LAMP baseball names new coach
Adrian Holloway was announced as the new head baseball coach at LAMP. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
LAMP officials held a meet-and-greet at the school on Monday evening to introduce the Golden Tigers’ new baseball coach, Adrian Holloway.
Holloway, the former baseball coach at Selma University and Xavier University, served as a community assistant coach at Pike Road last year and will have the same status as LAMP’s head coach in 2026.
“He was an assistant at Pike Road last year and was looking to get something full time,” LAMP athletic director Robb McGaughey said. “We went through the whole (hiring) process, but obviously his resume is really strong. After talking to folks that he coached against and coached with and just meeting him, I thought he was a great fit for us.
“When I met with him, his demeanor, his ability to interact and his philosophy just lines up with what we are here at LAMP. He understands that this school promotes academics first … but he also understands athletics is an extension of academics.”
Holloway will replace Frank Parsons, who announced his retirement from the program this past spring after coaching the Golden Tigers for five years.
“This just kind of fell in my lap,” Holloway said. “I was looking for a job because I wanted to not only just coach because a man can’t live off a coaching stipend in the state of Alabama. We couldn’t get anything worked out at Pike Road and God just saw fit to send someone my way with this opportunity. Thanks to Coach Robb and the LAMP principal (Aurelio Harrison) and (MPS) AD (Greg) Ruffin, those guys made a way.”
Holloway is a former standout baseball player at Selma High, graduating in 2001, and Alabama State, graduating in 2007.
“After that, I went into the corporate world, so I’ve worked in insurance, in social services and the healthcare sector, I’ve run programs for the district court system, then I went back into baseball,” Holloway said. “I’m a versatile kind of guy and that’s why I feel like I’m a coach that gets the academic piece.”
His return to the diamond earned respect in baseball circles after building Selma University into a reputable HBCU program that earned multiple Black College World Series’ appearances. He was then hired at Xavier University in 2020, fielding a baseball program at the New Orleans school for the first time since 1960 despite Covid. The following year, he earned another trip to the Black College World Series and was honored as a national coach of the year.
Those talents will be put to the test at LAMP. What was once considered the flagship baseball program of MPS after eight trips to the playoffs in 13 years, including a trip to the finals and two trips to the semifinals, LAMP hasn’t earned a playoff berth since 2019 as declining enrollment and participation has kept the Montgomery magnet school from being as competitive as it once was.
“I’ve done my research on LAMP, so I know they had success in baseball,” Holloway said. “They made a couple of runs at some state titles. Spending four years at Xavier made me no stranger to coaching at a high achieving academic institution. Most people, when you think of academic magnet programs or are academically focused, you think maybe the sports part won’t be so successful, but my time at Xavier and coaching at the college level in general just prepared me for an opportunity like this.”
Holloway will try to rebuild a program at one of the nation’s top magnet schools in an environment where some students prefer to attend academic institutions with less stringent academic requirements.
“I think you just have to take a similar approach to what I took at the college level,” Holloway said. “Develop talent, win and then attract more talent.”