He learned under Dawn Staley, guarded USC’s best. Now he’s a high school head coach
Jacob Coltrane had many roles as part of Dawn Staley’s program at South Carolina over the past five years.
Now, Coltrane will get a shot at being a head coach and will be one of the youngest in the state in such a leadership role. The 24-year-old was named the new girls basketball coach at Chapin High School.
Coltrane replaces Craig Taylor, who has been the school’s coach since 2016. The Eagles went 3-16 this season. Chapin hasn’t had a winning since 2015-16 season.
“It is a great opportunity,” Coltrane said. “I have had two championship stops at A.C. Flora and South Carolina and was able to see how things were run. I am excited to apply those things and help build the program at Chapin.”
Coltrane was a two-time all-region player at Hilton Head Island High School and signed to play basketball at Erskine before transferring USC.
Coltrane was a grad assistant at South Carolina under Dawn Staley for two seasons. Before that, he was a practice player for the Gamecocks women’s team for three seasons, including the 2017 national title year while he attended USC.
Coltrane was able to go up against the likes of future WNBA players A’ja Wilson, Tiffany Mitchell and Allisha Gray.
“People assume if you were on male practice squad on a women’s team that would be easy. That wasn’t the case,” Coltrane said. “Coach Staley let me help run the practice squad and it was fun to be part of.”
Coltrane also said he was able to learn a lot from Staley as a coach and can apply that knowledge to his first head coaching opportunity.
“As a grad assistant, you kind of do everything that was needed and to help out the program,” Coltrane said. “Being with coach Staley for five years, that prepared me and I was able to see and analyze everything on what it takes to build a championship culture and program.”
Coltrane is the latest former Staley staffer or player to get involved in high school basketball coaching the last few months. Asia Dozier was named new girls coach at Cardinal Newman, and Khadijah Sessions was named assistant coach for Ridge View boys basketball team. Ashley Bruner joined Gray Collegiate’s boys program as an assistant.
Chapin will lose five seniors from this year’s team but return leading scorer McKenzie Lott, who averaged 10.6 points a game last season.
Coltrane was one of several new high school basketball hires in Midlands over the last few weeks. Columbia girls basketball program named Candace Bush as replacement for state title winning coach Bobby Young.
Keenan assistant Tyrell Manning was named boys basketball coach at C.A. Johnson and Theodora Brown was named girls basketball coach at C.A. Johnson.
This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 3:36 PM.
