Staff photo.
Kevin Tubbs is shown coaching the Homewood High School girls basketball team in the 2017 state championship game. Tubbs is returning to coach the team in the fall.
The timing could not have been better.
In early April, Homewood High School filled its girls basketball coaching vacancy with a familiar face. Kevin Tubbs, who led the Lady Patriots to the 2017 Class 6A state championship, is back to lead the program.
Tubbs and his family moved from Homewood to Seattle, Washington, in 2017 to work as the director of research at the Seattle Science Foundation, alongside his brother. But once a decision was made to move back to Alabama, Tubbs began searching for a way to get back into coaching.
“My thought process was that I wanted to get back into coaching and I wanted to be around the kids again,” he said. “I thought I could be an assistant, or maybe even land a head job somewhere. We’ll just see what happens. Lo and behold, this one came open at the right time.”
In the fall, Tubbs will begin his 23rd year working in a school. Before he left, he served as the Homewood City Schools athletic director.
The personnel on the team has changed significantly in the two years Tubbs has been gone, but he said he remembered every player from their days coming through the middle school.
“It’s really not like starting from scratch,” he said. “This is just a group that I knew most of them. To have a chance to come back and coach the ones I saw in seventh and eighth grade is really kind of remarkable.”
Tubbs said he will evaluate the team this spring and aim to capitalize on the players’ strengths, but he certainly has some core values in his coaching philosophy.
“We’re going to play fast, that’s what we’ve always done,” he said. “We’re just going to do whatever it takes to be successful.”
Homewood also announced that Cynthia Padgett will take over as the head volleyball coach.
“We are fortunate to have Coach Tubbs and Coach Padgett at Homewood High School,” Homewood High principal Dr. Zack Barnes said in a statement. “Their leadership in Homewood will continue to grow and enhance our athletics program.”
