Former player replaces Trinity's legendary coach

TRINITY — Home is a very comfortable feeling. So it didn’t take long for Brett Andrews to accept the boys head basketball coaching position at Trinity High School.

Andrews, a 2003 THS graduate who spent last season as the head boys basketball coach at Providence Grove, returns to Trinity where he spent a total of 13 years prior to his one year at PG, coaching basketball, football and baseball.

Andrews was officially named the head coach last Tuesday.

“My job at Providence Grove was awesome, Mr. (Dennis) Hamilton was great and the guys I worked with were great,” Andrews said. “Providence Grove is a great place, but this opportunity came up and it was a no-brainer to be able to come back home. It was a move that I needed to make. It’s an awesome feeling being back home.”

Andrews, who will be inducted into the THS Hall of Fame in October, lives in Thomasville, a short 10-minute ride to school. Providence Grove was 40 minutes away from his home. 

Andrews will be following a basketball legend as he takes over for Tim Kelly, who resigned after recording 673 wins in his illustrious 35-year career with the Bulldogs. Andrews played for Kelly while attending THS.

“What I am coming into, I want to carry out what Coach Kelly has built,” Andrews said. “He’ll still be around and I will be asking him a lot of things. I hope to continue what Coach Kelly created.”

Andrews spent the summer with the basketball team as the interim head coach and the juniors and seniors on this year’s team would have been freshmen and sophomores when Andrews coached the THS jayvee team.  

That brings a sense of familiarity to the program.

“The core system offensively and defensively is what I did in high school and what I learned from Coach Kelly as his assistant,” Andrews said. “Everything we do is still based on the core systems we ran back then.” 

Though the system hasn’t changed, coaching styles have.

“There were fired-up coaches who were very intense,” Andrews said of his time as a player at THS. “Now it’s more of a time where you have to pick your battles. There are certain things you can do and certain things you can’t do. You have to know when to love them up and when to give them a hard time, and then when you give them a hard time, you have to explain why and then love them up." 

Andrews said he hasn’t talked to his team “as a head coach” yet, but is scheduled to have that meeting next week when workouts begin.