Zach Brown certainly has a great deal on his plate.
Not only is he the head coach in two sports at Fairbanks High School, but he and his wife just purchased a new house and are expecting their first baby in a couple of weeks.
“The baby is due on Aug. 16, right as school begins,” said Brown, who teaches health and physical education at FHS. “Great timing, right?”
Earlier this summer, Brown took over as the head coach of the Panthers’ boys basketball team. He recently was also appointed as the school’s head boys golf coach.
Brown has extensive coaching experience in both sports.
He served as an assistant coach last winter on Ryan Grose’s boys hoop staff at Marysville High School.
Brown was the head men’s golf coach at Cedarville College for two years. He was also an assistant men’s basketball coach at that school during the same time.
“I love both sports, so when the opportunity to coach both came about at Fairbanks, I grabbed them,” he said.
Brown conducted workouts for the FHS basketball team during the month of June and the first portion of July.
“We put in a lot of basics for our motion (with some sets) offense and our man-to-man defense,” said Brown. “We had a good turnout during the summer months and the guys all worked very hard.
“We worked hard to play to each player’s strengths.”
The new head coach said he was particularly pleased with the work of seniors Andy Higinbotham, Grant Rausch, Tanner Ufferman and Cade Feller.
“Those guys are going to be great leaders,” said Brown. “They did a great job of helping our younger players during the summer.”
Before roundball season rolls around, Brown will concentrate on the 2021 golf campaign.
Preseason practices began Monday.
“We’ve got 12 guys out for golf,” he said. “That will enable us to play full schedules of varsity and junior varsity matches.”
In taking over the boys basketball and golf programs, Brown is following in the footsteps of two Fairbanks High School coaching icons.
Scott Coon and Larry Morris both served as head coach of both sports in the past.
“It worked out great for me,” said Morris, who is the Panthers’ athletic director.
Brown acknowledged that serving as the head coach of two varsity sports will be a big workload, especially with teaching classes and being a new father also factored.
“It is,” he said. “However, I’ve got great assistant coaches in both sports whom I will be able to rely upon.”
Brown’s assistant coaches for golf are Josh Weikert and Jordan Glick.
He will be assisted with the varsity hoopsters by Hunter Burnett and Tyler Craig.
Burnett has served on the boys basketball staffs at both Fairbanks and Marysville.
Craig was previously an assistant coach at Marysville and was the head boys coach at Mechanicsburg High school for a couple of years.
Chris Nicol and Jeff Ziegler will continue as the boys’ junior varsity basketball coaches.