Basketball is better when Rasheed Wallace is doing something within the game, and fortunately, we have some good news on that front. Wallace, an NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons in 2004 and a four-time All-Star who retired in 2013, will become a head coach at a high school in Durham, North Carolina.
Wallace will lead the Jordan High School program, starting on Friday, when he was introduced as the team’s coach. It’s not Wallace’s first coaching gig, but it is the first time that Wallace will be a head coach — during the 2013-14 campaign, Wallace served as an assistant with the Detroit Pistons. During Summer League that season, we got a Ball Don’t Lie from the bench, which was very good.
“This is a special day for Jordan High School and our athletic department,” Jordan High School’s Director of Athletics Shelba Levins said, according to Rob McLamb of The Wilson Times. “When we seek leaders for our athletic programs, there are several different types of criteria that are important. We want coaches who can provide both knowledge and leadership with an ability to mentor our student-athletes as they cross the bridge from adolescence to the early stages of adulthood.
“It is not every day that you can add someone with as rich of a background in basketball, mentorship and volunteerism as Rasheed Wallace,” Levins continued. “I am thrilled to welcome him to Jordan and the Falcon family.”
Jordan went 7-17 last season and 1-9 in conference play, so Wallace will step into a situation that could use a turnaround. The good news is Jordan is 10 minutes away from the University of North Carolina, where Wallace went to college, and he knows the game well enough that the kids in that program should get a really great basketball education. At the very least, all of the high schoolers who suit up for that program are going to be incredibly good at trash talk.
