at that 6A level. We played against this year’s Mr. Basketball Craig Sword (Carver-Montgomery) three times. You had to be prepared night in and night out.”
While serving a B-team head coach and varsity assistant this season at T.R. Miller, Johnson served in the same capacity three years at Opp before going to Stanhope Elmore.
Johnson played basketball at T.R. Miller along with other sports and graduated in 2002. He is also an assistant football coach.