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Justin Lanham remembers fondly sitting down in his childhood bedroom with a headset on when he played his most loved higher education soccer online video recreation.

That headset was not plugged and no person was listening to his directives and play phone calls. But he felt like a mentor and realized that that was anything he could see himself undertaking some day.

“I would be contacting out the plays as I was participating in,” Lanham recalled. “Obviously, I’m not coaching soccer or higher education soccer now. But I just had that coaching bug at any time due to the fact I was a very little child.”

Back in April, Lanham was named the new head mentor of Lake Creek boys basketball.

The Stephenville native normally takes more than a program that has achieved the playoffs in all four seasons of existence.

“This job is actually enjoyable in that there is a ton of development taking place out this way,” Lanham reported. “It’s a new college with lovely services. Just after I got the position and noticed the facilities and all the things. To have three fitness centers and the excess weight rooms and the locker rooms — everything is condition-of-the-artwork. That was really engaging.”

The Lions will be the 2nd workforce he has been the head mentor of for the duration of his occupation and his next time performing in Montgomery County.

While at Stephenville, Lanham played basketball all 4 decades and was on varsity his remaining two seasons. He was a two-time All-District variety and graduated in 2010.

Lanham is a brother-in-law of current Stephenville football mentor Sterling Doty, who coached at Magnolia from 2014-18. The Yellowjackets received the UIL Course 4A (Div. I) point out championship very last December.

Lanham experienced some solutions to participate in at some lesser schools in college or university. But rather, he opted to stick to a relatives custom and go to Texas A&M.

It was in School Station in which the coaching bug accelerated to Lanham.

“I worked as a pupil assistant there,” Lanham mentioned. “We just experienced produced the transition more than to the SEC. It was a actually interesting knowledge receiving to play at Rupp Arena, going down to Florid and heading to perform at Tennessee. I remember playing there at Tennessee and remaining correct behind the bench and just obtaining chills since they are singing ‘Rocky Top’ at the top of their lungs. That was truly awesome.”

Lanham was afforded a ton of chances at a youthful age that some seeking to break into coaching area may well not get. He discovered from a good Aggies coaching staff that he still in some cases depends on right now. He acquired to journey the state and do the similar matters the players did.

“If you are not heading to enjoy, which is the next most effective point,” Lanham explained. “You’re obtaining to be around that natural environment and get to be all over substantial-stage coaches. It does not get substantially better than that.”

Lanham ended up doing is university student educating at The Woodlands Significant Faculty and learned even additional about the recreation below recent Highlanders head coach Dale Reed.

“He was fantastic and has actually aided me a ton,” Lanham claimed of Reed. “To this working day, I’m in close contact with him.”

Signing up for the staff in the center of the year in 2016, Lanham savored a period and a 50 percent operating the sidelines at McCullough Junior Higher.

From there he became an assistant mentor at Azle adopted by a stint on the personnel at Denton Braswell, a pgoram which actually reminds Lanham of Lake Creek. Braswell was just in its third or fourth 12 months when he labored there and noticed a good culture nearly imediately as the school won a district title in its next year.

From there, Lanham took his first varsity head coaching job at Class 4A Iowa Park around Wichita Falls. Right after a period there in which the Hawks manufactured the playoffs, Lanham and his spouse Kylie made a decision to go back again nearer to the Dallas Metroplex.

This previous time, Lanham was an assistant coach at JJ Pearce, a Course 6A method.

Due to the fact his using the services of in April and finally going down from the Dallas location, Lanham is finding out what his new staff is all about every single working day. The Lions were being 16-20 very last year with their top rated 10 scorers from that workforce were being all juniors or more youthful. Just three seniors exited the program.

Lanham has noticed his crew in motion for the duration of competencies and toughness and conditioning. Late very last month, they competed at the TABC Showcase in Duncanville.

“I like this team a large amount,” Lanham reported. “We’ve bought a large amount of practical experience, but also blended in with some youth that has a good deal of expertise. For occasion, the incoming freshman team didn’t eliminate a one match in junior superior. You have acquired a group coming up which is genuinely good and on prime of that, you have bought some fellas coming back with a ton of knowledge. Which is big just to have that mixture.”

In joining the newly-fashioned District 21-5A with rival Montgomery, Magnolia, Magnolia West, College Station, A&M Consolidated, Brenham and Bryan Rudder, Lanham hopes to existing an exciting model of basketball in which his group will set up a ton of points while allowing for quite small on the defensive end.

“I hope that we participate in a design and style of basketball which is fun to enjoy,” he claimed. “To be trustworthy, the design of basketball that’s fun to enjoy is successful basketball. I hope that is what persons can consider away and get to see. I hope they say ‘that workforce seriously got right after it’. We’re going to engage in with a ton of electricity and ton of grit and are likely to get on the ground.”

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