Myers Park hires fmr Prov Day coach Barbara Nelson as girls basketball coach

To contact us Click HERE

After five years at Wingate University, Barbara Nelson -- one of the most successful coaches in N.C. history -- is coming back to high school.

Myers Park athletics director Rick Lewis said the Mustangs have hired Nelson to coach the girls basketball team. The former Wingate head women’s coach will replace Dustin Terrel, who resigned to become an assistant at Wingate under new coach Ann Hancock, a longtime former North Carolina assistant coach.

Nelson, 49, resigned at Wingate in May. She’ll start her 27th season as a head coach in November.

“Wingate is a great place to work, with wonderful people,” Nelson said, “but college coaching is very difficult. College is a business and a good bit of your job is the business. At heart, I’m a high school coach. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever coach college again. It was a great ride (at Wingate) and a great five years. I really enjoyed it, but it was time for us to go our separate ways.”

Nelson was 101-51 at Wingate with three NCAA tournament appearances. Her teams won one regular-season South Atlantic conference championship and two tournament titles. Wingate also made one NCAA Elite Eight appearance under Nelson, who was the 2008 South Atlantic conference coach of the year.

Nelson has coached two USA Basketball junior teams to gold medals and was named USA Basketball Developmental coach of the year in 2010.

Before Wingate, Nelson was head girls coach at Providence Day for 21 years. Her teams were 437-176 with seven state cahmpionships and nine conference championships. Nelson’s teams won a record five Charlotte Observer Sweet 16 championships and she was named Observer girls coach of the year a record five times.

At Myers Park, Nelson plans to teach physical education, pending completing entry requirements to teach in N.C. public schools.

She’ll inherit a team that returns nine of 13 players from last season when Myers Park finished 31-1 and reached the N.C. 4A Western Regional championship game -- or N.C. state semifinal.

Nelson said her team will face high expectations.

“Every team has a plateau they can reach by showing up and doing some work to get there,” she said. “But it requires having players who want to work and want to buy into a team philosophy and having a coach who wants to push them. I want to be a coach who can push a team to reach their highest plateau. What that will be I don’t know. I haven’t met these kids yet and haven’t been in the gym with them.”

One thing Nelson does know is that she’s looking forward to the challenge.

“I think change is good,” she said. “It gets you excited about things and thinking about things you haven’t thought about. I think this is going to be fun.”