Catholic hires Ward as new girls coach
Courtney Ward as named the new head girls basketball coach at Catholic. (File Photo)
By TIM GAYLE
Catholic athletic director Daniel Veres was looking for a girls’ basketball coach and Courtney Ward was looking for a new challenge after stepping down as the boys’ basketball coach at Park Crossing.
“The timing,” Veres pointed out, “sometimes is more important than anything.”
Catholic officials announced on Tuesday morning that Ward, who had transitioned from girls’ basketball to boys’ basketball five years ago, was taking over the Knights’ program in replacing veteran coach Jill Clark, who announced her retirement two months ago.
“It’s like a lot of the other coaching searches,” Veres said. “When Jill was going to retire, we looked around and heard that (Ward) was leaving Park Crossing. Did some research on her, talked to a couple of people and called her and asked if she would like to come in and talk. She did and we went from there.”
While Catholic officials immediately focused on Ward, she was weighing her options. Nearly three decades earlier, Freda Freeman-Jackson had made the move from high school to Alabama State and now that Jackson was retiring, Ward had to wait and see if Alabama State officials were interested in hiring another coach from the high school ranks.
When ASU officials announced the hiring of Johnetta Hayes, Ward accepted the job at Catholic.
“Coach Ward is an excellent addition to the Montgomery Catholic family,” said school president Justin Castanza. “She brings incredible experience and a true winning spirit to an established program that is ready to continue the quest for championship quality play and even higher level of character.”
In hiring Ward, Catholic officials not only selected one of the best female basketball players in the history of Montgomery basketball, they also selected one of the city’s best coaches.
Ward was the point guard on one of the best girls’ basketball teams in the city’s history, helping coach Tim Miller’s Jeff Davis squad to a 34-3 record and the Class 6A state championship.
She would later do the same at Florida State, leading the Seminoles to a 29-6 record and the NCAA Elite Eight before losing to UConn in 2010. She was second team all-Atlantic Coast Conference in 2010 and third team all-ACC in 2011, directing an offense to 79 wins in three years. Ward led her team in assists all three years and in steals and 3-pointers the last two years
She remains the school’s career leader in 3-pointers (208) and assists (602) and finished her career as the leader in games started (115).
She got into coaching in 2013 as a graduate assistant at Faulkner before taking over the Sidney Lanier program in 2015-16. In her three years leading the Poets, she established herself as a great motivator, turning around a program that struggled for wins into the 6A Area 4 champion her second year and the 6A Area 4 runner-up the third year, reaching the regional finals and semifinals, respectively.
Ward moved on to Pike Road in 2018-19, leading the Patriots to a runner-up in the area race and reaching the regional finals. The next year, she led Pike Road to the 3A Area 5 championship and reached the 3A state tournament, losing in the semifinals to Pisgah.
After stepping down from that position following the 2019-20 season, she accepted a job as the Park Crossing boys’ basketball coach. After losing in the area semifinals the first year, the Thunderbirds put together four consecutive postseason trips, winning the area championship three times.
Her second year, 2021-22, the Thunderbirds set a school record for wins and reached the 6A state tournament before losing to Cullman in the semifinals. She reached the regional semifinals in 2022 and the regional finals the last two years.
“I just really think that she brings a little different coaching philosophy and style from what we’ve had,” Veres said. “A coach who has taken a girls’ team to the final four and a boys’ team to the final four and she’s in this community, too. It was a really good fit. We have a lot of talent coming back.
“She fits some other things, too. We wanted a strong female role model for our girls. She worked with the sheriff’s department, she does a lot of mentoring. That was really a plus, to go along with all the basketball knowledge that we know she has and the way she’s able to motivate boys and girls to be their best.”
Ward is busy assembling a coaching staff, but those details remain to be worked out, Veres said. The new coach will continue in her role in private business and will serve as a community coach.
“Not only do we want to win -- obviously, we have some great players -- but we want to build the program up from the middle school on up,” Veres said. “We want to build our whole program up. But fortunately for us, we’ve got a really good team that’s coming back. We can be really good, one of the best teams in 4A, and we can build for the future through our younger age groups.”