Grace Christian School had a 50 percent turnover in head coaches this school year, with two new coaches out of four varsity teams. Charlie Agnew became the baseball coach and Jason Morgan the boys basketball coach. Both acquired very young teams,
The other two coaches are Jamey Willers for volleyball and Talor Troyer for girls basketball.
Morgan, who is also the school’s headmasters, replaced Bobby Bowman for boys basketball, returning to the school where he coached from 2001-07. He also had experience coaching at Greenville Christian from 2007-09 and at Nanih Waiya from 2017-19.
The Eagles struggled with inexperience early, losing 11 of their first 15 games, but turned it around to finish 20-14 with 16 wins in the final 19 games.
Agnew replaced Ralph Goss, who stepped down after 10 years.
Grace Christian is the first head coaching position for Agnew at the high school level. He had experience with youth teams and as an assistant at a Christian school in Alabama similar to Grace Christian,
An abbreviated season ended 2-2 for the Eagles.
“We were making great strides,” he said prior to the coronavirus pandemic ending the season. “Early on we knew we were inexperienced. But we could see the improvement as we went along. This might sound presumptuous, but I would say if we had been able to proceed, we would have been significantly on the side of a winning percentage.”
In particular, the offense picked up, including a 16-2 victory over Laurel Home School. “Hitting is contagious,” Agnew said. “We had a lot of guys hitting and a lot of guys getting on base. You could tell they were getting more confident as we went along.”
Looking ahead to 2021, he said “Maybe we can pick up where we left off.”
The players were very coachable he said. “Which is what you would expect if you are familiar with Grace Christian. I hold them in the highest regard. I had a lot of good kids. They were eager to learn.”
His biggest adjustment as a head coach was off the field responsibilities. “There are a lot of behind the scenes things that I didn’t have to be involved in before.” He mentioned scheduling, uniforms and budgeting, and gave credit to Morgan for helping in those areas.
